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AlexSETI
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Hi all, I am a longtime enthusiast for SETI and believer in extra-terrestrial life and intelligence. I became fascinated by it when I saw "Cosmos" by the late great Carl Sagan. The universe is a HUGE place. There must be many more lifeforms on other worlds out there. There are more galaxies than grains of sand on Earth. In each of those galaxies, there are 200 billion or so starts. Many of these galaxies are far older and immensely far away. Our own Milky Way Galaxy has some 200 billion or so stars, and is 200,000 or so light years across! We on the Earth have been emitting radio waves for 60 years or so into space. So, our earliest broadcasts are now reaching stars 60 light years or so away. That's a pretty small distance in cosmic terms! We, via SETI, have only been listening for extra-terrestrial signals for about 50 years, again, a very small amount of time.
In all of this time, there has been one incident that stands out of a possible, tantalizing example of an artificial, advanced signal, which was the "Wow"! signal, detected on August 16, 1977 by the Big Ear Telescope in Ohio. The signal lasted 72 seconds and was on the correct frequency that scientists expected an artificial to be on. Although numerous searches were made by more powerful telescopes, the signal was never detected again. I heard someone say that it was like throwing a fishing line in the water, and feeling a tug, not exactly knowing what caused it, but not conclusively ruling out anything man-made! I have always been so fascinated by the wow signal and its possible implications. I think scientists said that the region of space it came from did not have planets? Perhaps it came from a planet that has since been destroyed? Or perhaps it came from a traveling spacecraft of some kind? I think the signal was about 200 light years away, is this correct?
Granted, you need extraordinary evidence to backup extraordinary claims, but the wow signal has never been definatively ruled out as an extra-terrestrial one! So now, with the Allen Telescope Array being used to search for advanced radio signals, does anyone know if they will be doing new targeted searches in the signal's region? It seems that they would want to devote major telescope time to trying to further explain the signal. Personally, I don't think that just because we could not relocate the signal, this necessarily means anything..Maybe if it was made by an alien race, it was just an initial pulse of some kind to get someone's attention...When the signal was made, if it was 200 light years away, there would have been no signs that advanced life existed on earth, since it was 200 years ago..Maybe they weren't trying to contact anyone in particular, maybe they were just sending out a general, pronounced pulse, kind of like a car blowing its horn...At any rate, I think we should keep searching that vicinity of the sky, it is our most tantalizing evidence to date of possible alien origin...And as the Allen Array searches more, I think our chances of detecting more distant signals will increase...Very exciting stuff indeed!
In all of this time, there has been one incident that stands out of a possible, tantalizing example of an artificial, advanced signal, which was the "Wow"! signal, detected on August 16, 1977 by the Big Ear Telescope in Ohio. The signal lasted 72 seconds and was on the correct frequency that scientists expected an artificial to be on. Although numerous searches were made by more powerful telescopes, the signal was never detected again. I heard someone say that it was like throwing a fishing line in the water, and feeling a tug, not exactly knowing what caused it, but not conclusively ruling out anything man-made! I have always been so fascinated by the wow signal and its possible implications. I think scientists said that the region of space it came from did not have planets? Perhaps it came from a planet that has since been destroyed? Or perhaps it came from a traveling spacecraft of some kind? I think the signal was about 200 light years away, is this correct?
Granted, you need extraordinary evidence to backup extraordinary claims, but the wow signal has never been definatively ruled out as an extra-terrestrial one! So now, with the Allen Telescope Array being used to search for advanced radio signals, does anyone know if they will be doing new targeted searches in the signal's region? It seems that they would want to devote major telescope time to trying to further explain the signal. Personally, I don't think that just because we could not relocate the signal, this necessarily means anything..Maybe if it was made by an alien race, it was just an initial pulse of some kind to get someone's attention...When the signal was made, if it was 200 light years away, there would have been no signs that advanced life existed on earth, since it was 200 years ago..Maybe they weren't trying to contact anyone in particular, maybe they were just sending out a general, pronounced pulse, kind of like a car blowing its horn...At any rate, I think we should keep searching that vicinity of the sky, it is our most tantalizing evidence to date of possible alien origin...And as the Allen Array searches more, I think our chances of detecting more distant signals will increase...Very exciting stuff indeed!