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In Aliens, Burke tells Ripley that they lost contact with the colony on LV-426 and they were sending Colonial Marines to investigate. Did the 'Company' assume that Ripley's story may be true or did they know there had been an outbreak of xenomorphs at Hadley's Hope and that's why they were sending in some "tough hombres" and not communication engineers in case it was just a transmitter issue?

Given that Burke told the colony the coordinates of the ship and they had been in some form of contact, was it known the colonists had found the ship and alien life aboard it?

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The implication is that they simply went dark during their normal operations.

The last communication would presumably be something along the lines of "Acknowledged. Will do", in response to Burke's instruction to go "check out these coordinates".

Burke looked down at his slim-line, secured briefcase. It has to be checked out. Fast. All communications are down. They’ve been down too long for the interruption to be due to equipment failure. Acheron’s been in business for years. They’re experienced people, and they have appropriate backup systems. Maybe they’re working on fixing the problem right now. But it’s been no-go dead silence for too long. People are getting nervous. Somebody has to go and check it out in person. It’s the only way to quiet the nervous Nellies.

Aliens: Official Novelisation

This is backed up by the Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual factbook which has a "report" on the events that occurred. They make no mention of any abnormal communications other than the receiver going off the air.

"Now, see this file here. Carter J.Burke sends an order dated 6/12/79 to Hadley's Hope colony complex, blah blah... look here - he's requesting that s cane one check out a bunch of coordinates, here, just beyond the Ilyium mountain range. Bingo! So what happens next?"
"Presumably, someone checks out the coordinates. Three weeks later the colony transmitters go off the air. The company then places a formal request to the UA and United States Space Command for a Marine taskforce to scope out the colony-"

That all being said, Carter Burke is a known liar and WY could easily have received a whole bunch of radio messages begging for help and just not told anyone about it.

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  • Funny comments about Carter Burke's character moved to chat after latest edit to the post.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 10:28
  • 2
    I see no good reason to remove colour commentary. We're all adults here and a small swear (in context) isn't likely to cause offencen unless you're deliberately looking to be offended by something
    – Valorum
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 13:14
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    Technically, we're not all adults here. I don't find this swear offensive either, but according to policy it's OK to edit out wholly unnecessary swearing.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 15:45
  • @Randal'Thor - It speaks to his character and explains why he wouldn't have passed on vital communications to the appropriate authorities. He's not doing it because he's an inveterate liar (as the bowdlerised edit would imply), he's doing it because doing so would look bad for him personally, given that he ordered them to go and rubbished Ripley's story. He's doing so because he's malicious but also weaselly and conniving. In short, he's a sh^t.
    – Valorum
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 16:34
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    Well, what you just said in that comment is a lot more informative than "little shit".
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 16:37

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