Aliens Probably Don't Communicate Via Primitive Radio Waves So Why Is SETI Looking For Them?

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Alien Contact More Likely by "Mail" Than Radio, Study Says

A far more energy efficient way of communicating over great interstellar distances is to send a physical object with encoded information..."Our calculations suggest that it's not only more energy efficient to send a package than radio waves," he said, "it's outrageously more efficient."

So why is SETI spending all this money looking for radio waves? Or is that just an expensive cover for a different kind of research? Those SETI people are neither stupid or uninformed. They aren't just sitting there wasting their time...but what are they doing?

Thought-provoking questions raised here, MsSmartypants.

Last night on CNN's 'Larry King Live', SETI astronomer Seth Shostak represented orthodox science's typical handling of UFO sightings, alien visitations, and the like.

While I contend that advanced civilizations would quite possibly understand our radio preference, I find the argument you've presented about a physical artifact to be provocative.

S & F!

Because at some point in time alien races WERE using radio to communicate, even it was just with themselves. Signals don't just stop when they reach the receivers. There are tv broadcasts from Earth that are still winging their way across the stars. All the broadcasts to our probes didn't just stop. That's what SETI is looking for, those older broadcasts that have taken this long to get to us.

but radio waves take Sooooooo long. I just think with worm holes and quantum physics and all(what with spooky action at a distance...look it up) that they would have some sort of near instantaneous long distance communication.

Sure, NOW. But they had to get there somehow. You don't just go from shortwave communications to worm holes and instantaneous communication overnight.

Well i'm sure they would have a special radio wave detector. why not?

[edit on 12-7-2008 by Ferengi]

reply to post by ItsTheQuestion


Thanks and don't you prefer Seth as Larry's resident skeptic rather than whiney James McGaha or Michael Shermer from Skeptic magazine? I felt at times Mr. Shostak was about to concede..."Yeah you're right and we've known all along.'

20 years ago, I could only radio communicating using SW, SSW, 144Mhz 2 meter, and so on and so on and then about 10 years ago I started communicating through AMPS and then CDMA and then GSM, I don't know whatever frequency they were.

15 years ago, I was running 54 kb floppy disk, and then 128kb, 256kb and then HD 512Kb floppy, and then 1.44Mb 3.5" and so on and so on.

Whoola... then came the CD technology, thanks to the German and Japanese, I started CD Rom, CD RW, and whoopssss DVD, it is DVD man!!!!!!!!.............. now we all have DVD -R, DVD +R, DVD RW, DVD +RW, aaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuchhhhhhhhhh I can't remember all the names no more, too many of them to recall...............


BUT.............. and BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT , and your but and all the BUTssssssssssssss.................. my latest DVD reader and writer can read all and write all those old CD's.................

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............................

If whatever smart organisms out there trying to communicate with us, their equipments SHOULD be able to read our primitive waves.

If they are dumb ( having non compatible equipments but trying to communicate with us who have primitive equipments ), then we are dumber trying to figure everything out.

I don't want to be dumber, do you?

reply to post by cheebay


yes but isn't SETI trying to find Their radio waves? As if they are communicating with each other over vast distances using radio waves? Or could SETI already be fully aware that they are already here and .... well, I don't know but that's why I started this thread.

I think that SETI also is not just trying to "ease drop" on errant intelligent signals, but their logic is that if a society wanted to communicate (well, not communicate but at least send a signal) across the stars to others that doing so on purpose in a quite band of natural radio waves makes the most sense.

So they are also banking on signals being broadcast in this small quite band on purpose, with the intent to contact other worlds such as ours. And the odds are that there are more civilizations existing at any given time in the medium technological range (such as ours) than there are super societies than can do pretty anything and whatnot.

And we have been looking for what amounts to a blink of an eye, so it is hard to judge the merits of such a program just yet.

reply to post by MsSmartypants


As I said before, at some point whether they were communicating over long distances, or they were just broadcasting to probes, or whatever, they were using radio. Radio waves don't just go a certain distance and then suddenly stop. Those radio waves will keep going. Depending on when the civilization developed, and the chances are if they have developed wormholes and other super advanced technology, it was a good while ago, and how far away they are, those signals will be the first clues we have of someone else being out there.

You have to presume the senders are trying to be heard to the receivers.

If you are hiking on a mountaintop and you come upon some Boy Scouts camping in the valley, a couple miles away, do you use a technology to which they don't have access or do you send up a series of smoke signals?

You select your method depending on the receiver's capability to receive them.

I agree with Zaphod58, they would have been using radio waves at some point. Even if they don't currently use radio waves for communication or they never used it for that purpose in a practical sense, if they were advanced enough to be sending encrypted packets through the airwaves, they would at least know the THEORY behind radio waves and know how to detect them.

On another note, just because a better invention has come along doesn't necessarily mean that everyone stops using it. Some people still listen to records, despite MP3 players being able to hold weeks worth of music. We have specialized farming equipment, but some people in less-developed countries still do it by hand or using livestock. Maybe some aliens use radio just as a hobby like how we use HAM radio... do you really think that in 500 or even 1,000 years, humans won't still be generating radio waves for SOME purpose?

Also aren't radio waves also emitted by certain types of equipment vibrating or something like that as well... it doesn't necessarily need to be sent out for communication purposes, I thought I heard that radio waves can be sent out unintentionally just by industrial stuff working away. I am pretty sure microwave ovens give off a form of radio waves for example?

[edit on 7/12/2008 by Yarcofin]

The points about radio being used at one time, and a hope that "potential AlienTM" would know that & use them to attempt to reach us, are what I would say to this question.

I would add that I personally prefer that they attempt to search in any event. Unless there was a viable, reasonable way to look for the "mail" and that was not being funded at the expense of looking for radio waves, then I really want them to continue this search and at this point in our technological journey unfortunately this (and Optical SETI) are the only realistic games in town.

I didn't think ATS members were so naive to think that the people working at SETI ... people who are already interested in extraterrestrials... don't already realize that the more technologically advanced aliens are already here and the 'search' is just for show.

We are discovering Quantum communication which involves communicating right across the universe in a second so I guess they are waiting for us to discover and make that.

You are aware that they can transmit as well as receive right.

check out the aricibo message

Also consider that if they can transmit that radio waves can also be used as a weapon Death star style.

I would imagine they are looking for many types of signals. An alien race might respond back to us in the same frequency or have sent out probes for their own SETI research hundreds or thousands of years ago. Maybe we are the result of some type of signal also?

Our concept of space/time travel might be much different than theirs. Maybe they don't use ships or bodies to get here and when they do, then they construct them using our resources.

Yeah, I'm under the impression SETI is used as a cover and maybe they are in the dark like many other agencies. It would seem we are being lied to by many sources, whether they know the truth or not.

Originally posted by MsSmartypants
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Alien Contact More Likely by "Mail" Than Radio, Study Says

A far more energy efficient way of communicating over great interstellar distances is to send a physical object with encoded information..."Our calculations suggest that it's not only more energy efficient to send a package than radio waves," he said, "it's outrageously more efficient."

So why is SETI spending all this money looking for radio waves? Or is that just an expensive cover for a different kind of research? Those SETI people are neither stupid or uninformed. They aren't just sitting there wasting their time...but what are they doing?

Can I give you like 20 or more stars? You have made the RIGHT question here: "WHY SETI?" Complete waste of resources and time.