> In fact, generally presuming alien technology artifact shuts down experimental futures... Whereas interstellar rocks will require advances in our rocketry and

> In fact, generally presuming alien technology artifact shuts down experimental futures... Whereas interstellar rocks will require advances in our rocketry and mission staging so we can hopefully find one we can get on an intercept trajectory with. Sorry, but in my mind this is reversed. I think the general sentiment, if you asked a large portion of the populace, would be that something we assume to be of technological origin warrants a much larger investment in time and resources in order to catch up with it and study it thoroughly than something of natural origin. The last thing that comes to my mind when thinking about the possibility of an alien probe having discovered us is to sit around waiting for them to show up. In either case, we should be a bit ashamed that we're unable to conclusively determine the difference between a rock and a solar sail and we should probably put more effort into developing the capability to do so.