Stephen Hawking recently stated that the human race should refrain from trying to make contact with any alien life out there. Why? Because they just might run us over and take our 'resources', that's why. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson makes a very important observation in this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_7wLeJ10Jo
The assumption that an intelligent, alien race would be as primitively hostile as we have been is based entirely on us looking at ourselves in retrospect, not on any actual knowledge. Urging us to 'just hide' based on a sample size of one doesn't seem very constructive. We won't know before we've made contact; trying to hide is probably only going to delay that a little.
