The question of how humanity might react to its first contact with intelligent aliens was officially raised in the late 1950s by the then newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Curious as to how discoveries about the origin of the universe might affect society as a whole, NASA contracted with the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank, to research the question. Only a small part of its 100-page answer, which came to be known as “The Brookings Report,” dealt with alien encounter. But it contained a stern warning. “Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior.”
In 1972, as engineers prepared the first space mission that would travel outside of Earth’s solar system, NASA decided to ignore warnings in the 1960 “Brookings Report” about the dangers inherent in contact with an advanced alien race. Instead, the space agency sent an invitation for extraterrestrials to visit Earth. A gold-anodized aluminum plaque engraved with a map showing the location of Earth was attached to the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. When it sent its last message, in January 2003, it was more than 7 billion miles along on a trip that will take it to the star Aldebaran.
You know I’m hurting for leads when I turn to Rense:
http://www.rense.com/general48/aliens.htm
From an equally low-grade source:
In 1958, the United States Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the new Space Act. In the 1960s they adopted a very unusual non-disclosure policy that prohibited NASA management from releasing information concerning the discovery of extraterrestrial life.. The policy was created and fashioned after the Brookings Institution report entitled “Peaceful Uses of Outer Space”.
In that report, the Brookings Institution recommended prohibition of disclosure, with a warning against the revelation of the existence of extraterrestrial life to the people of America or the world. Brookings Institution thinkers feared social, economic and religious upheaval would result. The Brookings Institution’s conclusions were based on the now famous events, which transpired more than 68 years ago, the public reaction to Orson Wells’ radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” and the local panic that ensued.
Today, our level of sophistication has surely risen a few notches since that radio broadcast. It’s difficult to understand how a futuristic agency, tasked with the goal of space exploration, can be handicapped by a fear which originated before most of us were born on October 30, 1938.
from
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=18098
