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207 complete and more extensive understanding of our own place in the universe.”*° Robert Burton (author of The Anatomy of Melancholy) proposed in the seventeenth century that if there were an infinite number of worlds, there would be an infinite number of religions.** Might some extraterrestrial civilizations seek to extend their religious beliefs to other intelligent species? Aliens might come here to proselytize, Shostak suggested, or stay where they are but indulge in high-powered broadcast evangelism. We may find that interstellar communication consists largely of thousands of worlds trying to make converts of each other rather than exchanging scientific information. Essayist Don Lago visualized that we humans might have thousands of religions to choose from, each backed up by the prestige of a great civilization.” Even atheistic religions like Buddhism have had missionaries. Perhaps, speculated science writer Timothy Ferris, we can hope to decode only signals sent by charitable institutions motivated by missionary zeal.*” Extraterrestrial radio telescopes might be controlled by priesthoods that censor everything they consider dangerous, Lago warned. There could be an Earthly parallel. Several SETI advocates have assumed that the decod- ing and interpretation of alien messages will be in the hands of an elite of scientists and scholars who will tell the rest of us what the Heavens are saying. That could be a channel for alien evangelism. In human history, conver- sions were often made most effectively through elites, rather than by direct communication with the general population.*! Proselytizing may not be limited to religions as we traditionally define them. Our own history tells us that the belief system being advocated may be an ideology. Marxism had its own sacred texts, its own priesthood, and its own missionaries. Interstellar Evangelism Interstellar Evangelism Why not missionaries sent here openly to convert us? Cc —Charles Fort, 1919”