Posted on 07/16/2002 7:40:55 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists searching the stars for aliens are convinced an E.T. is out there -- it's just that they haven't had the know-how to detect such a being.
But now technological advances have opened the way for scientists to check millions of previously unknown star systems, dramatically increasing the chances of finding intelligent life in outer space in the next 25 years, the world's largest private extraterrestrial agency believes.
"We're looking for needles in the haystack that is our galaxy, but there could be thousands of needles out there," Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at California's non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( news - web sites) (SETI) Institute, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"If that's the case, with the number of new star systems we now hope to check, we should find one of those in the next 25 years."
But Shostak, visiting Australia to attend a conference on extraterrestrial research, said detecting alien life, like the big-eyed alien in the film E.T., was only the start.
"Even if we detect life out there, we'll still know nothing about what form of life we have detected and I doubt they'll be able -- or want -- to communicate with us," Shostak said.
Since it was founded in 1984, the SETI Institute has monitored radio signals, hoping to pick up a transmission from outer space. Its Project Phoenix conducts two annual three-week sessions on a radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
Project Phoenix, widely seen as the inspiration for the 1997 film "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, which depicted a search for life beyond earth, is the privately funded successor to an original NASA ( news - web sites) program that was canceled in 1993 amid much skepticism by the U.S. Congress.
But the search has been slow. About 500 of 1,000 targeted stars have been examined -- and no extraterrestrial transmissions have been detected.
E.T. NOT ON THE LINE
"We do get signals all the time but when checked out they have all been human made...and are not from E.T., more AT&T," said Shostak.
He said the privately-funded institute was developing a giant US$26 million telescope to start operating in 2005 that can search the stars for signals at least 100 times faster.
The so-called Allen Telescope Array, named after sponsor and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is a network of more than 350, six-meter (20-foot) satellite dishes with a collecting area exceeding that of a 100-meter (338-foot) telescope.
The Allen array, to be built at the Hat Creek Observatory about 290 miles northeast of San Fransciso, will also expand the institute's stellar reconnaissance to 100,000 or even one million nearby stars, searching 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Shostak said he is convinced there is intelligent life out there -- but don't expect to find a loveable, boggle-eyed E.T..
He said if any aliens share the same carbon-based organic chemistry as humans, they would probably have a central processing system, eyes, a mouth or two, legs and some form of reproduction.
But Shostak thinks any intelligent extraterrestrial life will have gone light years beyond the intelligence of man.
"What we are more likely to hear will be so far beyond our own level that it might not be biological anymore but some artificial form of life," he said. "Don't expect a blobby, squishy alien to be on the end of the line."
Sounds like an unfounded assertion to me....
Have you even bothered reading anything on that site? The webmaster, Erik Max Francis, simply posts links to what he finds to be "cranky" web sites. He rates than as "cranky", "crankier", or "crankiest", amongst other disparaging labels. Mind you, this is only his own personal opinions, and are not based on any authoritive analysis.
The one non-disparaging label he uses to show that he's in agreement with a certain website is "anticrank".
The ONE "anticrank" site related to crop circles is the "Circle Makers" website.
Again, go back and read post #222, and you'll see that "The Circle Makers", formerly known as Team Satan, have been exposed as frauds.
"Could be, but try disproving it!" he said diabolically... ;)
Duh, I meant to say (which the author misspelled as Tretactys Tetractys).
The author DID later spell it correctly. Oh well, this only proves that he is in fact human, as am I.. :)
So what DO you think about the derivation?
I think human beings are more clever and skillful than you give them credit for.
That said, I think there could perhaps be an undiscovered natural phenomenon that causes some of the circular ones.
Yeah, they never heard of Roswell. wink wink
it's just that they haven't had the know-how to detect such a being.
Heck, I got a few UFO magazines from the late sixties, one of which has an article on how to build your own UFO detector out of ten dollars worth of parts that one can find around many homes. :-)
Dont hand us that myth. The INS, a respected government agency, tells us that there is no such thing as aliens on the border with Mexico. If they could find any there, dont you think they would have done that by now?
:-)
Btw- it just made me feel better to see someone saying a line that I have often used: I think human beings are more clever and skillful than you give them credit for
You make a point of missing my point. In explaining the origin of something like a lot of flattened corn, the default assumption for most people is never going to be "little green men" for whom there is nothing but anecdotal evidence. I'm telling you where the bar is set whether you want to hear it or not. In statements like those that follow, however, you clearly assume that it's LGMs until somebody shows it ain't.
You appear to be either threatened by the idea that these circles exist and weren't created by "hoaxsters". (Where's the evidence for anything else?)
He didn't say undergraduates COULD do it. He said that this so-called "Occam's razor" theorem SUGGESTS that undergraduates were MORE THAN LIKELY responsible. That is a far cry from undergraduates actually having done it.
I wondered if you were familiar with Occam's Razor. In fact, I guessed not. Yes, Occam's Razor suggests what should be the default assumption and what should have the burden of proof. It doesn't tell you what is true, although it should give you ideas.
One way to describe Occam's Razor is that you don't unnecessarily multiply conjectures. Confronted with two explanations which seem to work equally well so far, choose the simplest, the one with the fewest so-far unverified elements. Your theory needs alien spaceships which have only the sort of anecdotal evidence that exists for ghosts, yetis, Bigfoot, chupacabras, the Monkey Man of India, that sort of thing.
There are other forms of Occam's Razor. The common saying that "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck" is one. For most people, your crop circles quack like a prank.
A down-to-earth example of that principle is the lowly dung beetle. From the point of view of that humble creature, the entire universe was obviously designed so that he could encounter large mounds of his favorite food. Truly a miracle caused by a benign providence. However, from the evolutionary point of view, the beetle has evolved to take advantage of that material as a food source.
Please see
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/20020502_solar_system_design.html?main
If you hypothysize that advanced life can exist on a wide variety of planet types, not just an Earth-like planet, then I must ask you why no such life exists on any of the other planets or major moons. You see, we already have many "tests" of whether some non-earth-like animal life can arise. So far the "tests" (these other bodies on our solar system) have been negative. THis despite the fact that many of them have doubtless been seeded by organic material, maybe even organisms, from Earth. This is through huge impact events that sent chunks of Earth into space.
My assumption one based on fact.
If not, do you think they should be?
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