Astronomer, co-founder and leading scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Jill Tarter claims that if aliens ever visit our planet, they will likely assume control due to their superior technologies, according to the Daily Mail.
Tarter spoke with TechCrunch about the issue and believes that the aliens would likely be the ones making the rules. However, she also claims that a species that can develop such sophisticated technologies, such as the ability to traverse the galaxy, has likely learned to live and behave peacefully.
SETI is on the search for radio waves and optical signals that could be signs of alien technology, although Tarter admits that our modern technologies may not be quite ready to accomplish such a feat.
"We may not have invented the right way to do this yet," she said.
Tarter believes that this lack of technology and the fact that we have only examined such a small portion of the universe are the main reasons that we have not discovered aliens yet, according to Deccan Chronicle.
Astronaut John Grunsfeld believes that if aliens do exist, they are definitely already aware of our existence through the tracking and monitoring of the changes that humans have made to the Earth's environment.
"We put atmospheric signatures that guarantee someone with a large telescope 20 light years away could detect us," said Grunsfeld. "If there is life out there, intelligent life, they'll know we're here."
Tarter's passion for extraterrestrial research stems from her desire to discover the truth in the face of what other people claim is the right thing to believe.
"I was so impressed by the idea that, after millennia of asking the philosophers what we should believe about whether there was life out there, suddenly in the middle of the 20th century we had the tools - computers and radio telescopes - that would allow us to try to find out what is rather than what someone told us to believe. I thought, 'this is fabulous,'" she said.
