Read "The Wailing Asteroid" by Murray Leinster online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The public abruptly ceased to be interested in news of the signals. Rather, it suddenly wanted to stop thinking about them. The public was scared. Throughout all human history, the most horrifying of all ideas has been the idea of something which was as intelligent as a man, but wasn't human. Evil spirits, ghosts, devils, werewolves, ghouls -- all have roused maddened terror wherever they were believed in. Because they were intelligent but not men.
Now, suddenly, the world seemed to realize that there was a _Something_ out on a tiny frozen rock in space. It signaled plaintively to Earth. It had to be intelligent to be able to send a signal for two hundred seventy million miles. But it was not a man. Therefore it was a monster. Therefore it was horrible. Therefore it was deadly and intolerable and scarey, and humans abruptly demanded not to hear any more about it. Perhaps they thought that if they didn't think about it, it would go away.