Possible Signs of Extraterrestrial Intelligence Found

a reply to: punkinworks10

Really good book I also recommended reading it.

a reply to: neoholographic

the article doesn't say a DEFINITE extraterrestrial signal was found, it says A POSSIBLE signal was found because current observation matched a previous prediction.

One example on a chart was given, more than one source was found. Many more. To presume they are all doing the same thing unknown to each other, 'looking for each other' all at the same technological time frame makes me lean more to stars being the source, not other civilizations.

Besides a single ping is not 'communication', its a waste of energy.

Recognizing that any initial detection may be incomplete or ambiguous and thus require careful examination as well as confirmation, and that it is essential to maintain the highest standards of scientific responsibility and credibility,

SETI.org - Protocols for an ETI Signal Detection.

Linking two papers together to create a little revenue? Maybe when the SKA is operational these signals will be verified as an actual unknown natural process. Kind of like how LHC had "data bumps" that disappeared at higher power settings.

a reply to: intrptr



a reply to: TheKnightofDoom

Cool! Something to add to the reading list! (thanks punkinworks for the spoiler alert!)

As far as i read the paper, i have a couple of issues.

The treatment of the data seems a little bit bias, natural sources of flux modulation is almost entirely ignored, the claim of no instrumental effects is given no treatment at all, and i find that quite interesting because unless the data is taken with the same instrument (not stipulated) then there will be systematic differences between the data sets. There are two datasets being used.

The 'supporting' analysis is another paper of the author of this paper, which is fine, except it is very quickly swept under the carpet to say "it is 100% accepted" so again i find the assumption troubling. Not only that but a secondary 'supporting paper' was published in 1992... which is interesting because if you know about observations of stars, telescopes with fast enough digital sensitivity basically didn't exist. Exposures are in the may seconds basically mean it is impossible to take the measurement in a useful manner.

Now if it is a radio, again the resolution isn't that good.

I suspect, given the way that the FFT goes up at higher frequencies and the example traces, it looks increasingly like instrumentation noise.

Again the explanation of what is being done is quite dodgy, maybe i need to read it a couple of times, but for me it doesn't look like a hugely strong paper

a reply to: ErosA433

The use of big words without much discussion of the data is what kind of made me question what was presented. Then the link to the 2012 paper as if it is established fact made think "confirmation bias".

As SETI stated in the protocol post above, "highest standards of scientific responsibility and credibility" need to followed and I feel that they might not be following their own standards in this newest paper.

Thank you for the non-rushed and well thought out post!

Could it be coronal mass ejection waves from a star, after like magnetic poles of two solar flares collide together?

a reply to: Erno86


From what I understand the problem with that position is the number of stars in question and the issues brought earlier in the thread.

For what it's worth. Dr. Korpela of SETI at Berkeley is somewhat less than impressed with the published article. Couple takeaways from reading his response:
1) There's no mention of a confirmation, and a confirmation could have been done with equipment as small as a 1-meter radio telescope.
2) The periodicity of the signal is incredibly small - 1.65 picoseconds. Picoseconds are trillionths of a second.
3) He lists 3 possible mistakes that could - to his mind - produce the published results.
4) BreakthroughListen will attempt confirmation through the use of the Automated Planet Finder to obtain high-resolution spectra.

Source: Yet another probable non-detection of ET

a reply to: Erno86

No. They said they ruled out natural generated.


a reply to: PrairieShepherd

Hey, thanks for the extra info!

I am starting to think along the lines ErosA433 and being measurement issues instead of ETI generated signals. This info adds to the "nothing to see here" crowd which is kind of a bummer. So want the disclosure announcement...

Kinda HOPING for pics of RUINS finally coming out of the closet...

a reply to: PrairieShepherd

Correct. This needs to be confirmed with another observational instrument which has a distinct and different data reduction pipeline.

In numerical methods there can be all sorts of obscure random glitches which occur in rare circumstances---and by looking for rare events in your search you might inadvertently filter for these glitches.

a reply to: mbkennel

And typically by some other team. Double blind test/black box test that type of verification is best. The arXiv article may be the "guy in his mom's basement" creating a free-energy device for all we know!

Different team, different instruments, different data set, same conclusion would be waaayyyy better and may make me slink back over to the "true believer" camp!

The paper will be published by PASP. (Publication) of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP).

Has a catchy title as well: Signals probably from Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Analysis of 2.5 million SDSS spectra found signals predicted in a previous publication in only 234 stars overwhelmingly in the F2 to K1 spectral range

All according to the notes at arXiv.org

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
The paper will be published by PASP. (Publication) of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP).

Has a catchy title as well: Signals probably from Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Analysis of 2.5 million SDSS spectra found signals predicted in a previous publication in only 234 stars overwhelmingly in the F2 to K1 spectral range

All according to the notes at arXiv.org

Wow, this is a pretty big deal. Like I said earlier, it's just science because these signals match an earlier prediction and now their needs to be replication and further study of these signals.

You can't stress these updated comments enough:

Comments: Accepted for publication by PASP: Signals probably from Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Analysis of 2.5 million SDSS spectra found signals predicted in a previous publication in only 234 stars overwhelmingly in the F2 to K1 spectral range

This could be species out there that have reached or surpassed our level of intelligence and like the article said we have the technology to send out a signal as well.

Now let me put on my sci-fi cap. What if these signals are from civilizations that consume and take over other civilizations and this is how they find civilizations to take over. We send out a signal and it's like a big neon sign:

HEY WE'RE HERE, COME AND GET US!

So we shouldn't jump to send out are own signal until we know more.

a reply to: neoholographic

Reached or surpassed our level of technology as intelligence can be separate (like those funny u-tube videos can attest to).

I am not so certain this is a "confirmation" on anything... yet. Did you happen to notice it was the same guy quoting his own paper from 2012 (that is where ETI is mentioned)? That is where I throw out the anchor and say "Whoa! Time to slow down." So as mentioned before, independent data, independent team, same results, then you might have something.

A guy quoting his own predicted results is not great science and is probably the reason you cannot star your own post here on ATS!


Pssst - did you see the Stanford Ising machine announcement? ATS over here. I know you like the new tech and this is a first.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Intelligence and technology is interchangable when you're talking about advanced civilizations. If a civilizations has quantum computer laptaps they have surpassed us in intelligence.

I think it's confirmation that science is taking the existence of extraterrestriale life very seriously and it has become a plausible explanation for observed evidence. That's a good thing. Like I said this has to be independently confirmed and replicated but this is science.

Also, I don't find it odd that it's the same guy because nobody else bothered to look. He released a very good paper in 2012 but nobody tested his predictions. Probably because it deals with extraterrestrials. The good thing is, now they will look and more eyes will be on this searching for any flaw.

On a side note, if you assume this is correct, it says a lot about intelligent civilizations in the universe.

2.5 million stars were studied and they found 234 signals that matched the prediction. That's about .00009.

There's about 100 billion stars per galaxy so that's about 90 million intelligent civilizations in the galaxy that have reached our level of technology.

The entire universe has about 1 billion trillion stars and some say it's even higher at 20 billion trillion. If there's1 billion trillion stars in the observable universe there could be 90 quadrillion intelligent civilizations in the universe and this only includes those civilizations that have reached our level of technology.

Of course this is just pure speculation. They could look at the next 2.5 million stars and just find 40 of these signals or they could look at the next 2.5 million stars and find 400 of these signals.

At the end of the day, I'm about 98% sure that extraterrestrial life exists in the universe based on the observed evidence. The universe is fined tuned for life just like it's fined tune to give us stars, moons, planets and galaxies. There's no special ingredient on earth that's precluded from happening anywhere else in the universe.

These things repeat in our universe because of these constants and there's no reason why life wouldn't repeat in a universe as vast as ours. If you had an infinite set of poker hands things like a full house or three of a kind would repeat because these are the rules of poker. In our universe there's rules and values that give us things that will continue to repeat because they have to based on these rules and values and life isn't immune to this repeating.

a reply to: neoholographic

I am with you on ETI existing out there. I will go as far as saying 100% positive THEY exist. And I think that the Drake Equations is off and your maths sound more likely than the stuffy (and old) Drake formula.

The strange aspect of our universe is the fact that life seems tuned to it! If one of the physical constants was off by just a bit... gravity would not hold galaxies together, proteins and amino acids could not form, heck even water would not exist. That is one of the wonderments of my life. It almost makes me want to believe in a Creator. But then the vastness of everything sinks in and the quingillion (Douglas Adams) stars and the vastness of space appears in my prefrontal cortex then I start to drool! Then my thoughts go to multiple universes and this happens to be one that works. Then I jump to the simulation hypothesis because we would not notice the difference. Which makes US the aliens enjoying a simulation of being human when the humans went through a rough patch of their history (which is my assumption on the simulation hypothesis--we are living a past civilization's history).

Even if the simulation hypothesis is totally wrong, the entire universe seems to be self-similar (you can use the word 'fractal' if you like or the alchemist saying 'as above, so below'). And our science is finally catching up to displaying this. The quantum world will be mastered soon. WE will become the aliens to our own planet. Once the quanta and 2D materials are mastered we become gods of this little planet. And once we decide to leave... wouldn't you want to leave behind a recording showing how messed up things got before we overcame those hostile tendencies? Which is one of the reasons why I do not worry about politics... we are watching someone else's history. Or maybe that is in the future. IDK.

I hope this is not confirmation bias because we need to kick the door down to our narrow view of life here on earth. We need to appreciate what we have, cherish the moment, and be committed to bringing everybody along for the ride. That is what I hope this "discovery" kicks off in people--we are not alone and we we need to get our # together before the rest of the galactic civilization accepts us as equals.

BTW, did you notice that you echoed a concern of the army from Contact from your other post? "What if these are blue prints to create some kind of door and the Martian army comes flooding in when we turn it on?" That is one reason to read sci-fi is to ponder the unknown.

Direct evidence of advanced life in our Island Universe?

We already have that and otherwise known as humans.

Otherwise we have indirect evidence of life upon several Moons in our Solar System.

Its time to seriously look into that.

From the context of current thinking the "Universe" is anywhere between 80 to 156 billion light years wide.


In relation to understanding our universe we comprehend about 3% to 8% of it.


Roughly speaking.

a reply to: neoholographic


From a really ultra-conservative stances at the very least their is one Civilization per Galaxy as advanced as we are or more advanced, in consideration to the Drake Equation.

So, a few things, does anyone remember a few months ago, when the POTUS was doing an interview, and the interviewer asked if we had made contact with aliens, His reply was something to the effect of," No, we have not OFFICIALLY made contact with an alien race. NOT OFFICIALLY made contact. HMMMM

And also a couple of months ago a team postulated that the reason we dont see evidence out there is that we might be some of the first ones. There reasoning is that in the first few billion years of the universe, it was so energetic that life would have had a hard time taking root, and when it did it was likley to sterilized on a galactic scale by the effects of extremely highly enrgetic events, like colliding super massive black holes. It wasnt until those massive and energetic young stars burned out that the universe was calm enough to support higher order life.