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Edward Snowden has a really good theory as to why we've never heard from aliens
Tech Insider ^ | September 18, 2015 | Kelly Dickerson

Posted on 09/19/2015 9:45:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

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To: FreedomStar3028
SETI does not send signals. According to their public statements, they also do not look for signals across the spectrum. They believe intelligent civilizations would recognize narrow band transmissions are more efficient over long distances. They admit this is a possible limitation.

http://www.seti.org/faq#obs10

21 posted on 09/19/2015 10:30:52 PM PDT by FredZarguna (If you think that needs a </sarc> tag, you're an idiot...)
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To: FreedomStar3028

I just figured the Bible is true and aliens are not in the future reality of the human race because it would muddy what has been revealed by God: JUDGMENT.


22 posted on 09/19/2015 10:38:22 PM PDT by Salvavida (The restoration of the U.S.A. starts with filling the pews at every Bible-believing church.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I thought aliens created us?

23 posted on 09/19/2015 10:43:21 PM PDT by uglybiker (nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-BATMAN!)
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To: FreedomStar3028

Amd yet, mankind has been using encryption for millennia


24 posted on 09/19/2015 10:44:40 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Time for Michael Rennie and GORT to swing by again to deliver another cool it warning to us puny humans.....


25 posted on 09/19/2015 10:46:30 PM PDT by bobby.223 (Retired up in the snowy mountains of the American Redoubt and it's a great life!)
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To: FreedomStar3028; okie01

Everyone makes the assumption that ‘aliens’ have a spoken language.


26 posted on 09/19/2015 10:50:48 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Ak ak ak ak!”


27 posted on 09/19/2015 10:53:16 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Step away from the Koolade.)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra
I figure the aliens don’t contact us is because we are boring to them.

I figure that if you are an alien on another planet, you are so far away that Earth is pretty much invisible. Why, out of billions of stars and planets would you go to one you don't even know exists ?

28 posted on 09/19/2015 10:58:59 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: okie01; FreedomStar3028

What if aliens communicate by colors of light ?

Or by pheromones ?

What if they don’t project their ‘communications’ outward into space ?


29 posted on 09/19/2015 11:03:29 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: okie01

Signals follow a pattern. Language doesn’t matter. It’s the pattern that sticks out. It’s how packet analysis can determine the type of information you’re transmitting and receiving without knowing the precise info you’ve got.

Encryption disrupts patterns and can blind snoopers to the content.


30 posted on 09/19/2015 11:05:40 PM PDT by Bogey78O (We had a good run. Coulda been great still.)
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To: sten

Even if you beamed a signal straight at another planet in another galaxy, the planet would not be ‘there’ when the signal got there.


31 posted on 09/19/2015 11:05:42 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: djf

AM and FM band frequencies are broadband radio transmissions, and they lack the watts of power necessary to be detectable beyond the edges of this Solar System even by the largest radio telescope receivers, such as the Arecibo radio telescope. Narrow band transmissions may be detectable by the largest receivers out to a distance of a little beyond a thousand lights years (LY), but only when the transmitters are broadcasting the narrow band transmissions with terawatts of power for a periods of time measured in the tens of thousands to millions of years necessary to travel through space to the Earth. Even if it is assumed there must have been millions of civilizations throughout just the Milky Way Galaxy alone, the number of such civilizations willing to transmit this much power for a long enough period of time to be detectable at the Earth at this particular time and distance from the transmitter likely remains quite small if any at all. So, the absence of a detectable radio signal from an alien civilization is no indication whatsoever that they do not exist.


32 posted on 09/19/2015 11:42:43 PM PDT by WhiskeyX
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To: uglybiker

If Aliens are anything like us I don’t want to meet them!


33 posted on 09/19/2015 11:53:41 PM PDT by Empireoftheatom48 (God help the Republic but will he?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Snowden has watched to many SciFi movies and his commentary on extraterrestrial communications is about as valid as his integrity.


34 posted on 09/20/2015 12:22:55 AM PDT by Cyman (We have to pass it to see what's in it= definition of stool sample)
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To: FreedomStar3028
This isn’t an interesting theory at all, it’s a nonsensical load of crap. You wouldn’t encrypt messages.....unless you had to.

Checked your bank statement online lately?

If any aliens (or Eddie's erstwhile colleagues) were listening in, they should have seen white noise between the IP headers.

Eddie's theory is that, once a civilization is advanced, it encrypts everything, so that eavesdroppers from afar, if they see anything at all, see only white noise, not signs of civilization.

35 posted on 09/20/2015 12:42:57 AM PDT by cynwoody
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Makes perfect sense. Some science fiction writer should have figured this out a long time ago. I wonder if that happened.


36 posted on 09/20/2015 1:13:36 AM PDT by TChad
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To: cynwoody

“Eddie’s theory is that, once a civilization is advanced, it encrypts everything, so that eavesdroppers from afar, if they see anything at all, see only white noise, not signs of civilization.”

The alleged Snowden claim is nonsensical.

1. If the “advanced” civilization is attempting to communicate with previously unknown civilizations using radio energy, the radio frequencies to be used are rather obvious due to the limitations of using other radio frequencies, and encryption of the radio communications would be obviously contrary to the purpose of making First Contact using such primitive technology.

2. Using encryption with radio transmissions is far too slow and too weak in power across interstellar and intergalactic distances to be useful for most any communications other than First Contact, which requires the communications to not be encrypted.

3. Humans cannot “eavesdrop” on the radio emissions of alien civilizations, because those radio emissions are too weak in power to be detectable at the Earth, with the only exception of extremely high power (many terawatts) narrow band transmissions designed for non-encrypted First Contact purposes within about one thousand light years (LY) of the Earth. The radio emissions and radio frequency interference emissions of alien civilizations would be undetectable beyond a distance of a fraction of a single light year from the sources due to the dissipation of the radio energy and interstellar plasma.

The whole premise of the alleged Snowden claim appears to be another hoax.


37 posted on 09/20/2015 1:19:10 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Do humans have deep, meaningful conversations with cows, chickens, or hogs? Or do they simply slaughter them and cook them for dinner?


38 posted on 09/20/2015 1:20:34 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (Falcon 105)
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To: TChad

“Makes perfect sense.”

No, it makes perfect nonsense. See:

[sci.astro] ET Life (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (6/9)
Section - F.06 How far away could we detect radio transmissions?

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html


39 posted on 09/20/2015 1:21:46 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
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To: UCANSEE2

i would assume anyone that’s using a gamma beam to communicate would understand, and compensate for, stellar drift during the communications time

of course, gamma radiation would be too slow to get there in any reasonable time frame.

which would leave you with entangled particles as the primary mode of communication... something we could never eavesdrop on or find evidence of


40 posted on 09/20/2015 1:27:50 AM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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