Laser-like signal coming from Tucanae (not Gliese 581e)???

I don't know how you ATS'ers missed this one. And if this has been posted before, then "a-duh"...

I was just strolling through Wikipedia, you know, looking up the awesome solar system of Gliese 581, and I almost fell off my chair when I saw this:

Astrophysicist Ragbir Bhathal at the University of Western Sydney discovered a "suspicious" laser-like signal coming from the coordinates of Gliese 581 e during a SETI sweep. Bhathal is still investigating the signal and scanning the coordinates for a repeat detection.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hey, I'm not one to get too excited on this one (even though I am itching for disclosure or a landing), but this could be something, no???

Unless we get laser-like signals coming from other stars and star systems...

I don't know... I'm not going to lie, I think I am rather excited about this... Even though we won't be able to go over there and say what's up, I'm still pretty stoked.

And this is during a SETI sweep???

This is from Wikipedia... Not the Weekly World News or that other one that said they found an angel carving on the moon. This is a reputable source and citated...

Here's the citation as well:

www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

Enjoy!

Edit for grammar... Maybe I should proofread!!!!

[edit on 5/15/2009 by impaired]

I'm sorry we dropped the ball on this one.

If it becomes redundant, it still could be many things, but if its a message or something similar. It will be swept under the carpet, and noone will hear about it.

Interesting indeed. Nothing more since December but still...

Here's a bit about optical SETI.
www.skyandtelescope.com...

Now, I understand that E is outside the habitable zone, but if I may speculate, maybe it's coming from C (which is likely to be terrestrial)...
I mean, our technology isn't advanced to the point that we could pinpoint the EXACT location.
So, all I'm saying is that hopefully it's coming from C. And hopefully there are more (not just signals, but planets orbiting Gliese 581, for they keep finding more and more from that system)...
With the technology we have to find exosolar planets, have you noticed they are all mostly hot Jupiters and/or gas giants??? And (I could be wrong) aren't they all (the ones we have found) very close to it's star? Perhaps those are the only kinds that we can detect at the moment.

I have a very big and good feeling that Kepler is gonna find a crapload of terrestrial planets... AND more Jupiter-like planets...
I have a feeling (just a feeling - nothing more) that it's gonna shoot up to over 1,000 exosolar planets (detected) by 2012...

intriguing.

id like to see how this one pans out. any idea how seriously SETI are taking this?

NICE FIND!
from wikipedia "Bhathal is still investigating the signal and scanning the coordinates for a repeat detection" I hope there is a repeat, that's cool.

Originally posted by digdeep
intriguing.

id like to see how this one pans out. any idea how seriously SETI are taking this?

I don't know... The article linked from Wikipedia says (at least about the dude who found it):

But when Ragbir Bhathal, an astrophysicist at the University of Western Sydney, who teaches the only university-based course on SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) in Australia, detected the suspicious signal on a clear night last December, he knew better than to crack open the special bottle of champagne he has tucked away for the history-making occasion.

Instead, he's spent the past few months meticulously investigating whether the unrecognised signature was caused by a glitch in his instrumentation, a rogue astrophysical phenomenon, or some unknown random noise.

Even if he picks up the signal again - he's been scouring the same co-ordinates of the night sky on an almost daily basis since - the scientific rule book dictates he'll need to get it peer-reviewed before he can take his announcement to the world. "And that is a lot of ifs," he concedes.

It's a very long article, maybe I missed something (I'll bet I did).

But he's a bit skeptical about it, which is cool. Once he gets a repeat, then he'll be dancing... Hopefully we will be kept updated...

And this article is only from May 9th! Awesome. It just happened, so maybe we will get a repeat soon (wishful thinking)...

From the moment this went on the internet or he made calls referring to this, then alphabet boys are monitoring this simultaneously. If it is something out of the ordinary then its classified as National Security and thats the end of it.

There are only two ways disclosure will come about.

1 If the governments agree to do so

2 If they land on the front lawn of the white house or some other part of the world.

Originally posted by tristar
From the moment this went on the internet or he made calls referring to this, then alphabet boys are monitoring this simultaneously. If it is something out of the ordinary then its classified as National Security and thats the end of it.

There are only two ways disclosure will come about.

1 If the governments agree to do so

2 If they land on the front lawn of the white house or some other part of the world.

I don't know... I'm with you like 70%, but the other 30 is me thinking things like why would they send the Kepler out there in the first place? Why are they letting us know about exosolar planets also? I'm not saying disclosure is going to happen or it isn't, but things like this could be the spring-board to it...
I could see them denying UFO and ET (directly), but like I said, maybe these are all the opening bands, and we are awaiting the main band.
Oh how cool that would be!
Just me dreaming. Probably. Only time will tell...
All I can say at the moment is GO KEPLER!

I'd like to see the actual signal... Not discounting this one bit. I have a feeling someone could find something in that signal he missed.....

After going to the movies last weekend this puts my mind into Trek mode.


Could this be a signal from us?

Oh the possibilities....

Originally posted by impaired
Now, I understand that E is outside the habitable zone, but if I may speculate, maybe it's coming from C (which is likely to be terrestrial)...

That's based on our understanding of what's habitable. There could be life out there existing that may thrive in environments that we can't even imagine.

[edit on 15-5-2009 by AvidWatcher]

This is extremely interesting if it's true. Of course with our luck it will be something unpleasant.

1) A targeting laser for the doomsday device already on it's way here.

2) An advertisement for viagra.

Yup I see it now interplanetary spam, just what I need these days.

Wiki isn't considered an "official" source. It's written by it's members who are just people like you and me posting stuff on the Internet. Sometimes the info is dead on and other times it isn't.

I did a search for SETI & Gliese 581 and came up with a page from the SETI Institute that mentions the planet. The following quote is from that page. According to SETI they haven't found a signal but they did look twice.

Source: www.seti.org...

The conditions for life could be there, but is life itself? As yet, there’s no way to know unless the planet has spawned beings that are at least as clever as we are. As part of the SETI Institute’s Project Phoenix, we twice aimed large antennas in the direction of Gliese 581, hoping to pick up a signal that would bespeak technology. The first attempt was made in 1995, using the Parkes radio telescope in Australia, and two years later additional observations were undertaken using the 140-foot antenna in Green Bank, West Virginia.

Neither search turned up a signal. But of course, the extraterrestrials might have been off the air when we were listening. Maybe their transmitter power was insufficient for our receivers, or perhaps the bandwidth we covered, from about 1,200 to 3,000 MHz, was the wrong part of the dial. There are many ways not to find an alien broadcast, but the Allen Telescope Array, now being built, will greatly improve our ability to more thoroughly scrutinize this world – and hundreds of thousands of others.

reply to post by LazyGuy


Well, look at the date of the article you just posted:

Planet of Promise:
Small, Rocky World Could Harbor Life
May 17, 2007
by Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute

Almost 2 years ago to the date.
Wikipedia is only off when the citations are screwed up, no? This is from The Austrailian, and the date of the article is 5/9/09
But I'm gonna google the Astrophysist who found it to see if there's info that corroborates with my OP.

reply to post by LazyGuy

The "hit" found by Ragbir Bhatha was last December. It was not made with a radio telescope but by optical detection.
Please see the article I linked above regarding optical SETI.

That would be one hell of a laser blast. If they're there I really hope they're nice.


[edit on 5/15/2009 by Phage]

Well, as far as a search on Google about the incident itself - nothing much...
But I got a bio on the guy:

DR RAGBIR BHATHAL
Dr Ragbir Bhathal is an award winning author and
astrophysicist, who carries out research in Australian science
studies, physics and astronomy at the University of Western
Sydney Macarthur. He was the recipient of the prestigious Nancy Keesing
Fellowship in 1996, by the State Library of New South Wales. This was to carry out a major study on the scientific life and letters of Australia’s most famous 19th century astronomer, John Tebbutt. His recent book, Australian Astronomers:
Achievements at the frontiers of astronomy, published by the National Library of Australia, was on the best seller’s list. In launching the book in Canberra, the President of the Australian Academy of Science, Sir Gustav Nossal said that the publication was "an important and major book on science and astronomy in Australia".
Dr Bhathal teaches physics and astronomy and was Foundation Chairman of the SETI Australia Centre at the University of Western Sydney Macarthur. He teaches the only University based course on SETI (Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) in any Australian University. Called Astronomy and Life in the Universe the course is one of the most popular courses at the University and attracts students not only from the Faculty of Science but also from the business, health, humanities and law faculties. A member of the International SETI Committee of the International Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics and
was the Chairman of the International and Local Organising Committees of the Conference on SETI in the 21st Century. This was the first international conference in the world to discuss the scientific and social aspects of SETI. He is Chairman and Project Director of the Campbelltown Observatory at the University and is working on optical SETI with a group of scientists. He is also Foundation Chairman of the Australia-Singapore Centre and a Councilor of the University of Western Sydney Macarthur Council and is also the Foundation President of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (NSW Chapter).
A member of the academic staff of the University of Singapore before becoming Foundation Director of the Singapore Science Centre, a "science museum of influence in the 20th century", he was a member of the senior management team that built the Power House Museum. He was the Foundation Head of the Science and Technology Division and was responsible for the supervision of the design and construction of the science and technology displays in the Museum, and was appointed as Project Director of the Sydney Observatory building restoration
and exhibit programs.
Dr Bhathal served as Director on the International Board of Directors of the Association of Science and Technology Centres in Washington, USA, and was a distinguished visitor of the US State Department. He was secretary of the Singapore National Academy of Science and the Singapore Association for the Advancement of Science of which he is a Fellow. He was Foundation President of the Singapore Society of Science Writers.
Appointed as adviser to the Australian Federal Minister for Science and was
asked to serve as an UNESCO consultant on science policy and to represent the Australian and Singapore governments at international conferences on the public understanding of science. He was the leader of the Singapore government delegation to the 6th Meeting of ASEAN Experts Group on marine pollution and has served on various high level committees of the Singapore government including the Science Council of Singapore, National R & D Committee, etc.
His publications include, Australian Astronomers: Achievements at the frontiers of astronomy; Under the Southern Cross: A brief history of astronomy in Australia; Australian Astronomer: John Tebbutt; Astronomy for the Higher School Certificate; Searching for ET; Australian Scientists and Inventors; Singapore Towards the Year 2000 (co-ed); Non-formal education in Singapore (co-ed); Singapore Science Fiction (co-ed); Government and University Research (co-ed); Cultural Heritage Vs Technological Development: Challenges to Education (co-ed)
and numerous papers in international journals..
He was former editor of the Singapore Scientist and a Contributing Editor of ASIA 2000 and has served as President of the Royal Society of New South Wales and was awarded the 1988 Royal Society Medal for services to science. Also, Dr. Bhathal was awarded the prestigious 1991 C. J. Dennis Award for excellence in natural history writing.

I copied and pasted that all from this .PDF:

www.seti.org.au...

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by LazyGuy

 

The "hit" found by Ragbir Bhatha was last December. It was not made with a radio telescope but by optical detection.
Please see the article I linked above regarding optical SETI.
[edit on 5/15/2009 by Phage]

And that's why we love to have you here, Phage. Sometimes I think I see only what I want to see!
Thanks for re-clarifying that.
I guess they would of detected a repeat by now...

Edit to add: But then again, all of this kind of info is delayed by months anyway. When something really does happen, it takes like 6 months for it to reach us. I guess it has to go through all kinds of protocol and not be deemed a threat to Worldwide Security (I'm taking National Security to a new level - if it even exists)...
So maybe they found the repeat, but we have to wait for it to reach our ears...
Pure pure pure speculation, of course.

[edit on 5/15/2009 by impaired]

reply to post by exile1981


First hearty laugh of the night, thank you!

I can't remember the details of astrophysics class...... it was *cough* 30+ years ago... but I seem to recall similar phenomena issuing from quasars. I could be [likely be] off-based about that.

Seems, on the other hand, that a lasar-like beam would be fairly focused, and if we detected it, might it seem reasonable to guess that it might be aimed at Earth? I wonder....... wouldn't the find have been recorded and dissected for a pattern?

I think it's very hopeful. Somehow, I think most of humanity would be more accepting and comfortable with a disclosure that indicated that contact -- verifiable contact -- had been made from a system X light-years away.

Let it be so. I hope so.

reply to post by impaired


I wouldn't give up on it quite yet. Maybe they're recharging their capacitors for another shot.
(or were recharging them...or something like that. Lightspeed delay, and all that)

[edit on 5/15/2009 by Phage]