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."
In any case, there are UFOs in the literal sense, i.e. some people see things that they can't identify. Now, if you're asserting that UFOs are not extraterrestrial craft, you're almost certainly right. That's not the same thing, though, as saying that there is no extraterrestrial life.
Who's saying that they're only looking for human life?
As Bruce said in the Philosophers' Sketch on Monty Python, "Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!"
I see that once more you have emerged from under your rock to spew venom on all. Perhaps you should go live in the sewer with the other rat-like creatures and post your thoughts on the walls there.
There are none so useless as those who will see anything at the drop of the slightest vague hint.
Geometric messages are an obvious choice. That's why we used them on Voyager. Far cheaper than mastering some primative language with which you probably have no natural affinity. If someone is trying to do us a cosmic good deed, it is probably peripheral to their affairs, so it doesn't make much sense to demand compliance with our standards before we'll deign to pay attention.
Anything has a "quasi-religeous aspect" if you are inclined that way. Science, rightly or wrongly, isn't in that business. Science deals in material causes, not immaterial causes.
Science's prejudices come in layers. After we give up on the notion that it's undergrad pranksters, science wants to default to phenomenon we already know something--anything--about. After we give up on that, we prefer little green men from Europa to demons from the depths of hell, since we prefer to think about material causes with the material tool of science. We may be wrong, but, like the man said who was looking for his car keys under the streetlight, rather than where he lost them, the light's better here. We use science to investigate what science is about: the known material world. Other, immaterial explanations may exist, but science is not organized to look into that.
Right. There's only room for improper cretins in this discussion.
Most of Newton's works are on subjects such as alchemy and astrology.
Hoagland made an interesting prediction with a sensible explanatory underpinning that was fulfulled several times running, and that points to an intelligence outside any we know of. It is not worth abandoning modern astro-physics for, but it is worth a look.
Just between you and me have you ever maintained a civil tongue in your head for more than a few seconds in a row?
Of course, the online persona he has adopted for his posts is also good for a laugh. Once anyway.
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