Unfortunately, the community of refusal and fear against this search and messaging is growing, esp. in the U.S., a country daily spending more money for war than for science, nature and knowlege. Some of them even plan to establish laws against sending messages to extraterrestrial planets. If successful this would scientifically bring us back to the middle ages with respect to the technical and scientific possibilities of the future.

If more of the commentators to this article would be aware of the fact that (i) the probability of finding further extraterrestrial habitable planets of this galaxy is growing every day and (ii) these messages are the only way to find out anything about them and, thus, our past, our evolution and future as well as possible other forms of life, some of them would surely have reacted differently.
Can't human beings of this planet think of other forms of discovery than the one Columbus and esp. other discoverers (and also the church) did some 500 years ago or ongoing invasions like, e.g., in Irak ? In times of Alfonso El Sabio in Spain, all people and religions peacefully lived and acted together, thus, why always thinking of the "worst case". We would have been stuck to the times when the curch refused to see, observe and accept that we are not living in the centre of the universe but still fight for views such as the Earth being a huge plane and murdered those continuing.

Science and human knowledge will and should never stop discovering the origins, even if this means that such way will be problematic.

I hope once we will discover extraterrestrial inhabited planets and/or other civilizations, even our world, the Earth, will become more peaceful.

Clear skies.

It would be interesting, even 'very interesting' to see what views of Planet Earth and humanity are chosen to represent the world we know and love and our siblings that we at best sometimes tolerate.

Huumm…or it wil be…"Either way, get ready for Humanity, galaxy!"?…Huumm…

You think hiding under your beds is going to keep you safe from the rest of the Cosmos?

People are going to keep transmitting into space and one day one of those signals is going to hit someone or something that can and will respond.

Will we be ready, or will be too busy sticking our heads in the sand?

If advanced aliens want to destroy us, there is nothing we can do about it. But if we learn who and what is out there first, it might make all the difference between our survival or extinction.

So wake up, grow a pair, and get out there before it is too late for us!

don't you mean "In contrast to SETI"?

http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html

Project METI@home: Messages to ETI from home,

http://www.cplire.ru/html/ra&sr/irm/METI@home.html
(in English),
http://www.cplire.ru/rus/ra&sr/meti.html
(in Russian).

As I approached the anthill, I noticed a few broken bottles and the scattered remnants of spent fireworks littering the mound, testimony to earlier interactions my species had had with the ants. The Hill it's self was a complex, bustling hive of activity and as I stood I noticed a couple of the diminutive creatures crawl across my booted foot, perhaps hoping to engage in a dialogue, but more likely searching for resources or perhaps thinking they might defend their colony from an invader. I cannot guess their motive since their means of communication is too primitive for me to discern.

Beyond the few I directly encountered however, the rest of the ants seemed entirely oblivious to my presence, hovering over them, making no attempt to conceal myself, holding in my hand an aerosol can of insecticide. For a moment I hesitated, then I began emptying the can.

In moments the hive was awash in the writhing bodies of thousands of dieing creatures, their rudimentary nervous systems easily ravaged by the meticulously engineered chemical death sentence another member of my species had designed expressly for this purpose.

Those few that managed to enter the colony and seek refuge ensured the doom of the rest inside, unwittingly carrying along the noxious poison that would ensure these creatures would trouble my species no longer. As the can rattled out it's last venomous gasp I arose and began dismantling the hive with a shovel.

The passage of this solitary colony would surely not make any great difference right? I mean the forest is filled with Douglas Fir Trees, surely at the base of another one of them somewhere else, another colony of Ants is thriving, perhaps even a colony that is of some use to me, just not this one, the one that called attention to it's self by existing in such perilously close proximity to those of my species.

Either way, get ready for the galaxy, humanity!

But I wouldn't blame WETI. Sending messages isn't their style.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I thought we just learned that these signals degraded after a couple of light years.