Scientists have announced plans to shine laser beams into space in an effort to protect the earth from an incoming alien invasion. Two US-based astronomers suggest the lasers could be used to cloak the earth’s biosignature from malicious intelligence lifeforms, making them believe that the planet is effectively ‘dead’ and thus not worth exploring. BBC News reports: A number of researchers have questioned the wisdom of advertising our existence to the galaxy. They fear that if aliens did visit us they might not be very friendly, and could introduce disease. The analogy is Europeans arriving in the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries. The contact wrought havoc in the health of indigenous populations. David Kipping and Alex Teachey from Columbia University in New York say that if we are fearful of a similar outcome from an alien encounter then lasers offer a solution. The team has calculated what would be required to cloak the Earth and published the concept in a paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. It “perverts” the technique scientists already use now to look for distant planets around other stars. This method relies on staring at these suns, hoping to catch an object [...]