SETI Researcher Quashes Signal Rumors

brainstyle writes "According to Dan Wertheimer of SETI the whole ET signal excitement is more hype than science. I told myself it was in all likelihood nothing special, but I'm still disappointed. Darn."

Comments

Maybe not radio?

[Gentoo Fan]

NPR has a cool piece regarding how radio may not be the best approach to looking for ET life.

c == c

[bandy]

Radio waves and light [also a radio wave] travel at the same speed through space.

Although

[RsG]

It is worth noting that TFA says that the signal in question in in the hydrogen absorbtion band. I remember reading old sci-fi stories that speculated that these frequencies would be a good candidate for interstellar communications, since interstellar hydrogen absorbs EM radiation in this frequency, sweeping it clear of noise. Obviously SETI feels the same way, or else they wouln't consider this signal to be "of interest".

If they have found an interstellar signal in this frequency, and it isn't artificial, will we have to revise our understanding of astrophysics? My understanding is that this can't be regular white noise. Maybe it's from our solar system (a naturally occuring local signal rather than interstellar). Or maybe it's something new.

Re:lasers

[Ayaress]

They may get here easier, but there's a catch there: It'd have to be pointed at us. That means one of several things:

1. They know we're here and are making a concerted effort to attempt contact us. This means they can't be more than a few light years away, and have already picked up OUR radio waves, meaning odds are we can hear their radio too.

2. They had to know that there was a habitable world here long enough ago to send a signal here on the random chance that there's somebody here to notice. (i.e. they live far enough away that when they sent the laser message, they couldn't know wether or not anybody was here to pick it up)

3. They missed a reciever and hit us by blind luck.

This would also limit us to detecting civilizations advanced enough to have already detected us, and have lasers with narrow enough beams that it's still coherent and good enough aim to still hit us accross great distances.

Non-coherent broadcasts like radio, on the other hand, travels in all directions, and would be expected to be used by civilizations less advanced than us, so we could detect nearly any industrial or better society (assuming we could resolve the signal and recognize it as a signal). Looking for this, we can detect any civilzation, wether they're looking for us or not.

Lasers are easier to detect if they get to us, but radio is much more likely to get to us.

Have we been so primed by TV and movies to expect fantastical aliens that we don't think that we may end up finding the technological equivalent to ourselves fifty or a hundred years ago?

From the horse's

[SETIGuy]

Unfortunately, reporters, editors and scientists often work at cross purposes. Reporters want to sell stories, editors want to sell magazines, and scientists want the public to hear about their research. When the science won't sell the story, there is often some creative writing that goes on.

That said, I was both misquoted and quoted out of context in the New Scientist article. The crux of the issue is that there really isn't much chance that the "signal" is actually extraterrestrial or even real. The point I was trying to make to the "New Scientist" reporter was that the combination of a stable frequency between observation and the rapidly changing frequency during an observation meant that it was unlikely that it was real, and that it was likely to be a spurious signal due to noise or interference. I reiterated that several times.

I don't know how that got misinterpreted to the point where the article claims I said the signal was unlikely to be interference or noise.

We don't have any plans for reobservation or monitoring, and I'd give 1000:1 odds that there's nothing there.