Episode 12: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Aliens are real, and SETI is definetly NOT a waste.

Mr. Unferth,
I do not dispute any of the characteristics of life and its effects here on the surface of earth. But to say that Earth has been broadcasting this information is baseless. The intensity of reflected and retransmitted sunlight from Earth is miniscule. At OUR current spectral detector sensitivity, signs of life on Earth are not evident from terribly far away, and certainly not across the space just to the nearest star other than Sol. A glance at the image known as the Pale Blue Dot taken by Voyager I from 6 billion km away would likely not even give away the PRESENCE of Earth unless you knew just where to look.

Agree for the most part that the time/distance would probably render most receptions practically useless, there remains some possibility of gaining knowledge. As for those who don't believe there is intelligent life out there, I think it was put best in the movie Contact - if there isn't wouldn't that be an awful waste of space.

((((( I'VE BEEN KINGED )))))

Thanxz for your input. Regards

I tend to believe that an extraterrestrial civilization capable of interstelar travel will not be interested on any kind of communication with humans. Just as we would not try to talk to apes. The mind of aliens and their interests might be so diverse that any exchange would be impossible. We may find this hard to believe but just compare our society with one of humans some 100,000 years ago. Just observing without contact could be their strategy.

My KEY of response.. ARIEL XMAS Little Drummer boy. VEGA

APEAK:
Greetings from afar, can it be your knowledge may know something of this DOB which is my own..08/13/65.
AN equasion: Ae
Any info persay of Human receiving sophisticated Mhz frequencies any capabilities, abilities? Perhaps somewhere in the field say.. Christianity. I none religious, more so in relation towards so to speak.

It's not necessary for ET to detect radio signals to know we are here.

The footprint of life on Earth has been broadcast for about four billion years with an antenna of about 600 million square kilometers.

1. Oxygen and Ozone levels out of thermal equilibrium by one or two orders of magnitude for more than 2-1/2 billion years.
2. Methane in quantities not possible on a sustained basis from non-biological processes on a planet as hot, as irradiated and (for the last two billion years) with as much oxygen as Earth. With varying strength this signal has been sent out from Earth for about four billion years.
3. Nitrous Oxide produced by bacteria on land and in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years.
4. ET may also be able to detect chlorophyll, which has been evident in Earth’s spectrum for 450 million years.
5. Signals of agriculture, metal working and coal burning have been to ET in patterns that could be very revealing to an advanced civilization.
6. In the last two centuries various chemicals which came into widespread use, leaving traces in the atmosphere: chloroform (1840s), gasoline (1850s), kerosene, naphthalene and benzene (1860s), DDT (1870s), ammonia and methyl chloride (1910s) and Freon (1920s); lately replaced by tetra-fluoroethane and other gases.

For more than a century, we’ve used a 600 million square kilometer antenna to broadcast 24/7 in a 360 degree sphere the pattern of our use of refrigeration, electrical distribution and freight delivery systems, fractional horsepower electric motors, and other measures of industrial activity.

By the time radio arrives, ET will have had access to dozens of other indications of who, what and where we are.

has a probe ever been sent in the opposite direction of earths orbit to see what is hiding behind the sun? i have never read anything about such a project.