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China races to make FIRST CONTACT with aliens using world’s largest dish
“Perhaps tomorrow we’ll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the Moon parked in orbit” Liu Cixin Last year Earth’s most-populous country became a space exploration powerhouse after it fired its brand new lab Tiangong 2 into low orbit – joining only the US and Russia.
China made the move following numerous dozens of suspected-extraterrestrial encounters, including claims that a UFO was seen over the Great Wall of China last week.
The superpower has now poured billions of pounds into space exploration and the world’s largest dish to detect alien signals coming from other galaxies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the bold project would “enable us to take larger and further steps in space exploration, and make new contributions to building up China as a space power.” The 500-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope is about twice the size of the US’ Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Liu Cixin, a top Chinese researcher into alien life, described the dish as something “out of science fiction”.
Mr Liu has written a number of books about the risks of first contact and warns that the “appearance of this ‘other’” could end with mankind’s extinction.
In one of his books, he said: “Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent.
“But perhaps tomorrow we’ll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the Moon parked in orbit.” Wheelchair-bound space boffin Stephen Hawking has also warned researchers about the risks of contacting aliens.
Last year he said: “we should be wary of answering back. “Meeting an advanced civilisation could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus.”.