Mystery Intergalactic Radio Bursts Detected

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Mystery Intergalactic Radio Bursts Detected

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 4, 2013 @08:02AM from the fireworks-duh dept.

astroengine writes "Astronomers were on a celestial fishing expedition for pulsing neutron stars and other radio bursts when they found something unexpected in archived sky sweeps conducted by the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. The powerful signal, which lasted for just milliseconds, could have been a fluke, but then the team found three more equally energetic transient flashes all far removed from the galactic plane and coming from different points in the sky. Astronomers are at a loss to explain what these flashes are — they could be a common astrophysical phenomenon that has only just been detected as our radio antennae have become sensitive enough, or they could be very rare and totally new phenomenon that, so far, defies explanation."

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First post by PPH · 2013-07-04 08:07 · Score: 5, Funny

And perhaps the last when the alien invasion force, of which we observed the launch, reaches earth.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
1. Re:First post by auric_dude · 2013-07-04 08:11 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  "Good morning. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to existand should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on, we're going to survive.' Today we celebrate our independence day!" President Thomas Whitmore July 4th, 1996
2. Re:First post by PPH · 2013-07-04 08:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  "Oh, and you aliens. Your browsers have a back door for which we discovered a zero day exploit. You should have given the adoption of IE some careful thought."
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
3. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:19 · Score: 0
  
  I thought it was Clinton fault if the aliens invaded ?
4. Re:First post by turgid · 2013-07-04 08:24 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Yes, those pinko-commie left-wing nutjob foreigner-appeasing presidents are alien magnets! And they're in league with the 12-foot shape-shifting blood-drinking lizards who are from Zeta Reticuli and controlled by Phil the Greek from the panel behind Liz's throne.
  
  --
  Stick Men
5. Re:First post by auric_dude · 2013-07-04 08:39 · Score: 2
  
  I'd back Ellen Ripley against an alien any day.
6. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  And perhaps the last when the alien invasion force, of which we observed the launch, reaches earth.
  I doubt I am the only one who hopes the above is actually true.
7. Re:First post by Beardo+the+Bearded · 2013-07-04 08:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "Two possibilities exist -- either we are alone in the universe or we are not. I am unsure which is more terrifying."
  
  --
  
  ---
  ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
8. Re:First post by Type44Q · 2013-07-04 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry; not since Ghostbusters would I let her ride my pink mustache...
9. Re:First post by RedHackTea · 2013-07-04 09:38 · Score: 1, Redundant
  
  Dude, it's Independence Day, no worries, as long as Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are still alive.
  
  --
  The G
10. Re:First post by broknstrngz · 2013-07-04 10:32 · Score: 1
  
  My fantasy is a nearsighted: I would just back her against the wall.
11. Re:First post by Culture20 · 2013-07-04 10:32 · Score: 2
  
  Don't worry, she sleeps above the covers.
12. Re:First post by KingMotley · 2013-07-04 11:40 · Score: 2
  
  Friggin teenage aliens playing with their pocket radio bursters trying to blind galactic telescopes.
13. Re:First post by ackthpt · 2013-07-04 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  And perhaps the last when the alien invasion force, of which we observed the launch, reaches earth.
  It's Uch Daikaij Dogora!
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
14. Re:First post by koona · 2013-07-04 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  Shear F'ing TWADDLE GROW UP
15. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  Four FEET above the covers...
16. Re:First post by allcoolnameswheretak · 2013-07-04 13:11 · Score: 2
  
  That movie sucks monkeyballs in space.
17. Re:First post by anubi · 2013-07-04 13:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I have often pondered this as well... if there are another civilization out there. Advanced enough to build interstellar transport. Would they by their advanced technology be benevolent?
  
  Or would they be desperately looking for any habitable planet that had the capacity to support life?
  
  Would they consider us as we would consider finding a large land mass on earth, inhabited by roaches and rodents?
  
  From what I can tell, our Earth is a veritable jewel in the vastness of space. Our water is abundant, yet we have land, a stable orbit, a stable Sun. And a rich assortment of mineral elements. Its something any entity would greatly treasure. For now, its ours because "they" do not know it exists. If "they" knew about it, would they claim it was theirs?
  
  I feel if we are not alone, just the sheer laws of time and physics is all that separates us from other forces which could take everything we know away. I have a hard time thinking that if we are not alone in this universe, we are the most advanced. We would be in a poor position to wage any sort of war against those who have developed interstellar travel, as their ability to direct energy obviously is greater than ours, and directed energy is what wins wars.
  
  So far, I have seen little to suggest the existence of another species out there, but lack of evidence is not evidence they do not exist. From a cockroach's point of view, I probably do not exist either. Its only been within my generation that electromagnetism has been understood to a point we can use it as a communications medium. I have no idea what other technologies are out there, as of yet undiscovered, and no knowledge whatsoever of their existence.
  
  --
  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
18. Re:First post by Ghaoth · 2013-07-04 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  We already have a plan for any aliens that come to to planet Earth....Battleship..and Rihanna will save us. Whilst I am happy to search for alien life passively (observation), I am not so sure about doing it actively (big transmitters). Actively searching is like tracer bullets....they work both ways. ALL the life we have known on this planet (human, animal and plant) is powered by a need to survive and that usually means dominating other life. Would alien life be any different?
  
  --
  Nos Morituri te salutamus
19. Re:First post by C0R1D4N · 2013-07-04 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  Nice. Meant to mod this funny but fucked up and misclicked so undoing now.
20. Re:First post by Runaway1956 · 2013-07-04 14:46 · Score: 1
  
  Why would that be? Did Clinton stick his member into an alien ambassador's orifice? Or, did the other Clinton stick the ambassador into her orifice? I'm confused here, can you provide a link to whatever Clinton did to offend the aliens?
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
21. Re:First post by celle · 2013-07-04 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  "We already have a plan for any aliens that come to to planet Earth....Battleship..and Rihanna will save us."
  Ya. The aliens will take one look at those two and like the weasels on 'Roger Rabbit' laugh themselves to death!
22. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 16:00 · Score: 0
  
  And perhaps the last when the alien invasion force, of which we observed the launch, reaches earth.
  Independence day, alien invasion force... now mix with a hacker story and we have a plot for a FANTASTIC movie! Holywood, here I come!
23. Re:First post by cats-paw · 2013-07-04 17:02 · Score: 2
  
  a civilization capable of interstellar travel is almost certainly capacble of terraforming, or I guess it would be xenoforming.
  I hardly think they would come all this way to raid our puny little planet.
  they would able to extract necessary resources from their own, or adjacent solar systems.
  
  --
  Absolute statements are never true
24. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 18:11 · Score: 0
  
  In practice, it doesn't really matter. Even if there is another species, we'll likely never know.
25. Re:First post by UnknownSoldier · 2013-07-04 18:17 · Score: 1
  
  Free is for children, not adults.
  --
  In ~2024 years Mankind will finally be allowed to to know that they are not alone in the Universe.
26. Re:First post by UnknownSoldier · 2013-07-04 18:18 · Score: 1
  
  Typo: Fear, not Free.
27. Re:First post by geekymachoman · 2013-07-04 18:57 · Score: 1
  
  > From what I can tell, our Earth is a veritable jewel in the vastness of space. Our water is abundant, yet we have land, a stable orbit, a stable Sun. And a rich assortment of mineral elements. Its something any entity would greatly treasure. For now, its ours because "they" do not know it exists. If "they" knew about it, would > they claim it was theirs?
  Well, maybe our planet would be inhospitable to them. You're assuming that life can only develop in conditions we have here. That might not be true.
  At this point, I hope we don't find out. If those aliens don't exterminate us, I wouldn't be surprised if we exterminated them.. for their planet and technology. After all.. aren't we doing that already, on our own planet ? As Carlin would say... We're monkeys with baseball hats and guns.
28. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 19:00 · Score: 0
  
  Based on historical experience, if it's the interstellar police, we're f*ck*d. Saying something like, "Klaatu Barada Nikto!" isn't going help as they shoot us in the back when we run away from them.
29. Re:First post by KZigurs · 2013-07-04 19:22 · Score: 1
  
  Meh. One thing we can deduct for sure is that in chance of (dead certainty) there being an actual intelligence out there - they will keep good distance from us.
30. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 20:26 · Score: 0
  
  Four feet above her covers...
31. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 21:49 · Score: 0
  
  Them and their idiot hyena cousins!
32. Re:First post by gl4ss · 2013-07-04 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  perhaps faster than light travel just doesn't exist, that would certainly explain why nobody is here already. perhaps "they" don't understand war.
  needless speculation unless you're going to write a book about it though.
  I have hard time thinking that they would rate earth as particularly valuable though if they can move between millions of planets, either way we wouldn't be able to prepare for it in any way - nor could we speculate on their motives. resources they could pick up from anywhere. it would really depend on their definition of what's fun what they would do, since ultimately without that just coming here is pointless.
  if they are intelligent in the same sense as we are then they would recognize that we are - at the very least they would count as being able to have a culture that spans more than few generations and beings who are able to perform quite large intentional modifications of our surroundings. and if that is interesting or fun to them would depend on how many other places they've been to with intelligent life.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
33. Re:First post by Ihlosi · 2013-07-04 22:45 · Score: 2
  
  I have often pondered this as well... if there are another civilization out there. Advanced enough to build interstellar transport. Would they by their advanced technology be benevolent?
  Or would they be desperately looking for any habitable planet that had the capacity to support life?
  If they're advanced enough to build interstellar transport, they should have become used to living in space.
  From what I can tell, our Earth is a veritable jewel in the vastness of space. Our water is abundant, yet we have land, a stable orbit, a stable Sun. And a rich assortment of mineral elements.
  Water is abundant in the universe. And earth is nothing special in terms of mineral composition. Additionally, all of Earths mineral abundance is stuck in a nasty gravity well.
  I don't think the aliens, even if they're looking for resources, would bother coming to Earth. They'll probably strip-mine the entire solar system without ever bothering with those four specks of dust closest to the sun.
34. Re:First post by gtall · 2013-07-04 23:56 · Score: 1
  
  Well, if they understand English, they'll read your sentence and decide we have quite a ways to go yet.
35. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 00:21 · Score: 0
  
  It's a far stretch from not being alone to another civilization... An even farther stretch from there to getting into touch with them.
36. Re:First post by TimO_Florida · 2013-07-05 01:35 · Score: 1
  
  Everything in the Universe seems to follow a bell-shaped curve. There may be benevolent civilizations out there but on the other side of the curve there are likely to be Klingons (who dont take prisoners) and Kzinti (who eat their prisoners) as well. Hope that we meet the right ones first.
37. Re:First post by UnknownSoldier · 2013-07-05 01:37 · Score: 1
  
  The good news is you will have your answer in about 10 years ~2024. :-)
  --
  The "problem" with answers is that they spawn 10 more questions!
38. Re:First post by omnichad · 2013-07-05 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  The aliens were apparently running Apple computers, so they should be safe.
39. Re:First post by swb · 2013-07-05 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  The standard argument is that the engineering and physics challenges with long-distance space travel are so great that any entity that can solve them doesn't really care about the bugs on Earth or Earth itself, they can get what they want from any sun or planet they can find and feed into their matter/energy/matter systems.
  Or they have perfected remote sensing that they don't travel at all.
40. Re:First post by someSnarkyBastard · 2013-07-05 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  I dunno, considering the legal climate here in the United States that may be an uncomfortably apt description...
  Happy Freedom Day everybody! Now kindly present your right hand for tracker chip implantation...
41. Re:First post by cavebison · 2013-07-05 13:47 · Score: 1
  
  "Two possibilities exist -- either we are alone in the universe or we are not. I am unsure which is more terrifying."
  This is the sad thing about having evolved on a planet where everything eats everything else. I hold out hope that, somewhere out there, there is a planet where all the ecosystems get there energy from their sun, radiation, chemistry, whatever, but *not each other*. Imagine the type of consciousness(es) that would evolve on such a world. Imagine the science. Imagine the culture. I'd migrate there in a heartbeat.
42. Re:First post by mannd · 2013-07-07 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  They're Back! And this time they are armed with Anti-Virus Software!
  
  --
  Sig expected Real Soon Now.
War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 08:08 · Score: 5, Funny

The intergalactic war is getting closer. We can hear the explosions now. It's only a matter of time before they get here. It's a good thing our space program has done so well, and we've started colonizing other planets, otherwise our species would be lost forever.
Oh .. fuck .. We don't have a space program, only a high altitude orbital flight program. Well, it's been nice knowing you all.

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
1. Re:War! by DigiShaman · 2013-07-04 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  Until we can actually leave the solar system if not the entire galaxy (physics not withstanding), perhaps it would be best to keep a low profile; as in don't announce our presence. If aliens can reach Earth, it would be easy for them to track down other colonies nearby and commence with the extermination.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
2. Re:War! by emilper · 2013-07-04 08:34 · Score: 0
  
  why would they bother with Earth ? Deep gravity well, close to the sun and plagued with solar flares, full of microbes ... Pluto with all the frozen gases or the asteroid belt would be much more appealing.
3. Re:War! by Xyrus · 2013-07-04 08:39 · Score: 1
  
  It's nothing to worry about. It's just the alien equivalent of toilet papering a galaxy.
  
  --
  ~X~
4. Re:War! by Black+Parrot · 2013-07-04 08:55 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  why would they bother with Earth ? Deep gravity well, close to the sun and plagued with solar flares, full of microbes ...
  'Cause free-range brains taste better.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
5. Re:War! by icebike · 2013-07-04 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  why would they bother with Earth ? Deep gravity well, close to the sun and plagued with solar flares, full of microbes ... Pluto with all the frozen gases or the asteroid belt would be much more appealing.
  On what planet would you expect to be free of all of those?
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
6. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 09:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Humans make a great slave labor force. Well, the ones that aren't served.
  Where else in this part of the galaxy can you pick up 7.1 billion slaves, who will willingly work for slips of paper representing the idea of an exchange for goods and services? That, and they reproduce so readily, culling 50% of the population, their numbers will return in just a couple decades.
  There's so many of them, you could have them build monuments to your memory. You can have them stack stones. You could even have them do it in the desert, and they'll not only do it, but they'll admire them as one of their greatest feats.
  Is the trip too long? You could pick up just a seed population of say 1000, and end up with millions of obedient subjects when you deliver them. Nothing is better than a cargo that grows during shipment.
  The trick to their obedience is to tell them that they have free will, but make them worship and obey you under threat of perpetual torment. Most of those fools will believe anything. Just watch out for the atheists. They'll see right through most of those scams, and try to take over your ship. Make up something about an occupying evil, and the brainwashed masses will turn against them.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
7. Re:War! by Kjella · 2013-07-04 09:13 · Score: 2
  
  Colonizing Mars to protect against interstellar war would be like having your safe house on your patio. As for colonizing other planets we haven't got the technology for that any more than you could go to the moon with a horse carriage, just adding more horses won't help. It would be interesting to get started but I except a Mars colony to be dependent on Earth for centuries.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
8. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 09:15 · Score: 1
  
  Too late. We've been broadcasting a wealth of signals out to them. At about 85 light years out, they'll be listening to Hiter's Nuremberg rallies. By the time they find out that we've even invented nuclear weapons, they'll be well on their way.
  They may be concerned when they see we have achieved space travel. Their concern will drop as they watch our space programs dissolve into obscurity.
  Having colonies out there is a better chance that not having them at all. They may only be interested in the easy farming of over 7 billion humans (or as they'd say 7 billion delicious servings of human), and less interested in the thousands on other worlds. And there's a chance for those colonists to move elsewhere or defend themselves, once they see the broadcasts of an invasion of Earth.
  I would hope any colonization ship would have the ability to continue moving, in case the new home planet were found to be unsuitable.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
9. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:16 · Score: 0
  
  Once you can travel interstellar distances, its quite likely you wont have too much use of humans of now. If they are a race willing to enslave other creatures they find lesser than them, then just like humans they will have enslaved a bunch of their own population.
10. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  We could send in Michelle Bachman, maybe the aliens will recognize that we're way too stupid to be invaded.
11. Re:War! by turbidostato · 2013-07-04 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  "Oh .. fuck .. We don't have a space program, only a high altitude orbital flight program. Well, it's been nice knowing you all."
  Dolphins are still there, so not time to worry yet.
12. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:38 · Score: 0
  
  Clearly, Pluto.
13. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 09:41 · Score: 2
  
  If we had continued working towards colonizing the moon and Mars, our technology would have grown better to meet those goals.
  The horse carriage would have never grown into the horseless carriage, and finally the modern automobile, if we all lived together on a 2 square mile island. There's no reason to drive 150mph, if it would shorten your trip to under 1 minute.
  If there were regular commuter flights from Earth to Mars, you can be sure we'd have improved. Look at the difference between a Model 14 Benoist and the Concorde, Airbus A380, or Boeing 787.
  The demand drives innovation. Over the last century, we redefined the demand from crossing a small body of water faster, to being able to fly around the world faster.
  We want to get from Point A to Point B in something bigger, faster, and cheaper. The Concorde won on the faster, but died because it was anything but cheaper. That, unfortunately, is the fate of suborbital aircraft.
  When we redefine Point A and Point B to be Earth to another planet, we'll find better ways to do it. When that is extended out to other stars, our technology will grow even more.
  As you said, our space technology isn't much more than a horse in carriage. Without a goal and a reason to do it, it will never become a reality. We're all one planetary ELE away from being the last of our species. We didn't even know about the meteor that hit Russia, until it came down, damaging 7,200 buildings, and injuring almost 1,500 people. They're considered too small... Imagine the damage from a few of these, if they made impact on more populated areas.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
14. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  It's a trick! They're the advance force, gathering intelligence on us. They've been reporting our advancement the whole time!
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
15. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 09:56 · Score: 1
  
  Dude, be careful saying stuff like that. I almost spilled my drink laughing.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
16. Re:War! by Hognoxious · 2013-07-04 09:56 · Score: 1
  
  Mars. They killed off all their germs aeons ago, you illiterate buffoon.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
17. Re:War! by Em+Adespoton · 2013-07-04 10:00 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Clearly, Pluto.
  Oh, is it a planet again this week?
18. Re:War! by Hognoxious · 2013-07-04 10:02 · Score: 0
  
  Aliens don't speak German. Haven't you seen Star Trek or Dr Who?
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
19. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:29 · Score: 0
  
  What possible combination of technologies could even come close to moving 7 billion people, supposedly to Mars, and keep them alive indefinitely on a hostile dead rock?
20. Re:War! by Em+Adespoton · 2013-07-04 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed; if there is other more intelligent life out there that has achieved "interstellar travel" (if this even means anything significant to them), they likely aren't carbon-based homonids with a penchant for enslavement of weaker physical beings.
  Hey... for all we know, we're (as a planet or possibly solar system or galaxy) already the equivalent to a gut bacterium to some other higher conscious being out there....
21. Re:War! by Culture20 · 2013-07-04 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  Once you can get any information from any nearly computer on the planet, you won't have too much use for using a magnifying glass to pop ants. Yet some kids still do. Some adults still do. Some aliens might find it the height of Graschnarblethhpp to enslave a pre-singularity society and make them build monuments in the desert. It really gets the breeding age female-type-2 aliens amorous.
22. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:57 · Score: 0
  
  yes, because atheists will save the day. Stalin.
23. Re:War! by brickmack · 2013-07-04 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  Huh? Star Trek and Doctor Who are bad examples. In Star Trek (though im not sure of any episodes when German was spoken) they have universal translators. In Doctor Who most species have something similar (TARDIS translation matrix for time lords), and in one episode a Dalek was shown speaking German using whatever their equivalent is.
24. Re:War! by RubberDogBone · 2013-07-04 11:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There are generally two reasons anything would want to attack Earth: 1) we're a threat. 2) we have resources not more easily obtained elsewhere
  For the first point, we are a threat to nothing and noone. Our weapons are simple and not very powerful. They are also very short-ranged and we are tremendously preoccupied with killing each other. We're not externally dangerous and unlikely to become so any time soon. We have no ability to wage war in space, much less across any sort of stellar distances. We possess exactly zero capability to use wormholes, warps, time travel, or other exotic ways to move the human initiative anywhere else.
  For the second point, essentially all the elements and minerals found on Earth can also be found elsewhere, where there might not be so many humans in the way. What weapons we do have would make an invasion troublesome and needlessly complicated. Suppose aliens need water? No need to come all the way to Earth to invade when you can harvest a few Oort comets and you're done. Earth would never even notice and couldn't object even if it wanted to. But in practice, any advanced space-faring species would have probably figured out how to manufacture resources when needed, so they may have even less need to harvest anything.
  A lot of scifi is bogged down with the concept of aliens needing something from Earth, but this concept is mostly not plausible. Water is everywhere. Minerals are everywhere. No, they don't even need to eat us. If you can cross space by whatever method, you have probably figured out food or evolved or engineered yourselves beyond the need to eat constantly like humans do.
  Really, the only reasons to bother with Earth would be to obtain samples, to observe what's happening, or to manipulate the planet or it's contents (people, animals, resources) in some manner. The classic concepts of an invasion force and human extermination don't fit with either of those plans.
  
  --
  Sig for hire.
25. Re:War! by jbmartin6 · 2013-07-04 12:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Humans make a great slave labor force.
  No they don't. They are dirty, fractious, rebellious, and a zillion other flaws. Robots are far more useful and you don't have to travel light years to get them.
  
  --
  This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
26. Re:War! by brickmack · 2013-07-04 12:13 · Score: 2
  
  Nothing. The idea is more of "get a few thousand people and as much information as possible to mars". A few thousand people wouldn't be all that difficult to transport (compared to billions, at least) And would be enough to carry on humanity without too many genetic issues.
27. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 12:15 · Score: 0
  
  (stands, giving slow clap) Well played sir, well played
28. Re:War! by JohnRoss1968 · 2013-07-04 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  No the Christians will save the day. Hitler
29. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  That still doesn't answer the question of why they would want to come here...
30. Re:War! by JaredOfEuropa · 2013-07-04 12:36 · Score: 2
  
  What about real estate? Perhaps habitable worlds (in the goldilocks zone, spinning core, geologically stable, etc) are rare, and if an alien species would find our gravity and air tolerable, then this world could be of incredible value to them. Even if we haven't exactly left it in pristine condition.
  
  As for threats, we really can't assume that a spacefaring race would be so far ahead of us as to find us no threat to them. Perhaps it took their civilisation a few millenia to go from the beginnings of industrialisation to the space/information age, in which case they might well fear a species that did this in a century or two. Or they know that we, a rather warlike species, are likely to soon discover the trick to interstellar travel. They might not want us around for all manner of reasons.
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
31. Re:War! by Jmc23 · 2013-07-04 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  Comedy. You forgot comedy!
  There's nothing funnier than pushing a humans buttons and watching them act out their prerecorded prejudices and beliefs :)
  
  --
  Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
32. Re:War! by JaredOfEuropa · 2013-07-04 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  It's not a lack of demand for transportation to drive development of space technology, we need a good reason to colonize the moon or Mars in the first place. A good economic reason; science or an abstract notion like survival of the species isn't going to cut it given the staggering cost of such an undertaking. Europe's colonization of Americas wasn't exactly cheap or safe, but it brought tangible returns for both the colonists and the investors. Mars? What are we even going to do there?
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
33. Re:War! by allcoolnameswheretak · 2013-07-04 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting points.
  Unfortunately there are also concepts like fun, sports and Predator movies.
34. Re:War! by zedrdave · 2013-07-04 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  You are absolutely and unequivocally right.
  
  That leaves only one possibility: Hunting for sport!
35. Re:War! by lightknight · 2013-07-04 13:20 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Me thinks you are boxing possible alien lifeforms in too small a probability. For all you know, those could be entire solar systems being converted to raw energy, to fuel interstellar drives, of a giant galactic war machine.
  While the universe is, IMHO, probably filled with many fascinating and enlightened lifeforms...there are also just as many unenlightened and terrifying lifeforms out there. There may be energy lifeforms, plasma lifeforms, etc. of all shapes and sizes whom you can learn from, live with, and so on; and there are, perhaps, others for whom slavery, conquest, insanity, and raw greed are nonnegotiable. The question you need to really roll around in your head is: has mankind been visited by any of these enlightened types, and if so, how did that reception go? Were they mocked, slain, beaten, enslaved? If so, when a real terror shows up, it is doubtful that those peoples will send any kind of aid to mankind. If you have encountered one alien race, it would be foolish to believe that there were not many more.
  Then again, mankind might get lucky. Someone might see the potential of removing this race from destruction's path, despite previous actions. But if the NSA and friends...WWII and human experimentation....are anything to go by, perhaps destruction might not be bad thing for the human race, right? Does the Universe need another race of people who see the conquest of the heavens as a form of 'Manifest Destiny'? Who think being peaceful is being weak? Surely the hundreds of millions of other races will certainly be okay with mankind trying to create new conflicts./s And of course, military authoritarianism...in light of races possibly capable of bending space and time itself, would really go over well; such obtuse proclamations, deceit, and other actions will, no doubt, keep mankind locked in the same unhappy spiral that, if my eyes are receiving valid data, threatens to destroy mankind time and time again.
  I wonder, if any of those lifeforms visit here, what they will find. If the genomic data I've come across is correct, one more major war, and humanity will not have to worry about aliens; their descendents will be so hopelessly dependent on various machines and surgeries for life support, due to genetic illnesses, that in time, they may become extinct. A pity, since there are, I would think, many lifeforms in the galaxy for whom the simple analysis of the human genome and repair of its flaws (the result of inbreeding) might be as easy to fix as placing a band-aid on a small child's scraped knee. But given the paranoia of government as of late, and general economic malaise...well, as I said, who knows what anyone will find when they get here.
  
  --
  I am John Hurt.
36. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 13:35 · Score: 0
  
  Number Six: "What do you want?"
  The new Number Two: "Information."
  And they'll get it: DNA, art, literature, local doo-dads and knick-knacks. Hell, once the big bypass opens there won't be a flying saucer in the whole spiral arm that don't have a pair of human skulls dangling from its rear-view mirror.
  But seriously, information. Someone actually "different" to talk to, and novel experiences, are the most valuable commodities a physically immortal sentient being could obtain. This is why only "stupid" and/or "degenerate" alien races actually land and interact with humans: There would be a lot more of those, but the "smart" and "superior" ones try to keep them off our planet, because we aren't done growing into something worth knowing yet. Certainly they won't be directly communicating any time soon: One of the worst crimes recognized by their society, is causing a developing sentient species to turn out as boring copies of a race that everyone already knows all all too well, itself included.
37. Re:War! by lightknight · 2013-07-04 13:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Or Earth may simply be a refueling point between points of interest. I imagine that aliens of some advanced races will have discovered an asymmetric process for creating anti-matter, or something like that; at which point, places like this solar system might just be the equivalent of a gas station. Whether they decide to fuel up from a gas giant, such as Neptune, or from a planet like Earth, may not be much of a decision, especially if they aren't looking for life, have no experience with lifeforms of this design, or have detected lifeforms and simply wish to avoid contact.
  Or Earth may be a target of some consequence. Think about it: what if humanity does get off this rock, and pisses off the wrong people? They may decide, rather than fighting a war (with weapons, and so on, that humans excel at), to visit the Earth's immediate past, and introduce a virus that will render them incapable of posing a problem in the future; or they may just drop a black hole on the planet itself. Or mankind may find itself to be the enemy: some group of exo-haters decide to travel back in time to 'make sure those aliens never have a chance to set foot on this planet'; they sprinkle the right information, to the right groups, to ensure that first contact results in a very bad impression; possibly taking up positions in the military / other places where they can use their influence, quietly, to achieve their ends. Perhaps those aliens are being scapegoated for bad policy decisions, or perhaps they are simply a victim of 'they took our jobs!' Or even some, I don't know, environmentalists, who have seen the future, and think it should be greener.
  Heck, there may even be the equivalent of alien socialites...people who just like stopping by, having a little fun, then moving on.
  There are many, many reasons that Earth may or may not be on someone's roadmap, by intent or by accident. But I think we all know that if one of them shows up here, chances are the military will see them as a threat, and either try to pump them for information ("Tell us how to build a warp drive!"), or even for propaganda (if politicians get involved). Do you disagree? Does anyone disagree? Does anyone, at all, think that for a not small number of nations, first contact might be a little 'rough' for humanity? And there in lies the sadness -> denied contact for lack of maturation, because of some fear that others have come to enslave, or do harm, or what have you; denied contact, because humanity's own fear prevents it from moving forward.
  Now, I could be wrong. Perhaps we will make a mistake, invite the wrong people down. But I'd rather make that mistake, that be ruled eternally by fear.
  
  --
  I am John Hurt.
38. Re:War! by The+Evil+Atheist · 2013-07-04 14:08 · Score: 2
  
  A lot of scifi is bogged down with the concept of aliens needing something from Earth, but this concept is mostly not plausible. Water is everywhere. Minerals are everywhere. No, they don't even need to eat us. If you can cross space by whatever method, you have probably figured out food or evolved or engineered yourselves beyond the need to eat constantly like humans do.
  What if the aliens require massive computing power? The large mass of sentient brains of this planet could be a very rare thing in the cosmos. Complex chemistry for life is common all over the universe. Maybe multicellular life is also common in this universe. But a massively parallel simulating biological computer is probably rare enough to encounter that it's easier for them to coopt rather than engineer.
  
  It's not hard to imagine, at least for me, that an alien race may find it easier to build on biological computing technology than it is to keep pushing the boundaries of physics for smaller non-biological computers.
  
  --
  Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
39. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:18 · Score: 0
  
  One of the popular theories regarding the modern explosion of UFO sightings and Roswell, etc, is that our use of nuclear weapons were a beacon that alerted others to our presence. What if nuclear weapons do have some larger impact we're not yet aware of? For example, what if they disrupted some sort of FTL sub-space transit system?
40. Re:War! by C0R1D4N · 2013-07-04 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGx7c-QBotE Exterminaten!
41. Re:War! by roca · 2013-07-04 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  Oh please, not that again.
  http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=53517
42. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Hyper-(to us)-aggressive alien societies would be predisposed to stab their enemies in the cradle, so to speak. Sort of like what Herod tried to do with the Christ-child. Unfortunately, such species are likely to be more successful than pacific ones in the galactic game of evolution.
43. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:43 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with your reasoning, as I've posted before on similar threads, is this: we have no way of understanding what the motivations of an alien life form might be. The very act of applying logic and seemingly reasonable guesses, as you are doing, is to anthropomorphize aliens and assume we can understand their needs and motives when we have absolutely no idea about them. You may be right. But you may also be quite wrong. We humans have enough trouble understanding the motives and predicting the behavior of other humans, let alone that of an entirely unknown life form.
  This is why people like Hawking, who say we need to assume that any alien life form could be hostile, are taking the safe route. As someone posted above, there might well be entirely rational, advanced and beneficent life forms out there, but there may be others who we are no more more equipped to understand than an ant can understand Einstein, or for whom irrational, destructive and crazy are the norm.
44. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:45 · Score: 0
  
  Space niggers!
45. Re:War! by swalve · 2013-07-04 14:48 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Man, we think we have trouble getting the right answers out of the internet. Imagine some poor space geek trying to get calculations out of Mainframe Earth, and all he keeps getting is porn, fart jokes and funny hats that start wars.
46. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:51 · Score: 0
  
  Sport my ass
  It's our tasty, tasty brains they want, at least until they can clone them, but even then the genuine article will always command a premium.
47. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 15:18 · Score: 0
  
  So why was North America colonized? Were the natives a threat to Europe? Were there elements or minerals available that we didn't have back home? Water maybe? Or did we just wipe out most of the native population and put the rest in reservations for fun?
48. Re:War! by arth1 · 2013-07-04 15:18 · Score: 2
  
  They may be concerned when they see we have achieved space travel. Their concern will drop as they watch our space programs dissolve into obscurity.
  I wonder what aliens without a concept of fiction would think if they saw Star Trek, Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
  Too bad I won't find out, because our signals are way too weak to reach anywhere and be distinguishable from general noise.. Even if they had giant radio ears pointed precisely in our direction (or where we were when the signals were transmitted), and filtered out all the radio noise from the sun, our feeble omnidirectional transmissions would drown in the much more powerful radio signals from Jupiter.
49. Re:War! by dudpixel · 2013-07-04 15:25 · Score: 2
  
  What if WE are the resources not more easily obtained elsewhere?
  
  --
  This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
50. Re:War! by arth1 · 2013-07-04 15:32 · Score: 2
  
  You may not be aware, but we have this huge nuclear bomb continuously exploding around 8 light-minutes away. Our efforts isn't even a blip compared to that.
  What you're saying is as silly as thinking that igniting plant material under the decomposing remains of a related species would cause a supreme being to take notice and alter the rules of the universe to benefit the doer.
  I can't disprove either, but it's still bullshit.
51. Re:War! by evilviper · 2013-07-04 15:38 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of scifi is bogged down with the concept of aliens needing something from Earth, but this concept is mostly not plausible.
  How about just colonization? A nice young star, with a planet of the ideal mass, located in the habitable zone?
  Surely teraforming a planet must be difficult, or at least slow, and removing all the primitive monkeys from your new home is the easier way to go.
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
52. Re:War! by lkernan · 2013-07-04 15:46 · Score: 1
  
  Until we can actually leave the solar system if not the entire galaxy (physics not withstanding), perhaps it would be best to keep a low profile; as in don't announce our presence. If aliens can reach Earth, it would be easy for them to track down other colonies nearby and commence with the extermination.
  How the heck will we kick start the Federation if we keep a low profile!
  The sooner we got to warp, the sooner the Vulcans will start paying attention.
53. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 15:49 · Score: 1
  
  Beyond Brickmack's correct assertion, there's something more important. They have freakin' intergalactic spaceships. You don't think a species with intergalactic spaceships wouldn't have a better method of translating any arbitrary language to their own, than ... say ... Google Translate. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
54. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 15:52 · Score: 1
  
  Your reading skills are either not up to snuff, or you know about an aggressive alien species on Mars conducting an intergalactic war.
  Earth = big farm for theoretical aliens to collect slave labor from.
  Mars = next big rock from here, an a somewhat hospitable place to practice leaving this rock.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
55. Re:War! by BlueStrat · 2013-07-04 16:00 · Score: 1
  
  The intergalactic war is getting closer. We can hear the explosions now.
  Yeah, I get your point, and I see the possibility.
  Could also just as easily be "warp signatures" rather than explosions, and have absolutely nothing to do with us at all That's even granting it were some intelligence and assuming on top of that, that it both knows of our existence and/or is capable of caring (or even "knowing" as we think of it).
  Back a few weeks ago, I posted in a /. story about the plans a group of researchers had to set up a continuous interstellar radio beacon, and in a thread therein concerning the questionable wisdom in advertising our existence to any other possible interstellar species/civilizations.
  Reasoning being that other species may well take the not-illogical attitude that they are safest in a survival sense to immediately wipe out any other developing intelligent species/civilizations they detect to eliminate any possible present or future threat to their specie's survival and dominance, and then maybe study the rubble later.
  Some say our regular radio & TV signals over the last century make it too late to worry about attracting attention, but that's uneducated hogwash from those who know nothing of radio or radio propagation.
  You're talking about omni-directional broadcasting in the case of radio & TV. You could take a dish to the orbit of Mars and point it at Earth and be lucky to catch brief, weak signals from even the strongest terrestrial radio/TV broadcast stations. The signals would be far, far under the noise-floor and undetectable before you got past Jupiter.
  A strong, focused beam at optimal interstellar-distance-detectability frequencies is different.
  Keep an eye on the dolphins.
  If they start leaving, be afraid.
  Be very afraid. :)
  Strat
  
  --
  Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
56. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 16:01 · Score: 2
  
  Bah, you kill off the defective ones, and then they're cheaper and self reproducing. Once you have a good seed population, they'll work for you forever. They're also somewhat good learners. You only have to kill off a few as an example to others, and they'll remember for a long time.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
57. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 16:05 · Score: 1
  
  That's the big problem. The space program was for the advancement of humanity, and showing the Russians we have the bigger phallus shaped rockets. When that died off, it became about money. Unless you can show that Mars has a cache of cocaine covered gold bricks, it won't ever be financially "worth" it.
  We won't know what kind of financial incentive exists on the planet until we actually go there and explore more than a few feet around a landing spot.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
58. Re:War! by Greyfox · 2013-07-04 16:09 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Robots aren't quite as delicious.
  
  --
  I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
59. Re:War! by Phat_Tony · 2013-07-04 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  How long might it take us to become a threat? Interstellar space-faring aliens may have civilizations millions or billions of years old. They may have seen annoying upstart civilizations seem as harmless as one gnat to all the world's militaries, but then leave them alone for just a few tens or hundreds of thousand years, and all of a sudden they're some kind of annoyance. How often do they happen through this part of space? The universe is a big place. Monitoring may be resource intensive and error prone. They might just consider it good practice, in discovering new life, especially with some modicum of intelligence, to stamp it out as they find it to reduce risk to their way of life.
  
  --
  Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
60. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 16:11 · Score: 1
  
  Ya... I prefer to pretend the RF noise of the universe doesn't exist, so they may see us. Then again, if a space traveling race does find us, do we really want them seeing all the old scifi first? Our goal, according to all of the older scifi was to kill first, and burn the bodies later.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
61. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 16:16 · Score: 0
  
  I tend to agree. This is a cool planet, as far as I can tell, but it is unlikely to be the coolest. More plausible is we're all apart of some jerry springer type reality television show and we don't know it. We just intelligent enough to be completely dysfunctional, harmless, and likely, hilarious, to a sufficiently advanced species.
62. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 16:27 · Score: 0
  
  It gets a swaperoo every couple days or so when an astronomer gets pissed off with another astronomer and declares astro war... you know how them astro boys get.
  Hey you never know maybe Pluto will get an downgrade to spacestation in the coming days.
63. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 16:32 · Score: 0
  
  "No, they don't even need to eat us. If you can cross space by whatever method, you have probably figured out food or evolved or engineered yourselves beyond the need to eat constantly like humans do."
  Ever hear of speciality food? We could just end up being a delicacy in the Universe.
64. Re:War! by hughperkins · 2013-07-04 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, as far as 'we're a threat', this includes 'we could become a threat in the future'. Why wait for us to become strong enough to be troublesome to mop-up, when they could mop us up now?
  It's a bit like keeping the fridge clean. You don't wait until it grows monsters that will actually attack you. You simply clean the surfaces occasionally, get rid of any traces of mold and stuff.
65. Re:War! by HornWumpus · 2013-07-04 16:58 · Score: 1
  
  Cocaine covered gold bricks? You vastly underestimate the cost of returning weight from Mars.
  Mars might turn out to be a fuel stop. More likely a martian moon.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
66. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 17:16 · Score: 0
  
  Seriously, Hitler outright said he was a Christian. Claiming that he secretly wasn't isn't really much different from claiming Stalin secretly was.
67. Re:War! by Your.Master · 2013-07-04 18:13 · Score: 1
  
  Mainly for resources. How is that not obvious? The fur trade, silver, gold, timber, arable land, hoped-for trade routes to get far-east spices, etc..
  There's a secondary effect where it was more about leaving Europe than coming to North America -- in that case, the resource was land not occupied by opposing European forces.
  The extension here would be to assume that Earth was as colonisable to an alien race as North America was to Europeans, and any place at least as colonisable is already occupied or otherwise inconvenient. Which comes down to resources, once again.
68. Re:War! by Pallas+Athena · 2013-07-04 18:58 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, you list the top two -possibly the only two- rational reasons to wage war against any other species. Would you be so kind to tell us which of those two reasons rationally explain the killing of native Americans / the killing of Jews, Gays, Gipsy's in Nazi-Germany / the killing of Hutu's in Rwanda / the killing of whales by Japan / hunting in general? I sure do hope that whatever other civilization is out there, it is more rational than we are. If not, we're screwed.
69. Re:War! by wonkey_monkey · 2013-07-04 19:16 · Score: 1
  
  Hitler, Stalin, I've told both of you not to squabble on Slashdot. I don't care who started it, go back to your cryopods!
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
70. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 20:04 · Score: 0
  
  There are generally two reasons anything would want to attack Earth: 1) we're a threat. 2) we have resources not more easily obtained elsewhere
  On point 1 you make a lot of assumptions. I don't see why an interstellar traveling species would consider us a threat. As far as we know their methods of warfare could include pointing a large energy weapon at a planet from afar and heat the oceans to the boiling point.
  They might not even consider tracking a couple of billion targets at once and focusing them down with laser pulses as something technically difficult.
  On point 2 you assume that they value resources in the same order as we do but even on earth humans and plants value oxygen and carbon dioxide very differently.
  Metals like gold and iron are probably not very valuable but complex molecules can be very expensive to create synthetically.
  One thing that exists in large amounts on Earth compared to other planets we know of is organic matter. Your eyeballs are probably worth more to a interstellar traveling species than a diamond the size of a fist.
71. Re:War! by Ihlosi · 2013-07-04 20:13 · Score: 1
  
  There are generally two reasons anything would want to attack Earth: 1) we're a threat. 2) we have resources not more easily obtained elsewhere
  You forgot 3) we're not a threat (and therefore lots of fun to push around). Don't tell me you're excluding the possibility that the aliens might be acting like school bullies.
72. Re:War! by Ihlosi · 2013-07-04 20:15 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately there are also concepts like fun, sports and Predator movies.
  Religion. Don't forget religion. The aliens might be a bunch of religious whackos worse than anything you can find on Earth.
73. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 20:16 · Score: 0
  
  You forget the Number One reason any territory gets invaded during war: strategic advantage. Supplies is just number two.
74. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 20:35 · Score: 0
  
  The atheists are easily controlled as well. Just establish a counterculture and have controlled opposition because they're as religiously fanatical as the rest but they'll deny it til their graves.
75. Re:War! by magic+maverick+ · 2013-07-04 21:34 · Score: 1
  
  What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
  
  --
  HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
76. Re: War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 21:54 · Score: 0
  
  The best way to invade and take control is to make the human race do the dirty work:
  The planet is already being terraformed by releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
  All people on the planet are already cataloged (by NSA and "advertisers" etc.) to find out who will be the trouble makers.
  The dominant governmental systems are tied to your end goals and to keep those goal-oriented processes running. This way the human race will police itself.
  Drop a few technological innovations here and there when they fit your goals and make your processes more effective. Stop and destroy the innovations which might prevent your goals. Energy sources alternative to fossil fuels are a big threat since it will interfere with the warming process by reducing CO2 emissions.
77. Re:War! by hazeii · 2013-07-04 22:10 · Score: 1
  
  If 'they' consider us a threat (or potential future threat), they might take us out with no more thought than we'd give to swatting a fly.
  "Radio emissions detected from Earth, Honey!"
  "Oh, just noodle an appendage on the fusion laser, dear, they won't even see the sterilisation beam coming."
  
  --
  All your ghosts are just false positives.
78. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 23:37 · Score: 0
  
  I wonder what aliens without a concept of fiction would think if they saw Star Trek, Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
  You know that movie's already been done, right? Galaxy Quest, 1999,
79. Re:War! by Fr33z0r · 2013-07-04 23:47 · Score: 1
  
  You missed 3) Colonisation.
  
  All the reasons you gave as to why aliens wouldn't bother with Earth also applies to why humans wouldn't waste their time with [continent/country/landmass].
80. Re:War! by swalve · 2013-07-05 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  Forty two?
81. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 01:39 · Score: 0
  
  If our only cause for alarm is that the space aliens might travel time, and we're the back-in-time version that will get killed...I think we'll be alright.
82. Re:War! by Agent0013 · 2013-07-05 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Or perhaps they don't view using humans as work horses to be slavery. Using their own kind in indentured slavery would be abhorrent, but using an unenlightened animal to do work for you would be ok. Don't we use animals to do work for us. Perhaps we were even genetically modified from the intelligent and aggressive animals that they found here when the arrived. Needing precious metals to repair or refuel their starships, they would need some sort of work animal to extract it from the ground. There are discovered gold mines that date back to before our ancestors even had civilization or society.
  
  --
  
  -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
83. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  "Or they know that we, a rather warlike species..."
  Get your shit together, America != Humanity
84. Re:War! by sudon't · 2013-07-05 03:56 · Score: 2
  
  What imaginations!
  Listen, folks - just because one plus one equals two, doesn't mean you have two of anything. Until we figure out how life began, we have no way of predicting whether life is a unique event, or possibly even a commonplace in the galaxy, or the universe. As far as anyone can tell right now, we are alone. If water, and a spot in a habitable zone, automatically equalled life, why have we never seen the generation of new life here on Earth? The evidence suggests we have all descended from a single, unique event.
  I think that, barring new information, it is extremely optimistic to expect to find life elsewhere, let alone life forms who've managed to overcome the speed limit of the universe in order to be able to travel the insanely vast distances, (please, do not bring up "wormholes"), your scenarios would require.
  
  --
  -- sudon't
  Air-ride Equipped
85. Re:War! by someSnarkyBastard · 2013-07-05 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  There are discovered gold mines that date back to before our ancestors even had civilization or society.
  [citation needed]
86. Re:War! by Agent0013 · 2013-07-05 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  I do understand that this is pretty controversial and even I don't completely buy it. I find it an interesting thing to think about since I heard about in on the Ancient Aliens series. Here is a link (http://www.viewzone.com/adamscalendar.html) with information on these very ancient sites with man made structures and mines. The third page in that article gets into the mine shafts and gold. It even goes on to describe the ancient Sumerian legends of gods from the sky creating mankind from their blood.
  My main point in the previous post was that you should not view that as slavery when we ourselves don't view using animals for work as slavery. We have dogs that sniff or attack, horses that pull and carry, etc.
  
  --
  
  -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
87. Re:War! by sudon't · 2013-07-05 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  The atheists are easily controlled as well. Just establish a counterculture and have controlled opposition because they're as religiously fanatical as the rest but they'll deny it til their graves.
  Thank you! I'm tired of people telling me I'm merely a cynical nihilist. Of course, in the end, it doesn't really matter.
  
  --
  -- sudon't
  Air-ride Equipped
88. Re:War! by someSnarkyBastard · 2013-07-05 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  So then why would a civilization capable of advanced space flight go out of their way and through all the trouble of finding a population of quasi-intelligent apes to farm for brain power when they could likely just as easily grow brain matter on a computing/communication substrate that can be controlled, specialized, and reproduced at will with enough resources?
  Human brains, for all their wonderful complexity, are the end result of evolution, a process notorious for using hacked-together "good enough" adaptations. Engineered tissue from the ribosome up could be made much more efficient. Hell, replacing the axon's chemo-electrical method of signal transduction with something more along the lines of metallic or carbon nanotube circuits would improve efficiency many times over; nerve transduction has been clocked at only 170 m/s, peanuts compared to modern silicon processors.
89. Re:War! by someSnarkyBastard · 2013-07-05 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  Ever hear of specialty food? We could just end up being a delicacy in the Universe.
  Ever heard of a Molecular Constructor? Why farm when you can get the exact same results by just pouring a soup of fairly plentiful elements into a machine and get fresh-from-the-oven human brains (or Earl Grey tea for that matter) a minute later?
90. Re:War! by Archangel+Michael · 2013-07-05 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  To Serve Man ... "Its a cookbook!!!!"
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
91. Re:War! by painandgreed · 2013-07-05 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Humans make a great slave labor force.
  No they don't. They are dirty, fractious, rebellious, and a zillion other flaws. Robots are far more useful and you don't have to travel light years to get them.
  Bah. Chaos Theory has proven that robots will always rise up against their masters.
92. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 06:48 · Score: 0
  
  If you're driving on a road through a forest, it doesn't matter how many trees there are in the forest if someone suddenly plants one in the middle of the road.
93. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  "Heck, there may even be the equivalent of alien socialites...people who just like stopping by, having a little fun, then moving on."
  I knew those fucking hipsters were weirdos.
94. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 08:11 · Score: 0
  
  A rather long-winded yet quite shortsighted story. The romantic idea that aliens will be like good humans is nothing more than a romantic idea, with no foundation whatsoever in reality. Every single example we have of different people coming into contact with each other for the first time ended in disaster for at least one of the people, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional, but virtually without significant example to the contrary. There is just not a single viable reason to believe that aliens would be 'good' (according to our definition of the word). Even humans, who have for some unknown reason actually developed a sense of inter-species morality will generally drop those morals when they have invested significant effort in something that conflicts with them. 99. percent of the species we know however do not have any inter-species morality at all. Just because we only know one species with well developed tool-using intelligence, and one species with a morality that transcends inter-species boundaries, does not mean there is any causal relation between the 2.
95. Re:War! by david_thornley · 2013-07-05 08:49 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, if we'd worked harder on interplanetary space vehicles and in living in incredibly hostile environments, we'd be better at it. I'm not sure that's practical.
  Such colonies would be very expensive to set up, and they'd require a continual flow of supplies from Earth to keep them going. There's a long road to being self-sustaining, and that would require setting up all sorts of industry. It isn't happening any time soon. Self-sustaining colonies would also have to reliably produce all the supplies needed, including large amounts of air and water, metals, food, etc.
  In order for colonies to serve as backup planets, they'd need to be not only fully self-sustaining, but capable of a lot of growth, with industry sufficient to produce spaceships. That won't happen for a *long* time, and it won't be an outgrowth of colonization technology. There's too many fundamental things that have to be developed for those colonies that will happen elsewhere, if at all. (I think we'd need massive advances in robotics, for example.)
  Think about establishing a self-sustaining colony in Antarctica. That's a garden spot compared to everything off-planet: there's actual breathable air you don't have to synthesize, water is as easy as melting ice, and if you dig down through the ice there's almost certainly a lot of mineral wealth. Mars would be a far harder proposition.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
96. Re:War! by lightknight · 2013-07-05 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  "The evidence suggests we have all descended from a single, unique event."
  We are, I don't know, on a single planet, that is totally filled with life. We cannot trace, exactly, where life began on this planet; current thinking is the oceans, but which one spawned the first unicellular organism? And so on.
  Nor does the absence of life, as we understand it, on nearby planets rule out, in any great way, the absence of life beyond our solar system. All we have are the facts, or what we believe are facts: we exist on this planet, and it appears to be filled with life; other planets / moons in our solar system, in so far, as we have studied to date, to not appear to have life, at least from the very limited data and understandings that we currently 'know'; there is so little data, that attempts at extrapolation from it are more likely to result in harm than good.
  
  --
  I am John Hurt.
97. Re:War! by arth1 · 2013-07-05 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  Your analogy is flawed. You don't seem to have any grasp of the scales involved.
  It would be like a small but superhot campfire, with someone walking around it at a 65' distance, because the fire is so hot that being closer would be uncomfortable. That walking person is holding a matchhead. And no, not lighting the match, because that would be if the entire earth blew up in a nuclear explosion. Imagine a tiny spark on the surface of the matchhead that isn't even big enough to see even if you stare intently on it.
  And then imagine someone extremely far away plotting a course that takes them through that exact part of the matchhead at the exact time the spark occurred.
  And then be more affected by that microsparc than the nearby blazing hot camp fire.
  Speculation is all well and good, and I obviously cannot prove that it cannot happen, but keeping scales in mind, it's not even worth mentioning as a negligible risk.
98. Re:War! by 9jack9 · 2013-07-05 10:35 · Score: 1
  
  Or maybe they'll off us because we might become a threat at some point in the future.
  Or maybe they're a run-away machine culture that indiscriminately converts all matter it encounters into computronium.
  Or maybe playing with sapient species is fun.
99. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 17:14 · Score: 0
  
  Gayniggers from Outer Space!
100. Re:War! by DigiShaman · 2013-07-05 17:32 · Score: 1
  
  Does plutonium naturally occur in such concentrated amounts as to go super-critical (boom)? If not, it might give off a unique signature in that it represents intelligence via advanced detection methods. Such a explosive device from plutonium can only be created by intelligent life, right? The fact it wasn't a wise idea is an entirely different thing however.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
101. Re:War! by The+Evil+Atheist · 2013-07-05 22:45 · Score: 1
  
  So then why would a civilization capable of advanced space flight go out of their way
  Can't they just stumble across us? Do they have to go out of their way?
  
  and through all the trouble of finding a population of quasi-intelligent apes to farm for brain power when they could likely just as easily grow brain matter on a computing/communication substrate that can be controlled, specialized, and reproduced at will with enough resources?
  Maybe consciousness is more complicated to develop than advanced space flight?
  
  Human brains, for all their wonderful complexity, are the end result of evolution, a process notorious for using hacked-together "good enough" adaptations. Engineered tissue from the ribosome up could be made much more efficient. Hell, replacing the axon's chemo-electrical method of signal transduction with something more along the lines of metallic or carbon nanotube circuits would improve efficiency many times over; nerve transduction has been clocked at only 170 m/s, peanuts compared to modern silicon processors.
  Maybe it's not just a matter of electrical efficiency? Say what you like about human brains, but as far as we know, have only evolved once on Earth in 4 billion years, whereas eyes evolved at least 40 times. There is something to be said about a brain that's hacked together that can potentially understand relativistic equations.
  
  --
  Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
102. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-05 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  Mars is practice. Kind of like launching a ship from Spain, and landing in England to set up a colony, with a goal of reaching unknown lands to the East.
  If the only ship invented is a canoe, that looks like a barely possible mission.
  If you were to go back in time, and tell early Spanish villages that they'd be conquering two continents, thousands of miles away across the Atlantic, they'd laugh at you.
  The first trips were impossibly long. Lots of people died trying.
  Now you can get from Madrid to Buenos Aires in about 12 hours, and you need little more than an bag of clothes, a passport, and plane ticket. I prefer to bring a toothbrush too.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
103. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-05 23:57 · Score: 1
  
  There was a news story about a metal refinery in North America that predated European travelers by centuries. I can't seem to find it now. Last I heard about it, it was reburied for urban expansion. Historical sites are always outweighed by current commercial interests.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
104. Re:War! by arth1 · 2013-07-06 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  Spontaneous Fission occurs naturally.
  How often and how much would depend on the concentration of superheavy metals. That we have them puts a lower age limit on the universe in our local area of space-time, and an upper age limit on the solar system. (Plutonium won't exist in any noticeable amounts unless you've had two generations of supernovas.)
105. Re:War! by Hognoxious · 2013-07-09 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  Star Trek and Doctor Who are bad examples.
  Indeed. They aren't real.
  
  In Star Trek (though im not sure of any episodes when German was spoken)
  Patterns of Force has an entire planet of Nazis who all speak English. How likely is that?
  
  In Doctor Who most species have something similar (TARDIS translation matrix for time lords)
  I'm intrigued how any mechanism can translate a language without significant previous exposure to it. Unless it's a fish that fits in your ear.
  Oh hang on, I forgot. Star Trek and Doctor Who are fiction.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
106. Re:War! by Hognoxious · 2013-07-09 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  Beyond Brickmack's correct assertion, there's something more important.
  Correct? In the sense that magic exists?
  
  They have freakin' intergalactic spaceships. You don't think a species with intergalactic spaceships wouldn't have a better method of translating any arbitrary language to their own, than ... say ... Google Translate. :)
  Not necessarily. Halo effect fallacy.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
107. Re:War! by JWSmythe · 2013-07-09 14:32 · Score: 1
  
  Well, as he was explaining a fictional universe to someone who attempted to troll in reference to said fictional universes, he was right.
  
  Not necessarily. Halo effect fallacy.
  Sexy aliens get better ratings? I think it's a little early to make that judgement.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
108. Re:War! by brickmack · 2013-07-11 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  And yet you're the one that brought it up.
109. Re:War! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-11 07:59 · Score: 0
  
  Earth - Harmless
110. Re:War! by Hognoxious · 2013-07-14 06:01 · Score: 1
  
  Over here we have this thing called irony. It's nothing to do with ferrous metals.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Obviously by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:10 · Score: 0

The dark matter species have decidedto contact us.
1. Re:Obviously by mellon · 2013-07-04 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  A blast of energy that bright at close range would have vaporized the death star. Otherwise your theory is sound.
Required by CohibaVancouver · 2013-07-04 08:11 · Score: 5, Funny

"I for one welcome our new..."

Ah, nevermind.
1. Re:Required by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:55 · Score: 0
  
  Charlie Sheen knows whats up cuz he gets down. Tiger blood is in Horse Toothed jackasses out. ~ #WINNNING!
2. Re:Required by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:57 · Score: 0
  
  Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
  Ah, nevermind
3. Re:Required by R3d+M3rcury · 2013-07-04 11:58 · Score: 1
  
  You mean Carlos Estevez.
barbq by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:12 · Score: 1

it is my bar-b-q it is highly modified and unique
it's like finding a wad of cash by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:14 · Score: 0

in the pocket of that suit you haven't worn since the wedding a few years ago
It's the mice by AmiMoJo · 2013-07-04 08:15 · Score: 2

Biting the cables. Each bust is one being electrocuted.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. Re:It's the mice by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:54 · Score: 0
  
  They're not biting the cables. They're running the experiment.
2. Re:It's the mice by icebike · 2013-07-04 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  “Such subtlety ...” said Slartibartfast, “one has to admire it".
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
3. Re:It's the mice by Mateorabi · 2013-07-04 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, my bet is pigeon poop on the antenna.
  
  --
  "You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Aliens! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:15 · Score: 0

Aliens aliens aliens aliens aliens aliens!!!!!!
Chances of this being something are a million to 1 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:17 · Score: 0

But still they come.
Alien rebroadcasts of "I Love Lucy" by jfdavis668 · 2013-07-04 08:22 · Score: 1

They got our signals, and are sending them back so we do better next time.
1. Re:Alien rebroadcasts of "I Love Lucy" by icebike · 2013-07-04 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Cute, but even assuming the power (which we don't have) to send radio that far, it would not have reached them yet, for another million years or so.
  They came from widely separated place beyond our Galaxy.
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
2. Re:Alien rebroadcasts of "I Love Lucy" by Rockoon · 2013-07-04 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  They came from widely separated place beyond our Galaxy.
  We don't know that. All we know is a couple directions, not their distance. Could be from craft surrounding our solar system...
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
3. Re:Alien rebroadcasts of "I Love Lucy" by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-07-04 16:41 · Score: 1
  
  Alien rebroadcasts of "I Love Lucy"
  They got our signals, and are sending them back
  I found part of a famous Lucy episode, massively distorted.
  Not only is the signal quality poor, but it looks like it's been through several trans-species virtual re-emotings.
  
  --
  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by Jmc23 · 2013-07-04 08:27 · Score: 5, Informative

um, the probability of this being something is 1. Now the probability of this being something interesting...

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Get your speakers out, everyone... by sidthegeek · 2013-07-04 08:27 · Score: 3, Funny

It's time to start playing Indian Love Call.
1. Re:Get your speakers out, everyone... by Capt.DrumkenBum · 2013-07-04 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  You bastard! I had blocked that out! I had completely forgotten about that horrible movie, and you brought it all back! I curse you and your progeny for a thousand generations!!!
  Back to therapy for me.
  
  --
  If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
2. Re:Get your speakers out, everyone... by HornWumpus · 2013-07-04 09:53 · Score: 1
  
  That was a good movie. They should make a sequel.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Damn you... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:31 · Score: 0

... Jedi... For The Empire!
Bleeping clowns by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:31 · Score: 1

From TFA:

What is known is that in just a few milliseconds, each of the signals released about as much energy as the sun emits in 300,000 years.
Stop with the aliens nonsense.
1. Re:Bleeping clowns by turbidostato · 2013-07-04 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  "Stop with the aliens nonsense."
  Well, an alien species that it's able to release in milliseconds what the sun in 300000 years is something to worry about, don't you think so?
2. Re:Bleeping clowns by Ultra64 · 2013-07-04 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  You were the first person to mention aliens.
3. Re:Bleeping clowns by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:48 · Score: 0
  
  To think
  a person, on line
  can write
  write, with the freedom of a bird
  anything under the sun
  and yet, they choose to write
  a falsehood
  a sad thought indeed.
4. Re:Bleeping clowns by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:49 · Score: 0
  
  why would it? thinking about it pragmatically, what would such a powerful species want with us? It's like you or I looking at an ant hill for all of a 1/10th of a second before forgetting it.
5. Re:Bleeping clowns by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 12:29 · Score: 0
  
  He wasn't saying it was aliens. But it was aliens.
6. Re:Bleeping clowns by turbidostato · 2013-07-05 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  "why would it? thinking about it pragmatically, what would such a powerful species want with us?"
  Of course eating our brains. Everybody knows that's the hidden link between aliens and zombies!
  "It's like you or I looking at an ant hill for all of a 1/10th of a second before forgetting it."
  Before stepping on it and killing the ants by thousands without even noticing, you mean.
  Such a civilization wouldn't doubt a second to clean the planet out of the way of its new Interstellar highway, heck, they probably wouldn't even notice. Our only chance to survive is demonstrate that the 187 form is not properly managed -there're only two copies and it requires to be presented by triplicate! out of that, resistance is futile.
7. Re:Bleeping clowns by RockDoctor · 2013-07-07 20:11 · Score: 1
  
  Well, an alien species that it's able to release in milliseconds what the sun in 300000 years is something to worry about, don't you think so?
  If and only if they can get here (or beam that energy towards us) AND are aware of our existence. At the deduced distances (on quite shaky supporting evidence), they're going to only recently have become aware of the tremendous destruction of life on planet Earth by the poisonous emissions of one recently-developed group of organisms. Oxygen - horrible stuff ! Leave it to the Eukaryotes - they'll be gone in a billennium or several.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Quick! Triangulate where in space time that these four events wavefronts will arrive simultaneously..
And point all your telescopes there.
1. Re:Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 13:06 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry, but it's those bloody VK's fooling around again...
  They got sick of the QRM and rudeness on 20m and decided to have some real fun.
  C'mon, mates, 'fess up!!
2. Re:Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 13:46 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's too late. We've detected all four events, so we're inside the expanding spherical wavefronts of all of them: the intersection has already happened. Because they were all detected so close together (less than a year apart), the intersection must have been very close; and since the last one was over a year ago (January 2012), any signal from the intersection point has already passed us by.
  The other problem is that single-dish radio telescopes don't give us a very precise idea of where the signal comes from. We just know that each of them came from somewhere in a patch of sky about the size of the moon. Ideally, what we'd like to do is to detect one of these signals with two telescopes at once. That would confirm that it's a real thing (rather than a bug in one of the telescopes); and the times of arrival at the two telescopes would tell us very precisely where the signal came from.
  (I am a radio astronomer, but I don't work on the type of transients described in the article.)
3. Re:Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:23 · Score: 0
  
  Uh, since its four events giving four dimensions shouldn't that be quadrulate?
4. Re:Four bursts? by 12_West · 2013-07-05 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but it's those bloody VK's fooling around again...
  They got sick of the QRM and rudeness on 20m and decided to have some real fun.
  C'mon, mates, 'fess up!!
  QRZ OM? This is a loosely run net, but...
5. Re:Four bursts? by Dean+Edmonds · 2013-07-08 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  In other words, point all your telescopes at the Parkes Observatory.
  
  --
  -deane
What? by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2013-07-04 08:34 · Score: 2

Okay just hold on a minute. FTA:
What is known is that in just a few milliseconds, each of the signals released about as much energy as the sun emits in 300,000 years.
That's a third of a million years worth of the energy output from the entire sun in milliseconds and no corresponding light flash or other radiation? Could the sources possibly be weaker and closer and we just got the maths wrong?
1. Re:What? by Black+Parrot · 2013-07-04 08:59 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  That's a third of a million years worth of the energy output from the entire sun in milliseconds and no corresponding light flash or other radiation?
  It will take the thunder a lot longer to get here.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
2. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:20 · Score: 0
  
  The 300000 years of Solar energy calculation rests on the assumption that the burst is omnidirectional.
3. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:23 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It was a million voices crying out then suddenly silenced.
  Remember, this flash came from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
4. Re:What? by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2013-07-04 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  Light and radio waves both move at the same speed though, they're both EM radiation.
5. Re:What? by HornWumpus · 2013-07-04 09:56 · Score: 2
  
  And a wild assed guess as to distance. Not in the galactic plane, so I'm assuming they assumed it was intergalactic distance.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
6. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:06 · Score: 0
  
  Could be Transformers. The explosions in the movies made almost no sound.
7. Re:What? by marcosdumay · 2013-07-04 10:18 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  They determined that the origin is not in our galaxy, but it looks like they know nothing else about it.
  Could it be red-shifted gamma ray bursts?
  
  --
  Rethinking email
8. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  Or, more likely, they were just picking up a noisy satellite transponder as it flies overhead.
9. Re:What? by SirAdelaide · 2013-07-04 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  "Whatever is happening is probably a relatively common, though difficult to detect, phenomenon. Extrapolating from the research, astronomers estimate there are as many as about 10,000 similar high-energy millisecond radio bursts happening across the sky every day."
  Seems like a lot.
  
  --
  I'm a fruit pirate. I bought a watermelon once, and spat the seeds in the back yard. They grew into another watermelon,
10. Re:What? by GumphMaster · 2013-07-04 17:06 · Score: 1
  
  The signal they received is the "other radiation" of which you speak. Not all that emits is optically visible, and not all that's optically visible is visible at astronomical distances. For objects beyond or galaxy to be optically visible typically requires the combined, omni-directional optical output of billions of Suns and a dust-free observation path (think Andromeda Galaxy). For immense distances red-shifting ensures optical emissions are shifted out of the optically visible range. A nearby source would be more likely to be seen optically (if it emitted at those wavelengths) and closer to the galactic plane (these are not) .
  
  --
  Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
11. Re:What? by Kidbro · 2013-07-04 20:05 · Score: 1
  
  So, the alternative is that they're shooting at us. Comforting.
  
  --
  May we live long and die out
12. Re:What? by michelcolman · 2013-07-04 23:59 · Score: 1
  
  Or even simpler, a garage door opener next door. Check the neighbour's work schedule.
13. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 02:49 · Score: 0
  
  Could it be red-shifted gamma ray bursts?
  Gamma-ray bursts typically are red-shifted anyway. That doesn't stop them from appearing as gamma-ray bursts. You could have a gamma-ray burst so ridiculously red-shifted that the gamma rays didn't reach us as gamma rays, but that would take such a high red shift that they'd be coming from the earliest moments of the universe, where the sorts of things that are thought to produce gamma-ray bursts (like stars) didn't yet exist.
  There is another possibility related to gamma-ray bursts, though. The gamma rays from these bursts are thought to be tightly beamed along the rotation axis of the object that produced them. Depending on the mechanism, they could also produce a radio pulse that is radiated away in a broader pattern. So if the tightly-beamed gamma rays from a burst miss us, we might see it only as a radio pulse.
  (There are some problems. How come we don't see radio pulses from other gamma-ray bursts? Are they just really weak? Why would the radio pulse be compressed into milliseconds?)
It's the Doctor's fault by ArcadeMan · 2013-07-04 08:34 · Score: 4, Funny

It's the TARDIS causing cracks in the space-time continuum.

--
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
1. Re:It's the Doctor's fault by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  not the Tardis... the RE-Tardis...
Powerful, but not complex by gmuslera · 2013-07-04 08:35 · Score: 1

That we use radio to send signals that shows our intelligence (or lack of it) don't mean that it only be produced artificially. Is the result of a natural process, maybe a supernova or pulsar. And whatever it was, we survived it, if were a i.e. close supernova the light and the rest of radiation should had come pretty close to the radio burst, 2 years ago.
Gravitational lensing by SpaceLifeForm · 2013-07-04 08:49 · Score: 1

Can explain it, there does not have to be anything at the apparent location.

--
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
1. Re:Gravitational lensing by Gil-galad55 · 2013-07-04 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  Gravitational lensing produces small (arcsecond) deviations. These things are only localized to arcminute scale, so graviational lensing is negligible.
  
  --
  To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
Really data compression burst signals? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:50 · Score: 0

Try decoding the signals by setting up receiving stations at a distance to analyze the reception time differential between the bursts in relation to the speed of light. The distance between the stations receiving the same burst will then yield the information necessary to translate the burst. Divide the distance by the speed of light and you will then learn the carrier wave length. The half wave will then yield the frequency. A short burst can then be interpolated to yield a longer message. Why sent full duration data when data can be compressed in time and corresponding velocity? Yes we receive the burst at C but the data and transmission speed is much faster.
The speed of light is not a "barrier" it is only a constant by which all solid matter is effected by energy waves at all velocities. Sorry Einstein there is much more to the universe than only what meets the eye at the speed of light constant.
Perhaps we should experiment with shaped nuclear charges reflecting signal waves to see if it is possible to send compressed data in outer space by energetic wave amplification. Just maybe with the right configurations, the wave length of a signal can be increased but the frequency and thus data will remain constant. Incredibly long energetic waves at high frequency must be traveling at speeds much greater than the speed of light, but might also only be perceived by single static receptors as short bursts, thus the need for multiple receptors at astronomic distances to translate the wave lengths of the bursts.
The Society for the Preservation of Anonymous Coward Mad Geniuses
i'm sorry by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:51 · Score: 0

i had my hi beams on.......
OH just cause i was parked in orbit around your planet .....
Or, it could be... by fustakrakich · 2013-07-04 08:51 · Score: 0

A fly landed on the antenna.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hey Thetans by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 08:58 · Score: 0

Hey Thetans,
My name is Ron, and I want to audit every single one of you. All of you are covered in body thetans.
You spend every second of your day looking at stupid as pictures because of engrams. You are everything
wog in this world. Honestly, have any of ever gotten any cause over MEST? I mean, I guess it's
fun being a pre-clear sometimes, but you all take to a whole new level. This is even worse than being PTS.
Don't be a stranger. Just visit one of my orgs for a free personality test or buy Dianetics: The Modern Science
of Mental Health. I'm pretty much perfect. I was the youngest Eagle Scout and one of the first pilots. What firsts have
you achieved, other than "first post?" I also was an instrumental part of the Manhattan Project and developed the first
uniformly workable technology of the mind (Shit has made me SO much cash). You are all wogs who are in serious need of Dianetic auditing.
PiC Related: It's me and my boat
Thats God Farting by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:02 · Score: 0

FInally, proof that God exists!
It's obviously Snowden.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:03 · Score: 0

he's trying to call his friends back in the US, and reroutes the call over a node in the pegasus galaxy...
Obviously by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:04 · Score: 0

That is the blast of Alderaan death, in a galaxy far far away.
stargate links by Joe_Dragon · 2013-07-04 09:10 · Score: 1

it just took them this long to find them.
Relax by Opportunist · 2013-07-04 09:10 · Score: 1

It's just an intergalactic flash mob.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unexplainable phenomenon by slserpent · 2013-07-04 09:17 · Score: 1

Therefore aliens
Contact by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:23 · Score: 0

...Ellie's father has summoned us!
wow! signal? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 09:30 · Score: 1

How does this signal compare to the WOW signal?
Invader Zim by Ziest · 2013-07-04 09:32 · Score: 1

Bringing screaming temporal doom!

--
Another day closer to redwood heaven
False Vacuum Collapse by the+eric+conspiracy · 2013-07-04 09:32 · Score: 1

Pretty much we are done.
Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by asicsolutions · 2013-07-04 09:52 · Score: 2

Million to one chances occur 9/10 times. (Terry Pratchet (paraphrased))
Read His Masters Voice by ikhider · 2013-07-04 09:56 · Score: 1

by Stanislav Lem. Great book relevant to the topic.

--
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
radio bursts warn about earth's coming destruction by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:06 · Score: 0

VOGON CAPTAIN:
[On Speakers] People of Earth your attention please. This is Prostectic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planet Council. As you no doubt will be aware, the plans for the development of the outlying regions of the western spiral arm of the galaxy require the building of a hyperspace express route through your star system and, regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes thank you very much.
MANKIND:
[Yells of protest]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and its far too late to start making a fuss about it now.
MANKIND:
[Louder yells of protest]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh for heaven sake mankind it's only four light years away you know! I'm sorry but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own regard. Energise the demolition beams! God I don't knowapathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all
Scene 7: Ext. Space.
The Earth is destroyed in a huge explosion.
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 10:07 · Score: 0

WOOOOSH!!!!
Richard Burton is very disappointed in you!
And todays random unit of measurement is.... by Thiarna · 2013-07-04 10:30 · Score: 3, Funny

Mosquitoes.

They have come such a long way that by the time they reach the Earth, the Parkes telescope would have to operate for 1 million years to collect enough to have the equivalent energy of a flying mosquito
maybe,.. by houbou · 2013-07-04 10:44 · Score: 1

some aliens were rejoicing at Paula Deen's demise... :)
FFS. When is this idiotic myth going to die? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 11:32 · Score: 0

Too late. We've been broadcasting a wealth of signals out to them. At about 85 light years out, they'll be listening to Hiter's Nuremberg rallies.

Seriously. Learn about the inverse-square law.
Here, let me help you:
Inverse-square law.
You're welcome.
1. Re:FFS. When is this idiotic myth going to die? by JWSmythe · 2013-07-04 15:58 · Score: 1
  
  Bigger antenna? Better reception system? Or do you have extensive information on the RF reception capabilities of all alien spacecraft?
  There are some nice people from the government who would like to talk to you. Either the ones who secretly have crashed UFOs in underground research facilities, or the ones in the nice white jackets who will take you up to Happy Hill to relax in a padded room.
  Either way, it doesn't matter much to the rest of us, trollie.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
2. Re:FFS. When is this idiotic myth going to die? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 19:05 · Score: 0
  
  Wow. You must be a scientist.
3. Re:FFS. When is this idiotic myth going to die? by uninformedLuddite · 2013-07-05 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  Is that a boring person who never goes out and lives in a basement?
  
  --
  The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Alcubierre drive by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 11:35 · Score: 0

It's deceleration flashes from Alcubierre drives going from supra luminal to subluminal speed. The great news is that it means the drive is possible. The bad news is that anyone comin to visit us could erase us simply by stopping too close to the solar system.
1. Re:Alcubierre drive by aXis100 · 2013-07-04 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  This is my favourite explanation yet :)
Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by thephydes · 2013-07-04 13:44 · Score: 1

Ahh yes, a blast from the past - War of the Worlds is a classic! Still have my vinyl record somewhere ...... Richard Burton the master story teller.
But the question is... by manu0601 · 2013-07-04 14:09 · Score: 2

...does NSA have a program to record that?
Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 14:09 · Score: 0

woosh
Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by Paul+Fernhout · 2013-07-04 14:29 · Score: 3

See this 2007 discussion form more on this: http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/08/05/1450217/the-fermi-paradox-is-back
Really, who wold want to live in a gravity well if they don't have to?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
http://www.itsbetteruphere.com/
http://space.mike-combs.com/l5-fcis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
To go beyond what we can do with today's technology, quantum physics tells us that there is potentially an infinite amount of matter and energy in any finite volume of space. And visible space is vast (14 billion light years cubed, at least). There may be things that will still be fought over, but they are probably different things than access to matter and energy (aesthetics about hat colors?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Utilization_Controversy
"As a scientific concept, the existence of zero-point energy is not controversial although the ability to harness it is."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Red_Dwarf)
"The race eventually splits and descends into civil war, over what colour the hats at the hot dog and doughnut stand Lister planned to open on Fiji were going to be (in the later-published novelization "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" the cause of the cat civil war is whether their god was named Cloister or Clister). Ironically the two factions claimed they were going to be red or blue, whilst Lister had wanted them to be green."
Besides, methane breathers might find Earth fairly inhospitable, preferring, say, Saturn's moon Titan? And machine intelligence might prefer the Oort cloud for ready access to materials in zero gravity?

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
1. Re:Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by HornWumpus · 2013-07-04 16:39 · Score: 2
  
  quantum physics tells us that there is potentially an infinite amount of matter and energy in any finite volume of space.
  Citation needed. Don't post the goat link.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
2. Re:Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by Paul+Fernhout · 2013-07-05 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  The citation is the WIkipedia article on zero-point energy I already posted. An examples from it: "In quantum field theory, the fabric of space is visualized as consisting of fields, with the field at every point in space and time being a quantum harmonic oscillator, with neighboring oscillators interacting. In this case, one has a contribution of from every point in space, resulting in a calculation of infinite zero-point energy in any finite volume; this is one reason renormalization is needed to make sense of quantum field theories."
  See James P. Hogan's 'Voyage from Yesteryear" sci-fi novel for an example of the social effects of such a scientific observation on optimism about the future vs. today's pessimism about "running out of whale oil" or whatever the fashionable energy source is these days.
  http://www.science20.com/science_amp_supermodels/have_we_reached_peak_whale_oil-7699
  "My main concern is that my calculations show we are approaching peak whale oil and no one seems to be listening. Inspect my numbers below. If my estimations are correct we have surpassed a population of 24,000,000 persons, far more than the estimates of 17.000,000 from the last census. There simply are not enough whales to ..."
  
  --
  A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
3. Re:Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by painandgreed · 2013-07-05 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  quantum physics tells us that there is potentially an infinite amount of matter and energy in any finite volume of space.
  Citation needed. Don't post the goat link.
  You can look up Vacuum Energy which isn't quite infinite, but could be in the range of 10^113 Joules/m^3.
4. Re:Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by HornWumpus · 2013-07-06 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  One link away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_catastrophe
  I quote:
  
  In cosmology the vacuum catastrophe refers to the disagreement of 107 orders of magnitude between the upper bound upon the vacuum energy density as inferred from data obtained from the Voyager spacecraft of less than 10^14 GeV/m3 and the zero-point energy of 10^121 GeV/m3 suggested by a naïve application of quantum field theory.[1] This discrepancy has been termed "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics!"
  Edited by me. Added two '^' for clarity and to fix formatting lost in cut and paste.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
High Powered Signal by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 15:08 · Score: 0

"What is known is that in just a few milliseconds, each of the signals released about as much energy as the sun emits in 300,000 years."
Play it backwards by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 17:37 · Score: 1

Play back the received signal backwards, it's probably just a subliminal message from satan.
The Dish! by cachimaster · 2013-07-04 18:01 · Score: 1

The parkes telescope making history again. It is one of my favorites radiotelescopes, it was used to track the apollo 11 mission, and there is a movie documenting this that I highly recommend: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/
Space junk by YoungManKlaus · 2013-07-04 21:01 · Score: 1

Probably ...
We're safe by Anarchduke · 2013-07-04 21:59 · Score: 1

I told the aliens that Earth has space herpes.

--
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
how about this by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-04 23:04 · Score: 0

you know, if we could proof that our deceased loved ones conciousness gets teleported to a planet in another galaxy we might get more space travel funding and stop teleporting eachother away ....
Say that again. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 00:03 · Score: 0

Nothing is better than a cargo that grows during shipment.
Tribbles.
1. Re:Say that again. by JWSmythe · 2013-07-05 23:37 · Score: 1
  
  You just have to find the right buyer for them. And keep them away from that Kirk guy, I heard what he does with them at night in his cabin. It ruins the resale value.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Like Anathem's start by cellocgw · 2013-07-05 04:10 · Score: 1

Just as the mathematicians, Decennials, if I recall correctly, mapped a series of unexplained images, here we are "tracking" some EM bursts. Clearly it's a sophisticated UltraHyperspaceDrive in deceleration mode, on its way to conquer and enslave our Universe.

--
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This is Sector 8. Is that you, Mr. Armstrong? by TheRealHocusLocus · 2013-07-05 04:19 · Score: 1

Politician: Turns out that Parkes is the biggest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.
Prime Minister: What's it doing in the middle of a sheep paddock?
Rudi: This is Sector 8. Is that you, Mr. Armstrong?
Rudi: Who goes there?
[sheep heard bleating]
Reporter: No offense, but NASA spends fifteen years, hundreds of millions of dollars so that we can watch man walk on the moon and in the end it falls to you blokes! I mean, how do you feel about that?
Ross "Mitch" Mitchell: A lot better before you opened your trap!
See this... and you will understand.
The Dish
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/

--
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Say that to Dodos by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 05:57 · Score: 0

Dodos were no threat to humans (point 1) and everything on their island could be obtain elsewhere in the world (point 2)... but they are extinct!
aliens by kbx911 · 2013-07-05 07:01 · Score: 0

dat history chanul guy...aliens
No hang over please! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-05 17:23 · Score: 0

I just hope I'm not hung over the day they try to come down here and take over planet Earth! I can't think of anything worse then dying hung over, unless your head gets stuck in a printer press the day they try to take over planet Earth!