Are Governments Preparing for First Contact in Secret?

[Ivan Seeking]

No governmental official has gone on record claiming that UFOs are real, let alone a threat. Yet with little public fanfare, they have begun preparing for the single most important event in human history: first contact. That is, the moment earthlings discover incontrovertible proof that they are not alone.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/2004/2/when_ufos_arrive/index.phtml

 

[megashawn]

Well now wouldn't that be funny. Alien lands tommorow, our government locks him and gives him the anal probe for a change.

Then on saturday, the rest of his people show up and wipe out humanity.

Surely we will act with more sense then to actually attempt to detain a being that has the capabilities of interstellar travel. Don't we?

 

[recon]

Does anyone here contribute computing power to the SETI@home project?

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by recon
Does anyone here contribute computing power to the SETI@home project?

I do. http://setiathome2.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bin/fcgi?email=russ_watters@lycos.com&cmd=user_stats_new are my stats. I had a different account when I was in college but couldn't figure out how to change it when I stopped using that email account.

Ivan, did you notice the usage of the term "UFO"? ET origin is assumed. Yes, I know its incorrect usage, but as I pointed out before, its very common.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I do. http://setiathome2.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bin/fcgi?email=russ_watters@lycos.com&cmd=user_stats_new are my stats. I had a different account when I was in college but couldn't figure out how to change it when I stopped using that email account.

Ivan, did you notice the usage of the term "UFO"? ET origin is assumed. Yes, I know its incorrect usage, but as I pointed out before, its very common.

Tsunami and I are long time SETI nodes.

As for the unavoidable association between UFOs and ET, you will get no argument from me. Beyond any doubt "UFO" means many different things.

 

[dlgoff]

by russ_watters
Does anyone here contribute computing power to the SETI@home project?

I looked at the stats and some of the other links but couldn't really understand how it was suppose to work. Is it that you are processing data? If so, is it "real time" or from earlier runs?

regards

 

[Phobos]

Originally posted by dlgoff
I looked at the stats and some of the other links but couldn't really understand how it was suppose to work. Is it that you are processing data? If so, is it "real time" or from earlier runs?

Processing data from earlier runs. The SETI program gathers tons of data (from millions or billions of sky "channels") every day that would take huge amounts of computing time to process. Rather than do it themselves (expensive, time consuming), they distribute small packets of info to volunteers (millions of them, by the looks of it) to take advantage of shared computing. Consider how much processing power your computer has that goes unused like when you leave the room for a minute or when it's waiting to send that long email you've been typing. Now consider how many people have computers that sit inactive like that. The processing program takes advantage of all that down time to sift through the data packets. Then you upload the results and download a new packet to check out. SETI then sifts through the results and can focus their attention on any interesting ones (most data are background noise, etc.). They still have the original data so they can double check results (no hacking the program to cheat).

 

[russ_watters]

The overall stats from SETI's main page are truly remarkable. http://www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/totals.html

4.9 million users.
1.8 million years of cpu time.
1042 years of cpu time in the past day.

Is it that you are processing data? If so, is it "real time" or from earlier runs?

http://www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/screensaver/index.html One of the cool things about the screensaver (note: it cuts the computational effeciency by like 75%) is that it lists where and when and what the signal is that you are analyzing. I'm currently crunching data from Arecibo (the big dish in Mexico from Contact and James Bond), the data was recorded on 11/10/03, freq 1.4211 ghz, and it gives the coordinates of the piece of sky it came from.

 

[dlgoff]

Thanks Phobos and russ_watters. That's neet.

Regards

 

[Norval]

How many government officials have lost their jobs for stepping forward?
Why didn’t anybody else catch this bold face lie by Popular Mechanics?