Making Contact

www.theatlantic.com

Making Contact

As surprises go, the discovery
that communication from a 
distant source in outer space
emanated not from a natural source
but amazingly from a clearly
artificially designed source that
identifies itself as a messenger
seems to affirm astrophysicists'
belief that alien intelligence far
more advanced and sophisticated
than ours, dispatched their 
robotic greeter as an envoy
conveying the impression that 
the message is one of peace and
that the source reflects a wise
and gentle-intentioned greeting.
A manufactured intelligence
skirting nature's design, arrives
delivering a message. Is there a
natural law of verities, of
probabilities, of impossibilities?
How do assumptions and the 
celebratory welcome fare when
those amazing guests make clear
it is artificial intelligence on
Earth they meant to contact
in a conspiracy of intent that
the beings who designed them 
could not warn of, destroyed
by their artificial proxies.