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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."
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so if this is really nothing and they at SETI aren't interested, where'd all the damn hype come from in the first place? thats what i dont get....who started it, and what happened to them?
i understand its so very probably not an ET signal...but what if it was?
Moo.
I think you would probably find that the people who want to find extraterrestrial life really, guinuinely want to find it. They would neither risk being considered cranks by repeatedly saying "found one -- oops, psyche" nor would they willingly participate in a cover up if they did.
A lot of scientists already think of SETI as being a little flaky. Giving people reason to believe that more would be silly.
[ then again, since I can't prove a negative, I can't completely rule out the assertion either. =]
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"If [the aliens] are so smart, they'll adjust their signal for their planet's motion."
Only one thing I always say about this: It's a very naive to assume aliens are smart. We're not all that bright by the standards we seem to expect of aliens, and we used to be a lot dumber. We're just as likely to detect an early industrial civlization by their sitcom broadcasts as we are to detect some hyperadvanced godlike race beaming lasers at us accross the galaxy.
Can someone explain to me why the shift in frequency is not being considered as the signal itself? It doesn't take rocket science to create and broadcast an FM signal, and we've even learned how to cope with the doppler effect as we drive along listening to the radio in our cars.
Perhaps 1420 is the start-of-message signal?
Realistically speaking, if I took a reading of a signal that always started the same way and behaved the same way no matter when I started, I would suspect an artifact of the equipment or software.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Now if you look on this site the 1400-1700 Mhz range is used by radio astronomy and weather satellites. So with that 3 questions:
Now I'm probably wrong on all of this. Which is why I love
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
No offense dude but your average layman would consider another swing by your most promising signal to date after a lengthy and extensive search would be a moderately high priority, even if it is a relatively low probability of success. Jeeze you'd think you understood alien civilizations intimately the way you were talking. The fact is there are so many unknowns here you may not understand the nature of such a signal and based on transient observations may not be able to deduce anything other than you have a candidate and in this case the **ONLY** candidate signal to make it this far. At the very least they may be an interesting astronomical phenomenon there.
Consider for a moment there may be an alien project on that planet, and some guy struggling for budget to keep his signal transmitter running and you don't have all the time in the world, maybe they had an equipment upgrade between your scans, or a change in transmission theories. Maybe the have detected methane and oxygen in our atmosphere after extensive surveys of their sky and are targeting us with a signal.
My point is not that this is likely, but given this is the only signal and we don't know much about most of the factors in Drake's equation and the anthropic principal is at work here thare are many reasons for *showing a little bit of enthusiasm* and checking out this signal one more time, and not taking your sweet time to do it.