As noted in Keith Windschuttle’s Chronicle (May 2012), Bob Brown received almost universal media derision for his speculations concerning the absence of contact with possible intra-galactic technological life-forms, and his support for “one-world democratic government”, somehow immune from takeover by some form of global autocracy. While Senator Brown’s thoughts concerning a global government seem in the “far out crazy” category, his comments regarding the “Great Silence” from some fifty years of searching (by SETI—“search for extra-terrestrial intelligence”— radio-astronomers) for some indication of another technology-based civilisation “out there”, are worthy of more serious consideration. As the American radio-astronomer Frank Drake has…