First Contact? - Something in Space is Sending Earth Signals Like Clockwork

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: LookingAtMars

What caused scientists in 1890s to begin attempting to contact extraterrestrials??

The Aurora UFO incident as well as the "Great Airship Mystery", occurred in 1890.

Ever heard of a DF steer?

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com...

a reply to: Blue Shift

originally posted by: scraedtosleep

Star systems at a distance of 50 light-years are now entering the ‘Twilight Zone’.

Wait until "ALF" premiers. They'll send an annihilation force just for that.

As for the mystery signal, would be interesting to know if there's any kind of modulation to it. Surely we could pick out some pretty fast bit-rates unless it's well above current hardware.

this is interesting. did you know past a certain point in space, space itself is traveling faster than light speed.

SETI no longer gets Federal funding for listening to signals. All private donations. It's technically a business today because they get Federal dollars for their child outreach and college programs that teach about space along with private donations.

Not sure who detected this signal but regardless, it's a waste of time unless of course they are running a business.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

What is important is the little details.

What should raise interest or concern is that, they know earth hour, day cycle. The signals that are being sent are intended for earth, maybe they know that life exists here and therefore intended for it to match out cycle.

That, is the big question here. It also takes away from people mentioning its natural phenomenon.

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: LookingAtMars

What caused scientists in 1890s to begin attempting to contact extraterrestrials??

Mars was the reason. In the mid-19th century, Scientists were open to Mars having seas and potential life forms, but the perception of canals on the planet was the BIG headline, although that was proved to be a telescopic illusion. Nevertheless, astronomer Percival Lowell published two books about Mars in 1895 and 1906 that popularised the notion of ancient Martian life having constructed canals. H.G. Wells was a huge fan of the idea, too.

Perhaps, like the modern Roswell myth, Mars canals were the first example of an alien notion being debunked and then resurrected years later for new generations and sheer entertainment value.

Little has changed in 150 years.

The CHIME telescope is looking for both pulsars and fast radio bursts. I count on them to know the difference.

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment is a revolutionary new Canadian radio telescope designed to answer major questions in astrophysics & cosmology.

CHIME - website

Fast Radio Bursts have been of interest to science since 2007

LOL but it doesn't matter, can't believe I didn't notice this:

And although the scientists don’t mention it, there’s no ruling out that this could be an alien life-form attempting to make contact with other lifeforms in the galaxy.

Face palm

originally posted by: FirePilotFilson
Ever heard of a DF steer?

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com...

a reply to: Blue Shift

From what I understand, they used to call that "coming in on the beam.".

originally posted by: ConfusedBrit
Little has changed in 150 years.

Certainly not people. We're healthier in general, and more educated, but not smarter in any measurable way.

The thing not thought about is we can narrow our search area by focusing. But there is no way to determine the distance to the source other than just saying that we know in that direction there is a star 500 million LY away.

It could just as easily be a repeater relay beacon just outside the heliopause of our sun, placed in that location that aligns with that star.

We can’t determine signal strength nor clarity as an approximate range of the source. Orbiting around a stable piece of debris such as a tidal lock to an iron cored asteroid might be why we only receive it periodically. The beacon itself could be inside a drilled out hole and the rotation pattern only aligns with us every so often.

If the above is the case, then perhaps a navigation beacon similar in design to a lighthouse or radio buoy. The message may translate to NAV beacon 789 or something.

a reply to: Ahabstar

But there is no way to determine the distance to the source

What if we had a radio telescope on Mars or the moon. Could we determine the distance then?

Not a Pulsar. The slowest of these repeats every 23 & 1/2 seconds. Not a Magnetar, either, as these highly magnetized neutron stars repeat even faster. If a natural arrangement of objects, probably something orbiting a black hole every 16.35 days and giving off radiation, including radio waves, in our direction, or a massive star/neutron star binary system, doing the same thing.

Given a 4-day period of activity, within a 16-day orbit, this suggests that we are receiving its emissions over 90 degrees of the object's orbit. That seems to indicate a much broader beam, or far less timing precision than that associated with a Pulsar.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Exact triangulation would help. Moon wouldn’t help as much as Mars would. But just like GPS (more satellites gives a better location) we would need many wide points that we can easily calculate further distances. It is a matter of different angles and advanced math to “average” the relative location.

Back in 2005 when a Garmin suction cupped to your windshield was about $1000, I had a GPS antenna hooked up to my laptop while driving a semi. The information received that I could view (while parked) was far beyond what you would see on those little devices. I even had the sun’s location in the sky throughout the day and it would display time based on my location relative to the sun and my position on Earth including sunrise and sunset times to my location. I swear if dog houses were listed, they would have been drawn and displayed. As street addresses were at lower speeds.

It was taught when I was a student pilot and I taught it as instructor, but never used one in RL. BTW that’s what the flight of avengers that got lost in the Bermuda Triangle in the 1940’s were using to try to get home. FLT leader disagreed
with the steer he was given
a reply to: Blue Shift

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: LookingAtMars

What caused scientists in 1890s to begin attempting to contact extraterrestrials??

They were in search of an answer to human origins. They were looking for God (separation anxiety causal).

There are a lot of natural sources for very powerful and regular radio bursts, don't get your hopes up too much guys.

originally posted by: vethumanbeing

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: LookingAtMars

What caused scientists in 1890s to begin attempting to contact extraterrestrials??

They were in search of an answer to human origins. They were looking for God (separation anxiety causal).

Aren't we all?

[sigh]

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: autopat51
ha ha face palm! really? really? you people actually believe we are the only ones here? incredible

As of today, I don't know of any other intelligent life in the universe other than hypothetical, which is practically the same as non-existent. If you know of any, please share. There are quite a few people who would like to hear about it.

Hell I'm still waiting on intelligent life to develop on THIS planet first

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: LookingAtMars

What caused scientists in 1890s to begin attempting to contact extraterrestrials??

Humans have always attempted to get the attention of/contact non-terrestrial beings (whether it be gods or aliens) that they believed might exist in the heavens, sky, or stars.

I think the reason they used radio to do so in the 1890s is because that's when the first real radio transmitters were developed.