Researchers Say Aliens will Fry our Brains and Turn the Earth into a Giant Space-hopper

Amazed by this article in the Guardian  about the range of possibilities of how aliens might interact with humans. These ideas include destroying us, helping us or accidentally infecting us with diseases. Although I can't help noticing that the options they've missed include mating with humans and getting their fake eyes stuck on, building pyramids, trashing Surrey, phoning home, riding BMXes, or making large circles in cornfields. So I can only conclude that these so-called "researchers" haven't actually done any research at all.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

In fact, I don't see how technically some people sitting around trying to imagine what aliens might get up to could be researchers. Since the one thing they haven't actually done is research. Because they've never met, interacted with or studied an alien. In fact I don't see how they can even be "scientists" in the strict sense of the word when doing this exercise, as science is a word meaning "knowledge", which clearly they don't have. And the essence of science is some way of testing your predictions, which they can't do.

So I think, on the whole, the Guardian headline would be better re-written as "Americans speculate about what hypothetical aliens might do, if they could get here within a meaningful time period, which they can't." Not so exciting, I know. But true. In fact, my own research has revealed that, if there are aliens exactly 30 light-years from us, they're watching the '81 Ashes series and thinking England's cricketing superiority is nailed-on for years to come.