Astronomers Hope to Find E.T. in Next 25 Years

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.

"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."

crop circles, history 2001, crop circles

It seemed as if things couldn't get any more exciting. Then, something happened beside the radio telescope at Chilbolton, Hampshire.

Two glyphs appeared on the same night on land supposedly owned by the Ministry of Defense: the first comprised diminishing-sized dots- like the halftone screen used by the printing industry- which from an angle created the image of a face. A few hundred yards away lay a more bizarre design, this time resembling the punch holes on an old-fashioned computer data card. But these dots meant something, for the image resembled the Arecibo message sent into space by NASA in 1974. 'Arecibo' was a radio communication beamed in binary sequence which, when retrieved at the 'other end', recreated an image of a human figure and the codes related to human DNA.

Clever? Yes. But genuine? Well, for starters, both formations were reportedly very messy on the ground.

Historically, the Circlemakers (not to be confused with hoaxers Team Satan/circlemakers) have worked with subtle messages which require us to ponder over for some time; their geometries are intricate, sometimes veiled, and work on harmonic principles. Most important of all, the crop circles have generally appealed to the heart - to the feeling centre of humanity. None of these designs fit the bill, in fact, by any length of the imagination, they are crude and obvious.

Conversely, every season we are offered new images which further our understanding of the phenomenon, and each season brings something new and unexpected. And yet the unexpected appeared pretty much at the start of 2001 with the shield designs. These subsequently developed into art as the season progressed. To quote Abbott Suger, 'Art without meaning is nothing', and as of the time of writing little meaning has been gleaned from this year's designs except for wonder. This is in sharp contrast to previous years where the intellectual deciphering process has worked at a fairly brisk pace. The information gathered and extracted from thirty years' worth of crop circles is certainly enviable, for example, they have yielded the measurements for three speeds of light! Perhaps we simply haven't got the message, in which case are we being given more obvious imagery to work with this year? Or have world crises such as Foot and Mouth drained us of so much energy that the best thing this year was to simply offer crop circles as art, to soothe the senses and awaken feeling for the land?

Or perhaps someone with a pretty devious mind - and a seemingly deep pocket - is waiting for enough people to be taken in by seemingly incredible designs - such as the Chilbolton glyphs - before dropping everyone into a well-orchestrated hoax. Could a well-funded, well-organized group, perhaps with military connections, together with their media allies be desperately trying one last effort at sabotage? It has been done before with Doug and Dave, even if in the end their deception was exposed. With 2002 promising to be a feast for crop circles documentaries and films (and my book), this would seem an opportune time to pull the carpet from under the subject, even if in the end the forces of detraction will only be fooling themselves.

I recall a similar debate in 1991, when an obvious computer image - the 'Mandelbrot Set' - appeared as a crop circle near Cambridge. At the time, scientists and academics scoffed at the notion of 'space brothers' being responsible, and yet this computer fractal was discovered to have been sufficiently clipped to encode obscure information not present in the computer model. Could the same situation exist in the 'Arecibo' crop glyph, particularly as the design appears to have been altered to encode a message which differs from the original NASA script. My colleague Paul Vigay has spent much time investigating this angle and you can read his research on Decoding Arecibo on his excellent web site. Again, it is worth keeping an open mind, and just because such designs do nothing for me, you are perfectly entitled to think otherwise. That's what makes this subject so interesting.

Ultimately, the crop circles appeal to the heart, and that is something no science can ever measure. They get us to feel rather than to think. Perhaps we simply do too much thinking and not enough feeling, and that is why so much argument rages over authenticity. Sure, there ought to be safeguards and litmus tests, and in many cases these have existed for some time. And yet, having researched crop circles since the early nineties I have come to the view that all the time spent on analysis simply takes away from the time to enjoy the spectacle, and in the end, if your senses are awake you will know if a crop circle originates from the compassionate breath of God or the crafty hand of deception.

I wish to end on this positive note, because ultimately this is a positive phenomenon, one which has opened the hearts of tens of thousands of people around the world. Ironically, in Cambridgeshire appeared a crop circle which seems to have appealed to the heart of many; it's been dubbed 'the angel' in view of the beams radiating from its heart (above left).

One of the lessons I've gained from this year's crop circles is to remind myself not to rely on what I see, but what I feel. And right now in the world, this is where the imbalance lies. As the world becomes ever more embroiled in extremism, retribution, fast food and spreadsheets, it also becomes wrapped up in its symbols and images, and so it mistakes these symbols for reality instead of the reality that lies behind the symbols. As a former Creative Director in advertising I am only too aware of how the public's psychology has slowly been brainwashed by symbols, whether they represent organizations, idols, or heads of government. People have bought into the exterior dazzle of the symbol, the superficiality of the meaning, while behind it lies the substance. Sometimes that substance is nothing but an attempt to control, manipulate and dominate - qualities which are diametrically opposite to the underlying substance of crop circles, I hasten to add.

I have no problem admitting that a number of crop circles are now hoaxed. Some of them are obvious. But a hoax is a forgery, and a forgery requires an original from which to copy. After all the ground evidence has been collected, after all the biophysical proof has been gathered, after all the science and logic has been strung together to clearly prove we do have a real phenomenon on our hands, we are left with something far more powerful: what do you believe? Where do you feel a crop circle? The answer, of course, can only lie in the beholder, and so I encourage you not to follow what I've learnt, what I've experienced, but what this phenomenon means to you.

And perhaps this is what has been shown this season: don't get too caught up looking at the details, look instead at what lies inside the heart.

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