Scientists plan to send greetings to other worlds

Hope this is a good idea, there is a group pf scientist that want to send a message into deep space at a particular group of plants/stars. If the are "others" out there I hope they are friendly.

After decades of scanning the skies with nothing to show scientists want to say hello.
A new San Francisco org called METI plans to send signals to distant planets. By the end of 2018 METI plans to send the messages to a rocky planet circling Proxima Centauri, the nearest star other than the sun.

After decades of fruitless scanning the skies for alien messages, scientists say it's time to try a basic rule of etiquette: Say "hello" first.

A new San Francisco-based organization called METI, or Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, plans to send signals to distant planets, rather than waiting for them to call Earth.

By the end of 2018, the project aims to send some conversation-starters via radio or laser signals to a rocky planet circling Proxima Centauri, the nearest star other than the sun, and then to more distant destinations, hundreds or thousands of light years away.
Read more at: phys.org...

This will be the first effort to send a powerful repeated message into space. And of course target the same stars over and over. Sounds like they want to exchange info with and learn from the "others". Hope they are friendly.

It would be the first effort to send powerful, repeated and intentional messages into space, targeting the same stars over months or years.

"If we want to start an exchange over the course of many generations, we want to learn and share information," said Douglas Vakoch, president of METI and former director of Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, Calif.,, known as SETI.

Founded last year, METI will host two workshops next year, one in Paris and the other in St. Louis. It also plans to start raising the $1 million needed annually to staff and build or borrow a powerful transmitter in a remote location.

Part of the mission will be to figure out how to craft the perfect message to say "Hello."
Read more at: phys.org...

a reply to: seasonal

And then the aliens come banging on our door: turn that sh1t down you jerks!

a reply to: seasonal

Proxima Centauri b , seems like a reasonable choice.

Proxima Centauri b is a planet orbiting the star at a distance of roughly 0.05 AU (7,500,000 km) with an orbital period of approximately 11.2 Earth days. Its estimated mass is at least 1.3 times that of the Earth. Moreover, the equilibrium temperature of Proxima b is estimated to be within the range where water could exist as liquid on its surface; thus, placing it within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri.
en.wikipedia.org...

Although they've yet to raise the funds for the project it will be interesting to see if the project gets off the ground and if it does if we'll be playing Morse code with our neighbors in 10 or 15 years.

Hope they won't want to eat us.

Kinda scary considering we don't really know what's going to recieve the hello. Kinda reminds me of the movie battleship, those aliens were rather hostile. I think more research should be done on where we decide to send our hello

a reply to: Peeple

We may be livestock? I hope not, it you talk to left they are vegetarians, right won't talk about "Them".

I think perhaps we should leave well enough alone.

a reply to: jonnyhallows5211

I couldn't agree with you more. What happens when a "civilized" group meets a primitive group.

Stepehn Hawkings thinks this is a very very bad idea. Observe here.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: seasonal


Although they've yet to raise the funds for the project it will be interesting to see if the project gets off the ground and if it does if we'll be playing Morse code with our neighbors in 10 or 15 years.

Hope they won't want to eat us.

they'll probably shoot you in your latest depiction, then pose for a selfie with your bits..a bit like the fart brothers.

It begs the question though, SETI has a big setup, why'd they not do that themselves already....er, maybe they did?

a reply to: smurfy

The team say it will cost about $1 million a year , it will take about ten years to send a signal and await a response which makes $10 million , I think SETI could spend that sort of money on a project with a broader scope.

To say the project is a shot in the dark does shooting in the dark a disservice.

a reply to: seasonal

Hope this is a good idea, there is a group pf scientist that want to send a message into deep space at a particular group of plants/stars. If the are "others" out there I hope they are friendly.

I really don't see any benefits in sending messages to plants.

if they are more advanced than us then they already know we are here and have chosen to not make contact with us, if they are less advanced then they won`t be able to hear the message. This sounds like a waste of time and money.

Now, according to the SETI group they haven't got any actual signals from anywhere in space, yet. Besides that I have a hard time believing that, they are now going to send signals to stars that have't produced any detectable signals.

Anyone else wondering about that?

Why take all that time and money to listen to 'static' and then send signals to nowhere?

'Most likely' to have air and liquid water, doesn't even come close to meaning they are intelligent, developed as we and listening on that freq at the precise time. If by some remote chance they are, so wouldn't they be radiating signal energy for already for decades that we can detect, like TV and radio, etc? Only a few light years away puts them well in the orbit of outgoing TV shows like (god forbid) the Lucy Show.

Besides that the energy to send multiple signals to an unknown rock that they can detect would be enormous, they should already be beaming to us after detecting our own, one would think. Our own radio and TV broadcasts are well ahead of anything we send out now.

Not buying these explanations...

I hope the message says "Merry Christmas", If we send them "Happy Holidays" the Aliens will probably think were all douche PC types and just ignore us

Well, we've been sending radio waves out into space for almost 60/70 years now, so the thinking that it might be a bad idea is somewhat moot.

Personally, I'd like us to go 'silent and dark', and try to control our radio waves leaking out into space. I would much prefer us to continue scanning and listening only. If we do get a genuine signal, let's decrypt it first, and try and work out what or who we might be up against. I see no sense in ringing the dinner bell...especially when we might be the dinner?

a reply to: schuyler

Your guess is as good as his.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: schuyler

Your guess is as good as his.

I'm thinking he's smarter than I am, and insofar as he has studied the matter, I'm inclined to listen to what he has to say.

a reply to: Tardacus

Being more advanced does not mean they know we are here.

If that were true we would know of other "aliens" that are lower on the tech pole development than us.

Unless you think we do know....

a reply to: seasonal

Would you go into a rain forest with large cats, bears, and other apex predators and start squealing like a rabbit?

Without knowing what the hell is going on in space with other civilizations i.e. predatory or not, it is a very bad and ignorant idea. It reminds me of being in combat. When you buddy is shot and screaming at the top of his lungs which will let the enemy zero in on you.

However, we have been sending out signals since the first transmitters were developed. I still don't think it is a good idea to try broadcasting long distance messages to unknown entities. It isn't something you can reverse if it gathers attention from a civilization of Lenin and Hitler type beings with technology that dwarfs our own.

No-matter how times you say "No not a good idea" someone will always go hide in the barn.

Hope this is a good idea, there is a group pf scientist that want to send a message into deep space at a particular group of plants/stars. If the are "others" out there I hope they are friendly.

That's how the beginning of that movie Battleship began.

Didn't work out too well in the beginning.

Obviously we are not alone in the universe, but i want to know is why mankind thinks he's so special 'aliens' would even bother with us'.