London - IF the movies are to be believed, the main priority for most aliens visiting Earth is to unleash their death rays.
But instead of coming to destroy our planet, what extra terrestrials really want to know about is cricket and Cliff Richard, according to a US scientist.
Although the laws of the game leave many non cricket fansstumped, beaming them into space could be just the thing to entice aliens to visit us, says expert Seth Shostak.
He said it would be ‘silly’ to communicate with maths and that we should send extra-terrestrials the entire contents of the internet instead so they could learn about our culture when they come across information on subjects such as cricket and music.
Dr Shostak of the Seti (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California, said: ‘If they look at cricket, there would be articles on Wikipedia and sports sections and pictures and diagrams and videos. And if they are clever, they might figure out something about cricket. The same is true for automobiles and cheese.’
He told the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in San Jose, California:‘Maybe they are interested in rock ‘n’ roll.Maybe they want Cliff Richard.’
Daily Mail