No offense taken, Wizard. I have a high respect for your views also and enjoy your postings. As for the "greenies", I haven't had any contacts myself, but keep an open mind.

The futility of imposing of our presence and will on a backward nation to advance their well-being and impose our standards is an oft-repeated lesson. I suspect that any beings advanced enough to visit our planet would necessarily be low profile, having already learned not to create hysteria or interfere with evolution.

A few years ago, a highly-respected Pulitzer Prize winning editor from the LA Times went public with his ccoperative role in a plan for initiating contact. I followed those events with some anticipation, but the plan was aborted with 9/11. After following our response, the potential visitors reluctantly concluded that we were not ready for cosmic citizenship. (They had seen similar circumstances that had resulted in extinction.)