SETI May Have Detected Intelligent Radio Signal from Strange Dimming Star!

"KIC 8462852 has, regarding extensive media speculation on this matter, had comparison drawn by Steve Howell of the Kepler telescope's planet hunting project with KIC 4110611, another star with an odd light curve (which proved, after years of research, to be a part of a five-star system)" quoted from wikipedia.. I tried looking for graphs of the light curves for the planet Steve Howell was speaking of to see if they were similar to the graphs given on this site of the light dips (www.slate.com...) But sadly couldn't find them. or any info regarding KIC 4110611....

Anyways here are some facts I found online:
This star is around 1000 degrees Kelvin hotter than our sun (KIC 8462852 being 6750 +/- 120 K) (Sun being 5778 K).
Has a radius 1.54 times our sun's radius
Has a mass that is 1.43 times our sun's mass

If anything built a dyson sphere or ring around this star, they would be GODS compared to us. Leading me to think that this is most likely something that can be explained by astrological phenomena that we just do not understand yet. I'd say this explains everything really well to give a more clear understanding (www.dailymail.co.uk...) even though I hate dailymail

Also, if this is something created by an extraterrestrial civilization, its highly likely they will already have known about us if they had the technology to build something of that magnitude. Since they would have had to mastered highly advanced space transportation to travel the 2pi times 3 nonillion (3x10^30) Km [the circumference of the star] to build one ring around the star. Food for thought-The speed of light is around 300,000 Km/second.

a reply to: condition

Also, if this is something created by an extraterrestrial civilization, its highly likely they will already have known about us if they had the technology to build something of that magnitude.

Or, as they are finding in quantum physics, when you observe something, it changes slightly. They could pick up on being observed, telling them where we are.

If it is intelligent life, I'm curious about how far back we're seeing/hearing. And if they're doing the same, what would they be seeing or hearing and from how long ago? Can anyone do the math.


A bit off topic but wondering if physics/math folks have any ideas about this.

I don't know if time travel will ever be possible. But I've always wondered if you could send a really powerful telescope through a wormhole or something and point it back at earth, record what it sees and somehow bring it back, would we be able to watch actual history?

a reply to: condition

No. No, please. I don't want "logic" and "reason" brought to this. I *want* this to be exotic and alien-based!

In all honesty, I'm joking -- you're probably very correct and I have a high, though sad, confidence that this is completely explainable through natural phenomena.

I do wish that natural phenomena was aliens, though

originally posted by: FutureWarrior
a reply to: xoenneox

In response to compressing that power, could you imagine how they would look at us? Our only real action where we attempt to compress power in every day life is electrical transformers, where we step up or down the voltage of a current. This would look like cave men discovering fire to them. (If that were the case)

Mister/ma'am, what do we know, so far?
Look, imagine civ that is more advanced from us by c.a.1.5k years.
They probably still did not got over simple physics rules, but sophisticated light communication.
NOW here's question: what, if interstellar journeys STILL are not possible?
Look, my thought is like this: if our, and THEIR physics rules are the same, someone like GOD made our A-AQUA-riums.
We wil never meet, regadless off physics advancement..ok?
Look - if 1.5k years couldn't make a progress to physics' rules.....think aboit it...maybe we are divided to live inside our own aquariums ONLY, because physics ius definitely limited, AND nothing can help us to meet other's living beings aquariums....
This is my thought, ok?
Sorry for my fleeeble english...I hope you got what I tried to share...
Maybe we are limited to our aquariums...physics may really be so limited...for reason...
to create GOD.
SCARY, ok?

p.s. omg...this is very feeeble english+beer usage...i'll try to make it more readable...
I bet that such dudes like phage will score more...soon.

originally posted by: thisguy2I don't know if time travel will ever be possible. But I've always wondered if you could send a really powerful telescope through a wormhole or something and point it back at earth, record what it sees and somehow bring it back, would we be able to watch actual history?

A mirroring effect would be kind of neat if it could be discovered. Stranger things have happened and it is sort of fun to imagine

originally posted by: thisguy2
If it is intelligent life, I'm curious about how far back we're seeing/hearing.

We're observing events in the system from 1500 years ago. We're already speculating as to what we're looking at from 1500 years ago, projecting all these theories 1500 years would prove pretty fruitless.

originally posted by: 0bserver1
a reply to: MystikMushroom


Another thing, it seems to be a binary star system . Something I thought about before , why use your primary star to put a dyson sphere around?

Just speculating for fun...What if their primary planet was orbiting the binary star and dimming the sister star nearby via a dyson sphere was a necessary first step toward terra-forming and occupying a second planet or multiple planets in their system?

originally posted by: condition
Also, if this is something created by an extraterrestrial civilization, its highly likely they will already have known about us if they had the technology to build something of that magnitude. Since they would have had to mastered highly advanced space transportation to travel the 2pi times 3 nonillion (3x10^30) Km [the circumference of the star] to build one ring around the star. Food for thought-The speed of light is around 300,000 Km/second.

From what I understood the light blockage is not uniform but periodical, suggesting whatever it is is, its not a complete ring around the star? If that would be the case (I might have understood it wrong) why would they need to go around the star ? All they would need is to build the structure piece it in one place, and let it orbit, then just repeat the process.

a reply to: xoenneox

Why do You assume that interstellar journey is not possible for them ? Let me try this analogy. Around the globe flight is pretty common nowadays. Have You been to Zimbabwe lately ? Vietnam ? Siberia ? Maybe they do travel a lot, around a different part of sky, maybe this part here is just not to interesting Of course this is pure speculation that there is any highly advanced civ out there

a reply to: Indigo5
Then you need all the energy to achieve such a goal if you want to speed up the progress I would think? So it could be useful if you got a second star to draw the energy from.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: xXGriMe

Who9 knows what we could accomplish here if we set aside our petty differences and worked together to advance humanity instead of countries spending themselves into debt so they can feel superior to other countries.

For all we know this civilization is at the same level we are just more advanced when it comes to working together.

In our history war has always advanced our tech to its limits. Some would argue that in times of peace there is very little advancement. I really do believe at some point the world will be united but not because we have evolved past war, rather it will be required to defend our earth from another planetary threat. Maybe im just being cynical but the only data we have is our own history. If you really want to think about all life we know behaves like this.

originally posted by: Thill
a reply to: xoenneox

"Have You been to Zimbabwe lately ? Vietnam ? Siberia ? "

this is beautiful. Made my day! Gonna use this example when talking about this subject to my friends =)

originally posted by: slip2break

originally posted by: thisguy2I don't know if time travel will ever be possible. But I've always wondered if you could send a really powerful telescope through a wormhole or something and point it back at earth, record what it sees and somehow bring it back, would we be able to watch actual history?

A mirroring effect would be kind of neat if it could be discovered. Stranger things have happened and it is sort of fun to imagine

originally posted by: thisguy2
If it is intelligent life, I'm curious about how far back we're seeing/hearing.

We're observing events in the system from 1500 years ago. We're already speculating as to what we're looking at from 1500 years ago, projecting all these theories 1500 years would prove pretty fruitless.

Thanks for the info. 1500 years is hard to think about in terms of technology as a human.

We can talk about and learn about history but I honestly don't think people can comprehend time outside of their short lifetime.

I really don't like this so-called science elitists culture that thinks we have or mostly have it all figured out.

Look how far we've come in a short time and how many ideas and theories have changed in 1500 years or just the last 50.

a reply to: xXGriMe

Reagan said the exact same thing.

Then again, if it is extraterrestrial life, then it would have to be an incredibly advanced technological civilization. History shows us what happened to the Mesoamerican's when they came into contact with Europe, I hope our curiosity doesn't lead to something like this...

It surely is an exciting space discovery yet still nothing is of certain about what it is.

My take on this is until another one with such similar, bizarre appearance is detected,
it's probably something we don't yet understand about how stars evolve or change over time maybe affected by some unknown origin.

The reason being if there's an advanced alien civilization out there capable of harnessing the power of distant stars,
more stars with such anomaly should be found elsewhere in space, but there's nothing else as of yet.

a reply to: chosonone

Why if there is one must there be another? I think Carl Sagan estimated maybe 10 intelligent species in our galaxy. I understand he did this before we knew about all the exoplanets. But, even if it is a 100, given our limited ability to see stars in our galaxy, and our inability to see something like this in another galaxy, I would not expect to discover anything like this until now if it was artificial.

We are probably 100s if not a thousand years away from building asteroid size planet structures in space. Perhaps rather than being a Dyson sphere, what is really happening is that as the population expands artificial living space is built in space in and around the home planet. If minerals can be obtained from asteroids or comments within the solar system to support the life then it makes it is not a complete sphere as some theorized, but something that grows gradually. Rather than moving on to other planets in other systems, they have determined they want to stay home until there star nears end life and they absolutely have to move, i.e. family and species are important to them.

I am guessing the real thrust to get off the earth will only come as a direct answer to the imminent demise of our planet. It will be cheaper and easier to expand the available living space in and around our world than to move the entire civilization. Because this is hard, if there are 100 intelligent species in the galaxy, only 1 in 10 will ever be able to do this. We could be far enough away from the other 10 we never detect them. This star is only 1% away from us in terms of the size of our galaxy, yet is near the limit of what we can reliably observe.

a reply to: dougie6665
I just have hard time believing that this unknown thing is of artificial structure or built by aliens.

It'd be highly unlikely for a technologically advanced civilization to build just one and stop.
They wouldn't have gone extinction either because of such a Godly tech capabilities they have, it'd make us putting up orbiting satellites look like an infant's toy.

We've sent out space probes and will never stop exploring outer space. Why would we stop unless we're completely wiped out and destroyed to nothingness

It'd be more likely to find some gigantic alien satellites orbiting their stars like what we're doing before we detect something like a Dyson sphere. That's why I don't believe that aliens would exhaust all energies of building a structure almost completely surrounding a star, because that's not how a technically advanced alien civilization would plan. All they need are orbiting satellites that are powerful enough to suck all energy out of a star.

I have been reading about this story from multiple outlets and this thread as well. I think what ever it is none the less is interesting. Is it an advance alien race that has found some way to harness the power of the star in their solar system? Who knows. Is it just a really rare/unique natural phenomenon? Who knows.

What I think if it is artificial is we are seeing roughly 1500 years in to the past. So for all we know we could be seeing the start of either some sort of a Dyson Sphere or Swarm. Maybe multiple probes aligning to make giant solar panels. We might have just caught the time when maybe they started this project? Since the size of the star would make a connected Dyson Sphere seem pretty hard least looking at it from our current technological standpoint. Maybe the radio signal (if there is one I have read that there was one and there wasn't so I am open to either) could be from one of the probes with solar panels. Maybe said potential civilization was in the process of trying to get the required power needed for a mass exodus from their home world and something went wrong or they got what they needed.

All in all I find it interesting and wonder what happen 1500 years ago be it alien or just some unknown phenomenon that we happen to notice that is rare. It would be cool if it in fact is/was an alien race though then we have to try to figure out are they still even there? We at least at the current time don't really have any way to send a reply that wouldn't take 1500 years for one reply and after such distance the message would probably be hard to figure out due to natural effects from space. Now if we could find some way of communication that could break the speed of light via quantum mechanics or something would be interesting however as far as I know we don't have such tech at least that is available and stable and can travel distances of more then a couple feet.

I suspect it has a close orbiting companion Red Dwarf star blocking its light periodically.