What if: Radio & Spaceships

So I was thinking about those radio signals coming from our lovely planet. What if you would be cruising in your spaceship listening to your favorite radio station and suddenly you got (for example) Lady Gaga screaming in your ears about paparazzi?

Ofcourse an alien would immediately check for a hack attempt, maybe a joke someone pulled. Like you would be cruising in your car listening to internet radio through wifi hotspots or maybe tethering through a mobile phone or maybe just a smartphone with a radio and it would play a recording a friend sent after hacking the phone. Then you would freak out and get a whatsapp message from a friend telling you how he hacked your phone which might be funny.

But if there was no hack attempt then the hardware must be malfunctioning. So you would go back home and disassemble the entire spaceship and check it for defects only to find out nothing was wrong with the spaceship.

So you would proceed calling the manufacturer and you would get a replacement while they check more thoroughly. They manufacturer would not find anything, except for the radio system itself. Then they pull out the recording of Lady Gaga and listen to it and then check all the civilizations for that song, until they eventually conclude none of them produced that song.

So they would go back to the place it happened and find our radio signals. Which makes me wonder if we should charge them (retroactively ofcourse). And then we would have to establish laws and contracts because aliens would claim our space since the waves are in their space.

So what if this would be the scenario, how to proceed since I'm not much of a negotiator. I know about how bandwiths are sold by the state to companies but the aliens have some pretty strong arguments, they would even destroy all our communications devices, including the land lines if we wouldn't have an answer ready.

The land lines for example cause headaches in miss alien, her husband could build something like a faraday cage around our solar system but he would charge us for it. And since earthlings don't have intergalactic currency we are pretty much out of luck in that respect. Unless we could haggle over the recordings other aliens have already listened to, we could try to suck them into our economy and I thought maybe some Americans could chip in there. Even though I know mr Marconi is credited for the invention and he is Italian.

So please advise.

Its an interesting thought, you have to remember not only are there radio waves, we also emit light waves from our planet. I feel like everything can be broken down into waves.

You can transmit data with light or radio waves. As for your faraday cage, i always wondered if out sun creates one around our solar system with all the magnetic energy it gives off. Although it may not absorb the rf energy it could scramble it up in the natural rf given off from the sun.

We know this isn't the case though because of voyager leaving the heliosphere.

We have been sending rf into space for around one hundred years....relatively short time period in the grand scheme of things. The earth is about four billion years old and the universe is fourteen billion years old....if i remember right.

We are just cosmic babies here, rf traveling at the speed of light or there about......will take countless thousands of years tor each neighboring star systems.

They would literally have to be in our hood to hear out broadcasts.

Also, they wouldn't necessarily be hearing Lady GaGa yet because of the time it takes to reach out and touch someone in space with the radio waves.

Its assumed that "I love Lucy", "The 3 Stooges", "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" are just now hitting deep space...and they would probably thinks thats really us and how we live today.

Who is to say the music sounds the same to them if they even hear like humans do?
also its taking the materialistic EA*RTH currency perspective out there.
1 would think in the designs... the Sphere would be surrounded by something that absorbs the signals emited from the locals especially if a secret zone.
Which therefore prevents Detection from potentials and or provides protection.
When considering plasma beings potential that may go near Stars like SOL got to wonder why they stay away from planets like EA*RTH if they can go near Stars.
What prevents them from getting interested and blocks them?

They would need to be cruising really really close to us (relatively speaking) for them to be able to receive our radio waves.

The Earth is extremely tiny, and the galaxy is large, and odds are that an alien isn't just accidentally cruising by.

You may argue "but our radio transmissions have gone waaaayyy out there, and surely aliens should be able to pick up our radio waves from a large portion of our galaxy by now". However, that is not true at all. Our radio transmissions have gone basically about 100 light years in the past 100 years we have been broadcasting, which is practically nowhere.

Look at the image below that represents our Milky Way galaxy. That tiny blue dot in the Galaxy is not even our Sun and solar system. Instead, that tiny blue dot in the image below is the extent of our radio transmissions over the past 100 years (a 200 light year diameter bubble). Our solar system is even smaller than that blue dot.

To pick up our radio transmissions, and alien would need to be within that tiny blue dot:

Image Source


The Earth could easily be overlooked in the vastness of space. Aliens may have no idea we even exist. We are basically just a spec of dust at the scale of the galaxy -- and we are even smaller at the scale of the known universe; at the scale of the known universe, Earth is so small that it could be considered virtually non-existent.

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
Its an interesting thought, you have to remember not only are there radio waves, we also emit light waves from our planet. I feel like everything can be broken down into waves.

You mean the sunlight bouncing off the planet or maybe star light? If you are talking about the soul that light does not emit outside our planet, since humanity never went beyond the moon. So that is as far as it goes.

You can transmit data with light or radio waves.

I don't believe Earth has laser technology which allows light to travel that far, or has anything of which you suggest, to communicate with light signals. But I'll look it up lateron.

As for your faraday cage, i always wondered if out sun creates one around our solar system with all the magnetic energy it gives off. Although it may not absorb the rf energy it could scramble it up in the natural rf given off from the sun. We know this isn't the case though because of voyager leaving the heliosphere.

So radio signals do travel very far?

We have been sending rf into space for around one hundred years....relatively short time period in the grand scheme of things. The earth is about four billion years old and the universe is fourteen billion years old....if i remember right.

Well the aliens might be able to verify the age someday. But the signals travel pretty fast and who knows we might be next to a busy traffic lane or multiple. Aliens might actually know of Mozart or The Prodigy.

We are just cosmic babies here, rf traveling at the speed of light or there about......will take countless thousands of years tor each neighboring star systems.

They would literally have to be in our hood to hear out broadcasts.

Yes well that might be the case.

Originally posted by mysterioustranger
Also, they wouldn't necessarily be hearing Lady GaGa yet because of the time it takes to reach out and touch someone in space with the radio waves.

Yes but they might have received Mozart and accidently awoken his spirit while tracing back the origin. Which would quickly draw their attention to for example, Lady GaGa. We might be talking about highly technologically advanced species here, so they might have received the first transmission, or passed through transmissions 30-40 years ago and have a completely different understanding of physics and rf.

Its assumed that "I love Lucy", "The 3 Stooges", "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" are just now hitting deep space...and they would probably thinks thats really us and how we live today.

But they would simply trace the origin of the transmission once they received or noticed the first signal.

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
Who is to say the music sounds the same to them if they even hear like humans do?

They might have more advanced or less advanced ears but sound is still sound, nobody can change anything about that, except increase or decrease the volume or have a totally different usage of their ears. Like they could will the volume they hear down, while in reality it might be 110 decibels.

also its taking the materialistic EA*RTH currency perspective out there.
1 would think in the designs... the Sphere would be surrounded by something that absorbs the signals emited from the locals especially if a secret zone.
Which therefore prevents Detection from potentials and or provides protection.
When considering plasma beings potential that may go near Stars like SOL got to wonder why they stay away from planets like EA*RTH if they can go near Stars.
What prevents them from getting interested and blocks them?

edit on 8/10/13 by Ophiuchus 13 because: (no reason given)

You misspelled Earth. Don't know what planet you are on but you better get back home right away.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
To pick up our radio transmissions, and alien would need to be within that tiny blue dot:

Image Source

Yes but there's also roughly 9 billion+ people of which you and I are one of, not counting all the spirits.

The Earth could easily be overlooked in the vastness of space. Aliens may have no idea we even exist. We are basically just a spec of dust at the scale of the galaxy -- and we are even smaller at the scale of the known universe; at the scale of the known universe, Earth is so small that it could be considered virtually non-existent.

Yes we are a speck of dust but there might be a googolplex number of specks all around us. Whatever happened on our planet might have happened on many others.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
...The Earth could easily be overlooked in the vastness of space. Aliens may have no idea we even exist. We are basically just a spec of dust at the scale of the galaxy -- and we are even smaller at the scale of the known universe; at the scale of the known universe, Earth is so small that it could be considered virtually non-existent.

Yes we are a speck of dust but there might be a googolplex number of specks all around us. Whatever happened on our planet might have happened on many others.

Oh -- I totally agree that other intelligent life most likely exists out there somewhere, even in our own galaxy.

However, my point is that any signs or indications that we humans are here -- and clue at all, even our radio transmissions -- are very hard to find, because (as the graphic I posted shows), even our radio waves have gone basically nowhere relative to the vastness of our galaxy.

It would be like yelling for help on a desert island and hoping someone on a hundred miles away could hear you. There may be millions of people on that mainland, but they can't hear you.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
...The Earth could easily be overlooked in the vastness of space. Aliens may have no idea we even exist. We are basically just a spec of dust at the scale of the galaxy -- and we are even smaller at the scale of the known universe; at the scale of the known universe, Earth is so small that it could be considered virtually non-existent.

Yes we are a speck of dust but there might be a googolplex number of specks all around us. Whatever happened on our planet might have happened on many others.

Oh -- I totally agree that other intelligent life most likely exists out there somewhere, even in our own galaxy.

However, my point is that any signs or indications that we humans are here -- and clue at all, even our radio transmissions -- are very hard to find, because (as the graphic I posted shows), even our radio waves have gone basically nowhere relative to the vastness of our galaxy.

The graphic is not of the correct quality, the resolution should be higher so it doesn't count.

It would be like yelling for help on a desert island and hoping someone on a hundred miles away could hear you. There may be millions of people on that mainland, but they can't hear you.

edit on 8/10/2013 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

That's why this thread is about radio's, not vocal cords only.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
The graphic is not of the correct quality, the resolution should be higher so it doesn't count.

I'm not sure I follow your "it doesn't count" logic.
However, did you follow the link to the higher-res image?

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
It would be like yelling for help on a desert island and hoping someone on a mainland a hundred miles away could hear you. There may be millions of people on that mainland, but they can't hear you.

That's why this thread is about radio's, not vocal cords only.

It's an analogy.

The distance our radio waves have traveled through the galaxy is only a miniscule amount. Our radio waves have gone virtually nowhere (relative to the full size of the galaxy) in 100 years time -- which is analogous to my example of a person yelling for help on a desert island, and those yells for help only going a short distance from the island.

They'd likely quarantine the whole solar system, preventing all but only authorized ships from entering. Then they'd watch us to make sure our drive for war diminishes with the advances in our technology. I suspect this is probably a difficult time for any society...where they have the tech to blow themselves up, but remains to be seen whether we have the intellect not to.....

Why? Because war to them is obsolete. War is a contest for control of resources. With the Universe at your disposal, through FTL travel, no lack of any resource...so no need to war.

Originally posted by Gazrok
...Why? Because war to them is obsolete. War is a contest for control of resources. With the Universe at your disposal, through FTL travel, no lack of any resource...so no need to war.

That's assuming space travel is easy for them. It's possible that interstellar space travel is hard, even for the denizens of a potential multi-star system civilization in our "quadrant" of the galaxy.

If we consider the opposite to be true -- i.e., that space travel is extremely easy for them, and the whole universe is at their disposal, then maybe we are simply overlooked -- as overlooked as speck of dust in a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy in a universe full of hundreds of billions of galaxies.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
The graphic is not of the correct quality, the resolution should be higher so it doesn't count.

I'm not sure I follow your "it doesn't count" logic.

However, did you follow the link to the higher-res image?

Yes I did however that blue dot is way too large and there should be trillions of blue dots. Now if you are going to continue ignore their existence you are just a bad person in my book and I'm not supposed to listen to you anymore.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
It would be like yelling for help on a desert island and hoping someone on a mainland a hundred miles away could hear you. There may be millions of people on that mainland, but they can't hear you.

That's why this thread is about radio's, not vocal cords only.

It's an analogy.

Ok, so you're yelling from a planet and expect others to hear you AU's away. But those others have advanced radio equipment and technology to localize the source of any transmission. They might have fields stretching trillions of AU's and our radio waves are 'tingling' those, all static fields, been there forever. Well ok there was a beginning but thousands of centuries at least, not anything I can really imagine with my 34 years which I've been around and looked at the stars trying to comprehend it all.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Gazrok
...Why? Because war to them is obsolete. War is a contest for control of resources. With the Universe at your disposal, through FTL travel, no lack of any resource...so no need to war.

That's assuming space travel is easy for them.

Ok, there's planet Earth with us and then there is the rest, which is them. So let me break that down into trillions of species all over the place, not meaing the false assumption our Earth is the centre to 'them' but they all have appointed their own centres. Then there are a few with the most advanced technology, and they have contacts with advanced technology and so it stretches on in all directions, except there is no center. It's not chaotic when they have charts and models to view it all.

It's possible that interstellar space travel is hard, even for the denizens of a potential multi-star system civilization in our "quadrant" of the galaxy.

Think multiple galaxies in cubes with one exit/entry point and those are all connected and inside each are subnetworks, all radio frequencies and we happen to be in one of those fields so we could build a radio already and start communicating with them. I know how to make it, I just don't have the resources like I would need to own the Intel corporation and several others, maybe Oracle and Google and then have a group of holy men and women for the immaterial side of things.

If we consider the opposite to be true -- i.e., that space travel is extremely easy for them, and the whole universe is at their disposal, then maybe we are simply overlooked -- as overlooked as speck of dust in a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy in a universe full of hundreds of billions of galaxies.

edit on 8/13/2013 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

We would be just a blip to those who are on that larger network, that is true. But a blip of several trillion spirits or life counting the afterlife. And then a lot of other animals and insects.

Originally posted by Gazrok
They'd likely quarantine the whole solar system, preventing all but only authorized ships from entering. Then they'd watch us to make sure our drive for war diminishes with the advances in our technology. I suspect this is probably a difficult time for any society...where they have the tech to blow themselves up, but remains to be seen whether we have the intellect not to.....

How about they would invade from the afterlife from the first human being who was aware and then proceed back through time in a way to our present day and reach our brains and activate those parts most have been unable to, simply because of the stimuli emanating from them.

Why? Because war to them is obsolete. War is a contest for control of resources. With the Universe at your disposal, through FTL travel, no lack of any resource...so no need to war.

edit on 13-8-2013 by Gazrok because: (no reason given)

It's more than that, it goes in the Great Beyond. Imagine soldiers waiting patiently until all those conflicts are sorted. Sometimes I feel like we are still in World War II, can't help it, or it has a long aftermath, if only because the elder are still remembering it on a daily basis.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
The graphic is not of the correct quality, the resolution should be higher so it doesn't count.

I'm not sure I follow your "it doesn't count" logic.

However, did you follow the link to the higher-res image?

Yes I did however that blue dot is way too large and there should be trillions of blue dots. Now if you are going to continue ignore their existence you are just a bad person in my book and I'm not supposed to listen to you anymore.

No. The dot isn't too big.

The dot should represent a volume 200 LY across. The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 LY across. That means the diameter dot should b 0.2% of the diameter of the Milky Way -- which is what is represented by this image, if you measured it.

And I don't know what you mean by "trillions of dots". This dot represents EARTH's radio waves, not anyone else's -- i.e., not the radio bubbles of other possible civilizations. In addition, I'm not sure where you get "trillions" from, considering the galaxy is thought to have between 100 billion and 400 billion stars (the number is still a bit of an unknown)....

...If we consider the high-end of that estimate of stars in the Milky Way, then we are talking 400 billion. And even if we assume that ALL of those stars have civilizations (which is highly, highly unlikely), then we are still talking about only 400 billion civilizations -- NOT "trillions".

There may be trillions of civilizations in the universe (maybe, maybe not -- I think it depends on how big the universe is, which is still an unknown), but there is not trillions in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
It would be like yelling for help on a desert island and hoping someone on a mainland a hundred miles away could hear you. There may be millions of people on that mainland, but they can't hear you.

That's why this thread is about radio's, not vocal cords only.

It's an analogy.

Ok, so you're yelling from a planet and expect others to hear you AU's away. But those others have advanced radio equipment and technology to localize the source of any transmission. They might have fields stretching trillions of AU's and our radio waves are 'tingling' those, all static fields, been there forever. Well ok there was a beginning but thousands of centuries at least, not anything I can really imagine with my 34 years which I've been around and looked at the stars trying to comprehend it all.

Again, this goes back to the idea that for another civilization to be able to detect our radio waves, they would need to be (or have "detectors") within a 100 LY radius of Earth (the 200 LY bubble shown in the image), considering that a 100 LY radius is the distance our radio waves have traveled in 100 years time.

But if we are going to make the assumption that they have detectors that close, then that means they either got very lucky to put a detectors just in the right tiny part of our galaxy, OR that the detectors must be covering the entire Galaxy (again, consider the tiny size of Human's radio wave bubble, and think about what it would take to be able to cover the entire galaxy looking to accidentally intersect any such tiny bubble of radio waves).

By the way, I was having some trouble earlier with the link I provided in my post above showing the radio-wave bubble of humanity, so if that link isn't working for anyone, here is another link to an article that uses that same image:

The Tiny Humanity Bubble

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
No. The dot isn't too big.

The dot should represent a volume 200 LY across. The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 LY across. That means the diameter dot should b 0.2% of the diameter of the Milky Way -- which is what is represented by this image, if you measured it.

Ok, you are absolutely right, I thought it was bigger based on another picture and that we left more of a trail, not a dot.

But if we are going to make the assumption that they have detectors that close, then that means they either got very lucky to put a detectors just in the right tiny part of our galaxy, OR that the detectors must be covering the entire Galaxy (again, consider the tiny size of Human's radio wave bubble, and think about what it would take to be able to cover the entire galaxy looking to accidentally intersect any such tiny bubble of radio waves).

I meant more like radio fields which are a bit like radar or a big aquarium. In the aquarium are a number of planets with their own fields and if you would fill the aquarium with the stuff of which those fields are made of then it would not fill the existing fields but 'transfer' the vibrations or movement if you will in laymans terms.

I made a picture of what I mean, forgive my terrible paint skills and it's not scaled or anything and it must be visualized as 3d ofcourse.

tinypic.com...



So there would be overlapping fields all over and we could already make contact with such a field, even with the mind but mechanical or even better software with a special antannea might work but it is a different kind of radio which requires mental training to operate.

I think that ETs would listen to music and sounds, in an ambient manner. I believe an ET race would be in harmony with the universe, and their music would reflect upon that.

Sound is universal, so I see no reason why ET would not listen to ambient type music that is in harmony with life and the universe.