Aliens have been trying to contact us by cosmic Twitter, scientists claim

Aliens have been trying to contact us by cosmic Twitter, scientists claim

www.telegraph.co.u k

ET is more likely to be sending out short, directed messages than continuous signals beamed in all directions, experts said.

''This approach is more like Twitter and less like War and Peace,'' said Californian physicist Dr James Benford, president of Microwave Sciences Inc.

He and twin brother Gregory, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Irvine, looked at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) from the aliens' point of view.

They concluded that Seti scientists may have been taking the wrong approach for the past five decades.

Up to now scientists h

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Extraterrestrials trying to send us a twitter, How bizarre a metaphor, in the likelyhood that its true then maybe we need to get the moderators to fix the glitch because were not seeing thier twitter feeds.

Anyway analagy's aside, i find this a very interesting theory. and i cant wait to see if anything is done to get a new result into finding signals in space.

Heres to hoping

Kind Regards
True-seer

www.telegraph.co.u k
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reply to post by True-seer


i kind of laughed at the title but that aside its not a bad theory, i'm eager to hear what people have to say on this.

It makes sense.

If they're looking for life, they're not going to send out signals all over the cosmos, in all/random directions.

They're going to do what we are doing: Locating where suitable planets orbit known stars.

Once they master how to locate exoplanets, they begin this "twitter" tactic of beaming signals and messages directly at these locations.

Pinpointing your effort makes sense in the vastness of the cosmos.

reply to post by MarkusMaximus


It does make alot of sense and if any alien race is based like ours its obviously going to cost a lot of resources to send signals so the twitter tactic is also more economic

Originally posted by True-seer
reply to post by MarkusMaximus

 

It does make alot of sense and if any alien race is based like ours its obviously going to cost a lot of resources to send signals so the twitter tactic is also more economic

True, and it seems like evaluating possible responses from all over the cosmos would be prohibitively expensive and difficult.

But keeping an eye on places that your detection methods tell you are suitable for life as you know it AND have actual planets/moons......This is definitely the best bet.

Who says that scientists aren't influenced by social advances...

More Likely?

We don't even necessarily the mode that a communication would come in much less how they would opt to communicate...

Their notion is more based on our own perceptions than an objective reasoning of possibilities...pffft...

IMHO this is just a sensationalist claim with a twist on modern culture. Next thing you know, there'll be an article "Aliens are posting their party pix on cosmic Facebook". Duh.

In reality, it's pretty impossible to have a 4 PI solid angle coverage of the sky at all times. Having a transient signal from a point in space make is all the more difficult to discern it. So on the surface of it, I tend to disagree.

reply to post by True-seer

Hysterically funny. They don't need to send blips and beeps. They are right here.

I don't know...If you evaluate the behavior of organisms, you see PATTERNS evolve.

And on a long enough time scale, the patterns appear sociological.

Some of you dismiss modern communication habits as fads...

Others see these changes as EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION.

Think about it....we communicate differently as we become more advanced.

So these guys might have stated is that what we've seen happen to communication between humans on earth is something that can be applied (as an evolutionary behavior) to other races/civilizations.

And no, I'm not a twitter user. LOL

[edit on 22-7-2010 by MarkusMaximus]

The scientist makes a good point about searching more towards the centre of the Milky Way rather than the closer stars, where the stars are older and possibly harber more advanced civilizations capable of communication.

About the pulsed and narrow signals, if a credible idea, makes you think back at the WOW signal doesn't .

I've always been a firm believer that if there is life elsewhere in our galaxy and in the universe, we cannot expect it to be something that we may recognize.
Just because we think we have a good bead on things doesn't mean we should stick only to what we know.
We have to expand our scope and consider all possibilities.
Communication might not even be as forthright as we believe it to be.
For all we know, other civilizations have already made numerous contacts with other species, and are really in no hurry to find more, let alone us.
We have to be diligent though, and look under every rock so to speak.
There is no doubt that there are myriads of ways to communicate over vast distance that we may have never even thought of.

Hypothetically, Imagine for a minute, that the highly energetic stream of a black hole jet could be utilized to carry a signal.
Would we even know to look there?

That's my point.

funny title but it only makes sense that as curious as we are about other civilizations, they would also be curious about other life.

also i have a question which im sure someone knows the answer.. we have SETI that listens for signals from other beings, but do we have anything SENDING signals??

reply to post by amadeus30


Thier has been signals sent on several occasions i think.

But were always broadcasting our tv signals and they are all over space.

Yeah, it's likely they would do that...

...that's if a truly intelligent (we might be using that word wrong) ET civilization would want to contact a species like ours. If they were benevolent, that is. It's all speculation, of course.

Perhaps many advanced ET civs have already made contact with other civilizations/lifeforms (ours or something even scarier) and discovered you can attract all sorts of nasties and finally ended up learning it wasn't wise to yell in the jungle, as Hawking questioned. The possibilities for the amount and variation of life that could be out there are mind-boggling, after all. Judging our own race, wouldn't it be wise to tread lightly in the jungle instead of waving a big flag saying we are here?? Seems insane to me!

[edit on 22-7-2010 by Balkan]

[edit on 22-7-2010 by Balkan]

if seti scientists are not in the et communicato loop by this late date they might as well call it a wrap---go home and get some sleep. dont bother beaming scotty up again, guess ets are not interested in your intentions mr. and mrs.seti. do the math. say good nite gracie.

Why do scientists and others assume that ET would even be using radio waves to communicate? I never understood that!

I have the feeling that radiocom is a primitive form of communications in the grand scheme of things and is transient at best.

Not saying some wouldn't use them, but I don't think it's as prevalent and ubiquitous as others think.

We still haven't figured out if the whole ESP/telepathy-thing is true. And how about communications on a quantum level?

Just my 2 cents.

[edit on 7/22/2010 by impaired]

reply to post by True-seer


Man, i hope they aren't actually reading the crap we put on there.

"I'm in the bathroom"
"So in2 diz shawty"
"Scooping out guys on campus"

All tweets from the last 15 minutes I have seen. They are going to discover we are raging idiots!

reply to post by impaired


Because it's probably the most basic form of long range communication it makes sense that if you're trying to reach distant civilisations you use the most basic type of communication incase the other civs are not as advanced as your own and therefore increase the likelyhood of getting your message found!

The whole premise of the "twitter like" signals might hold some water especially with the "WOW" signal SETI found in 77.

The problems begin to surface when it comes to deciphering the message, if there is indeed a message at all.

[edit on 22/7/10 by Discotech]

reply to post by Discotech


This is a good point. Thanks!