the serious search for intelligent life in the universe

Wow! just watched this vid on space.com from members of SETI talking about how there could be alien tech in our solar system and we wouldn't know about it.

Video

Stuff like this really gets my imagination going!

Originally posted by roughycannon
Stuff like this really gets my imagination going!

And for people out there in the world on a computer either unable or unwilling to watch a video (blocked at work while on lunch break sitting at desk), would you care to add at least one word saying what the "stuff" might be?

There basically saying that aliens could be here and we would even know about it, they say that there could be stuff on the moon we haven't found yet an "obelisk" as an example, or even stuff on mars, one guy mentions that aliens could have been here billions of years ago and have "been and gone" or they could have tech in our solar system we have not detected yet...

Really weird hearing people from SETI speculating about stuff like this.

reply to post by roughycannon


SETI has been bored since they started with finding NOTHING . Surley after all that time your imagination takes over with a touch of bordeom to create whatever crazy ideas you want. People who work at SETI are humans just like you and me


How about the guys at LIGO looking for the elusive gravatational wave? Do you know what happens when you work at a place that is chasing ghosts ? lol you get bored

Oh well delete the thread then, I though the people of ATS who speculate in this kind of stuff would be interested in it...

reply to post by roughycannon


yes but have some context to your post explain why its cool , type out some of the key words and highlights in the video explain your conclusions from it explain how you feel it effects our understanding today etc etc

don't post a vid and say good luck and hope for everyone to come running to your thread


put a little effort into it

Originally posted by roughycannon
Oh well delete the thread then, I though the people of ATS who speculate in this kind of stuff would be interested in it...

On the contrary.

I enjoyed the video. Don't let those who have no imagination thwart your interests. SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence If they didn't have imagination and or participate in some sort of speculation there wouldn't be a program called SETI in the first place!

It wouldn't surprise me if that possible scenario played out the way some of the SETI members speculated. We as humans when studying other forms of life we tend to maintain our distance as to not interfere with and or contaminate the subject of interest. Also, the Universe is huge and there are plenty of planets. [We are finding new ones everyday] or so it seems. If there have been Alien visitations to Earth or at least our solar system. I don't find it all that shocking that they would do it clandestinely.

We don't know what amount of evidence [if any] are possibly yet to be discovered on the Moon, Mars or out orbiting our sun. We are still discovering new locations here on Earth of Ancient man. So if the possibility of Aliens visiting the Earth or our solar system and leaving some sort of Marker or Trash is so hard for some to fathom so be it..


There is nothing wrong with speculation IMO.
ETA: S & F

For those with the time and inclination to watch videos, here’s a much better one on the same topic.


Credit where credit is due, please. The idea of alien artefacts lurking in the Solar System is sixty years old. It is generally thought to have been first expressed in this short story.

It’s amazing what you can learn if you spend your time reading instead of watching the idiot box.

reply to post by roughycannon

OK. I watched most of it. Obviously, if you like this video you have a certain approach to this issue that some of us at ATS would consider cautious, or conservative. While others at ATS would say these SETI guys are just flapping their lips for a little cheap attention. Did you notice the little Halloween decorations on their CRT computer monitors? I thought that was a cute touch.

The not-so-hidden undertone to this whole little thing is that if you don't have a PhD in astrophysics (or something), you are not qualified to be a "serious" researcher in this area.

But the fact is that there are a considerable number of perfectly serious, intelligent people, some of them with at least as many academic "chops" as any of the people in this video, that see a LOT of evidence for what these people are laughingly speculating about right here on earth.

So, what is going on? Are we seeing the manifestation of a variety of different awareness levels on the subject? Or is there some sort of campaign going on to shape public opinion about these issues? In other words, are we witnessing a struggle to make us more aware, or a struggle to prevent us from becoming more aware?

How you answer that question provides your context in which all this information must be evaluated.

I have heard the voices and seen the faces of numerous persons who claim to have seen some "alien" entity. I have even personally met some people who have gotten uncomfortably close to Sasquatch. And I didn't see any reason why they would be deliberately trying to mislead anybody. Contrast that with the pronouncements of various military spokesmen, "researchers" with "CIA connections" and scientists who live in the shadow of the interests funding their work, and I see some possible motivation to mislead.

So I tend to place undue weight on the information provided to me by "average joes" over the smooth words of a well-funded scientist or consultant. And I get a quite different view of the "truth" as a result.

So long as it's only radio waves they keep looking for,SETI will always be a joke. Even if we did manage to discover a radio transmission it would be wireless outside of proving the existence if other life, as the transmission would've been sent millions if not hundreds of millions of years ago.
As it is we, ourselves, barely use radio as a communication format with technologies such as microwave and laser being far superior.
It's folly to assume that if there is life out there that they must use radio and only radio.

Originally posted by roughycannon
Wow! just watched this vid on space.com from members of SETI talking about how there could be alien tech in our solar system and we wouldn't know about it.

Video

Stuff like this really gets my imagination going!

This has been discussed in serious literature. Most recently, Paul Davies' excellent book The Eerie Silence raises the possibility.

The problem is that we have people who see whatever they want to see in NASA images, posting them all over the internet, thus poisoning the well.

I think I can say with some confidence that we haven't found anything like this yet, but I would be happy to see evidence to the contrary.

reply to post by disownedsky


I think you have missed the point, this isn't evidence its speculation (imagination if you like).

The people complaining make me laugh.If you cannot watch a video,then why open this thread!

reply to post by paperface

The people complaining make me laugh.If you cannot watch a video,then why open this thread!

Because we hope to read something interesting, informative and/or amusing.

Internet forums are places where people exchange text messages with each other.

Of course, people who can’t read may not realize this.

Nothing shocking here, SETI

If I was part of an advanced alien civilization, first thing that would pop in my mind is stealth. When visiting other solar systems/planets. Especially one teaming with life.

If I found earth 100 years ago, I'm sure I'd clone a few flies... or tape a miniature head unit transmiting data back to my invisible ship outside the moon.

In your living rooms. Watching u watch the price is right. Or barefoot contessa on food network.

Barefoot contessa and food network would be filed and ranked for sure.

Really weird hearing people from SETI speculating about stuff like this.

i take it you havn't really paid much attention to what people at seti have been discussing the last 50 years? The point they're making is we have to look and if we don't look we definitely wont find anything. Carl Sagan in the early 1960s speculated about alien moon bases ( before we had mapped the whole moon or sent anyone there). There could still be alien artefacts, crashed probes or beacons there.

These days they mostly speculate about the outer solar system. There could be alien probes monitoring earth the outer system has all the resources to keep them going and repair themselves. The point is if we dont look we will never find them if they exist.

Its definitely a possibility there could be ancient alien artefacts in our solar system maybe they were sent millions of years ago and haven't been working for millions of years , or there's only remains of ancient probes. The point is we have to think about these possibilities and not discount them out of hand.

other seti ideas your probably not aware of.

1. Anomalies in natural objects which may be manufactured. Pulsars with odd timings could be a sign of artificially created beacons. An advanced civ might make one and know that any intelligent civ who looks at pulsars would come across this anomaly and attract their attention.

2. Mega scale engineering projects like dyson spheres. These would give off a greater IR spectrum than a normal star and therefore possible to detect. Searches for dyson spheres have been done in the past

3. theres also a seti search for light beacons aswell as radio waves including radar