The New "Wow!" Signal - SETI's Recent Close Encounter With An Unidentified Emission

I don't mean to be a squeaky wheel and take a crap on this thread. Not my intentions. But , Personally I don't think this is newsworthy. Until they can bring something to the public table that is clear they made contact, they shouldn't bring anything at all... It's like calling a office meeting just to say "Hey, so I have been pondering a few ideas on how to improve the workspace, and when I'm done collecting my thoughts I will get back to you guys..."

3u40r15m
I don't mean to be a squeaky wheel and take a crap on this thread. Not my intentions. But , Personally I don't think this is newsworthy. Until they can bring something to the public table that is clear they made contact, they shouldn't bring anything at all... It's like calling a office meeting just to say "Hey, so I have been pondering a few ideas on how to improve the workspace, and when I'm done collecting my thoughts I will get back to you guys..."

I am not sure if you read the thread but if you did you'd see a lot of comments like "why didn't I know about this?", "why wasn't this bigger news."

"They" did not make a big deal out of it. "They" simply published a paper. I stated as much in my original post.

Why this is interesting is because it is a better 'possible detection' of ETI than the original 1977 signal and it today an amateur radio astronomer likely has the capability or at least the expertise to conduct a 24/7/365 followup experiment thanks to ever more powerful computers and ever more sensitive radio receivers.

The takeaway from the OP should not be "this is huge news" but rather "this is something that wasn't widely reported by the MSM but is -very- interesting.' in terms of possibilities.

As for value: It helps make the person reading it on ATS slightly smarter or more informed than their non-ATS reading co-workers when this subject comes up in watercooler conversation.

MadHatter364
This just goes to show how lousy our kind of communication devices are, I mean if that had been PROOF of an alien civilization living there, then our response would take 100 years to be heard... By then they could all already be dead...

What we need is some kind of "quantum intercom" that allows information to get from point A(us) to point B(aliens) in zero time.
Until we have such a technology there isn't even a point in looking for ETs... :/

For all we know, they have quantum entanglement relays that get the message here quicker. What if the closest of those relays was right outside of our heliosphere?

I wonder, though... would the signal still be coming from the origin or the relay?

xxdaniel21
reply to post by MadHatter364

 

What incredibly pessimistic way of thinking. By the time we could develop such devices, we could be dead... (using your logic of course).

Humans need to continue searching, despite the factor of propogation delay. To give up searching over such a small way of thinking such as "there's no point if we can't gain anything NOW", would truly halt advancement.

Why bother saving money if i can't have it now? Until i find a quicker means of obtaining money, i will not bother saving. THAT is your thinking.

Let's say Madhatter is correct. Wouldn't that be even more exciting? That might mean there was a space travelling species hundreds of years ago in the spot. In hundreds of years, their advancement would be incredible (moving on to something better than radio signals, no doubt) and it tells us there may be a species out there with the ability of interstellar travel.

Whether or not he's right, it's exciting.

3u40r15m
I don't mean to be a squeaky wheel and take a crap on this thread. Not my intentions. But , Personally I don't think this is newsworthy. Until they can bring something to the public table that is clear they made contact, they shouldn't bring anything at all... It's like calling a office meeting just to say "Hey, so I have been pondering a few ideas on how to improve the workspace, and when I'm done collecting my thoughts I will get back to you guys..."

No... it would be like calling an office meeting just to say "Hey, we may have intercepted a signal from some super-awesome aliens".

reply to post by JadeStar


Yeah I read some of it. And I'm just saying their is no point on the public knowing about it in the first place. Keep it simple like things have always been because people like to spin things outta control, and by the time it gets to the public by certain sources the news turns into a sci-fi film... Signals like this is nothing new, it has been going on for a long time. Thats just my 3 cents. Cool story though........

reply to post by 3u40r15m


It seems you did not read the main thread very well, though you already admitted as much. Yes there are thousands of signals intercepted. What makes this one unique, with much higher potential to be from an alien civilization, is the evidence that it originates 100 light years away and in the vicinity of a star.

Sifting through all of the background noise/signals from us on earth is tough. Because of that background noise most signals can get written off. This one shows evidence with the Doppler shift of originating that far away, basically unlike the thousands of other signals. It also is in the vicinity of an actual star, something the wow signal was not.

Yes it is not proof but may be the best current available evidence of extra terrestrial intelligence.

With new planet hunting telescopes being worked on this would seem to provide a perfect area to search for a planet.

Really well done thread, im interested but don't know near as much as you. You made it easy enough to follow though, looking forward yo other threads of yours. With over 100 flags I thought I'd see many more posts though. Guess its good I was able to read the whole thing.

reply to post by JadeStar

Thank you. Liked the read.

You know sometimes I think SETI is so sciency and so skeptical that they're like ancient mathematicians who were closer to the truth than the nuts. It takes real brains to do science and this is something people miss. Over the past few thousand years science crawled forward, built on the backs of hard working people. SETI is just one more (excruciatingly tiring) step on the discovery pyramid.

Few people in our past who contributed to advancing our knowledge:
en.wikipedia.org - Eratosthenes...
en.wikipedia.org - Abu Rayhan Biruni...

SETI has a chance. But we may find microfossils on martian meteorites or some other meteorites before SETI detects a signal.... It's ET sitting under our nose! And I think there's no guarantee there's intelligent life close enough to detect. And of course there's no guarantee we'll even find extinct microbiology or ET viruses. It's just that current science seems to weigh in that direction, sort like how people were swayed to thinking there were other planets around other stars before we had the proof. They did the 123 and simply suggested there was a 1234. You see heat and water and complex chemistry and other conditions and you say "Aha! Life!" And so it was you see a star and see other stars and say "Aha! Other earths!" The "Aha!" moment came more as a result of figuring the earth follows the sun. Once they understood astronomical distances and other planets they can deduce those points of light are probably far far away and very very bright, like our own sun! Something to that effect, anyway. It's not a stretch of the imagination.

Of course, science isn't about speculation or 1234, it's about fact.

I have to ask UFO believers if they ever wonder whether scientists were right all along and they were wrong. The answer requires science, not hooey.

They should mix solar mirrors and these small telescope arrays so the array can fun itself by also producing electricity on a solar plant. Du ruling the day while the arrays follow the sun the can also observe a certain points of the sky daily for long duration while beaming sunlight at a solar steam plant. At night gloves come off and array can be pointed where ever scientist would like.

If designed this way it could supply it's own energy and a few thousand homes while also funding the search for ET.

Am I only one day see how these arrays look just like solar steam generator mirrors?

inquisitive1977
reply to post by 3u40r15m

 

It seems you did not read the main thread very well, though you already admitted as much. Yes there are thousands of signals intercepted. What makes this one unique, with much higher potential to be from an alien civilization, is the evidence that it originates 100 light years away and in the vicinity of a star.

Sifting through all of the background noise/signals from us on earth is tough. Because of that background noise most signals can get written off. This one shows evidence with the Doppler shift of originating that far away, basically unlike the thousands of other signals. It also is in the vicinity of an actual star, something the wow signal was not.

Yes it is not proof but may be the best current available evidence of extra terrestrial intelligence.

With new planet hunting telescopes being worked on this would seem to provide a perfect area to search for a planet.

Really well done thread, im interested but don't know near as much as you. You made it easy enough to follow though, looking forward yo other threads of yours. With over 100 flags I thought I'd see many more posts though. Guess its good I was able to read the whole thing.

edit on 3-3-2014 by inquisitive1977 because: (no reason given)

Nooo. This one might be unique in its own way, but they have signals from light years away and have communicated, its not really new news in this day and age. The airforce has done quite a few impressive things in the past

reply to post by JadeStar


This is an awesome thread! My astronomy professor would have loved to have you as a student.

Thanks for posting this, I have a lot to read about now!

A continuing search for the radial velocity of the star TYC 1220-91-1 has not yet been successful. With this we could greatly reduce the probability that the signal was an example of random, terrestrial interference, and similarly increase the chances that it was a genuine SETI signal.
Hypothesis: This is a genuine SETI signal. Prediction: When the doppler shift due to radial velocity of the star is applied to the observed frequency of ~4463.8 MHz, it will resolve to 4462.3 MHz. The latter is the true value for the neutral hydrogen radio emission line times the constant Pi.

reply to post by JadeStar


My theory is that if this signal was in fact from a transmitter 100 light years away, that transmitter was not being used as a beacon for us but rather was being used in a similar way as we use the Arecibo planetary radar, which by the way, can also be detected 100 light years away.

This topic has quite a few physical mistakes.
Specifically for example, the above.
How could a radar that is barely 50 years old, transmit a signal 100 light years.....
Please do your own research people.

Nice thread jade. I happen to believe without a doubt that life forms from other places exist due to personal experience. But I love your logical approach to the subject. Keep up the good work.

reply to post by JadeStar

Wow, simply had to emerge from my cave to S&F this excellent and interesting thread, splendid. Lots of stuff to learn and find out about. A most interesting subject.
Take a bow JadeStar.

reply to post by CaptanMad

Actually you may want to do your research. At a SETI FAQ website they specifically state a high powered radio telescope like arecebo could be detected by an alien civilization 10s to 100s (not just one hundred) of light years away with a setup similar to SETI's top experiments.

Www.seti.org/faq

Cant copy and paste on my phone but that should about get you there.

Here's that link, live:
www.seti.org...
Quite an extensive list of questions, helpfully answered.
By the way, light years are a measure of distance, not time; the distance light can travel in a year.

and the Oscar for best thread goes to...

Fabulous work and stellar information!

S&F for bringing this to our attention!

I hope we find other beings this way. The alternate could possibly be total invasion!

Let's hope we find other astro nerds instead of alien dominators.

3u40r15m
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Yeah I read some of it. And I'm just saying their is no point on the public knowing about it in the first place. Keep it simple like things have always been because people like to spin things outta control, and by the time it gets to the public by certain sources the news turns into a sci-fi film... Signals like this is nothing new, it has been going on for a long time. Thats just my 3 cents. Cool story though........

I would argue the exact opposite.

The reason that people spin things out of control is when there is a perception that information from academia, authorities, governments, corporations, etc is being kept in secret away from the eyes of the public.

The way to combat that perception is with openness and in this case there is a teachable moment about how science deals with the unknown.

Rather than turning this into another sci-fi film (though that would be pretty cool if it were anything like Contact)......I think the opposite could also happen, it could be used to demonstrate how the scientific process works.

You'd be surprised how few people understand this and since everyone is interested in aliens this would serve to illustrate that science often faces the unknown. And when it does this, the scientific process does not throw out the data, nor does it lock it away in some top secret vault. It shares it with the world, specifically other scientists through peer-reviewed published papers in hopes that someone else might make headway on the mystery.

Yes, signals similar to this one are detected all the time, but what makes this one worthy of mention are the amount of things that, if coincidental would number 4. 1) Signal detected from vicinity of star. 2) Signal exhibited Doppler shift characteristic of a true interstellar signal. 3. Signal appeared on a "magic frequency", one which was the value of pi multiplied by the frequency which corresponded with the radio emission line of hydrogen. 4. The signal was extremely narrowband, as such not produced by something natural since there are no known natural sources of extremely narrowband signals.

Despite all this, the SETI world did not scream that it found aliens. This shows how proper science works to verify a non-natural explanation for something unusual, as opposed to what goes on in psuedoscience which often lacks similar rigor.

Had this gotten more attention it would have perhaps made a lot of people smarter, not dumber in terms of how science works.