Thread: Top four reasons people suggest for why SETI hasn’t found a signal.

considering how vast the universe is I think the signals could have 1000 more years to travel before they reach anything

When a dog leaves urine marks on a tree, do you want to respond?

Why in heaven would aliens want to talk to us. If aliens told humans to be nice to eachother and brush our teeth would we listnen? We just ask a lot of stupid questions to which we couldn't understand the answers.

I think it is more likely planet Earth is quarantained from the rest of the universe like an animal reserve. Perhaps the zoo keepers tranq specimens from time to time to do some tests, put a chip in them to monitor them and release them again. Maybe we get some visitors that are fascinated by such a primitive society, nothing more to see here to them, than there is to see with a group of chimps to us.

And then we use our super primitive communication devices to reach out to them? We might as well make smoke signals. But at least aliens give as more space and treat us better than some humans do with animals.

I've read that they have recieved several signals. (Information was suppressed.) Government officials have started blocking them now.

I take it with a grain of salt though. Anyone, can write anything, at anytime. Theres only three people in my life that I fully trust what they told me on this subject. One of the three is me. Time will only tell.

Peace

SETI is just the tip of the iceberg.If we were not to advance as a species, then we are no different than animals. Mankind will always persue our wonders with a passion. I say if there are others out there, they are doing the same thing! TinMan

Originally posted by reallynobody
[b]When a dog leaves urine marks on a tree, do you want to respond?

Why in heaven would aliens want to talk to us. If aliens told humans to be nice to eachother and brush our teeth would we listnen? We just ask a lot of stupid questions to which we couldn't understand the answers.

I think it is more likely planet Earth is quarantained from the rest of the universe like an animal reserve. Perhaps the zoo keepers tranq specimens from time to time to do some tests, put a chip in them to monitor them and release them again. Maybe we get some visitors that are fascinated by such a primitive society, nothing more to see here to them, than there is to see with a group of chimps to us.

And then we use our super primitive communication devices to reach out to them? We might as well make smoke signals. But at least aliens give as more space and treat us better than some humans do with animals.

Well said.

Originally posted by reallynobody
[b]When a dog leaves urine marks on a tree, do you want to respond?

Why in heaven would aliens want to talk to us. If aliens told humans to be nice to eachother and brush our teeth would we listnen? We just ask a lot of stupid questions to which we couldn't understand the answers.

I think it is more likely planet Earth is quarantained from the rest of the universe like an animal reserve. Perhaps the zoo keepers tranq specimens from time to time to do some tests, put a chip in them to monitor them and release them again. Maybe we get some visitors that are fascinated by such a primitive society, nothing more to see here to them, than there is to see with a group of chimps to us.

And then we use our super primitive communication devices to reach out to them? We might as well make smoke signals. But at least aliens give as more space and treat us better than some humans do with animals.

Well said

what you have to remember is if aliens are monitering radio signals from space the first signal they would have picked up was...... Adolf Hitlers opening speech at the 1936 Berlin olympics

what a great ambassador for the earth

Originally posted by reallynobody
[b]When a dog leaves urine marks on a tree, do you want to respond?

Why in heaven would aliens want to talk to us. If aliens told humans to be nice to eachother and brush our teeth would we listnen? We just ask a lot of stupid questions to which we couldn't understand the answers.

You make a good point but NASA isnt looking for a response, They, are looking for signals from long ago that have been sent out by perhaps a communication device on their end. Has nothing to do with trying to talk to Earth.

The problem I think is that they're so advance, that they communicate using other forms of technology. So we may never pick up anything. Most radio waves are to weak to travel that far that could be picked up. they would be to faint. So they're looking for light pulsations or other forms of energy that have a pattern. I'm, wondering if whenever a civilization or species learns this science of communcation, that it only lasts a few hundred years before they're able to master some kind of telekinesis.

If you, think that is silly... we are just now learning how to control machines through thought. Right now they have prostectic devices that can be controlled by the persons mind. right now, computers can be controlled by thought. Its real and it exists. Imagine us in 1 or 2 hundred years from now. It might be possible that our current form of telecommunications will be obsolete in just a few decades or centuries.

Whippy, I ejoyed the Seth Shostak article from the site very much...the wit is nice. By the way, I do not know much about making websites, but that site of yours looks fan-tastic. Love the color, the font, photos, way it's laid out, everything.

To anyone who reads the good article and looks at Shostak's four reasons, I'd like at add...well, in such a search, it makes sense to look at historically conventional wisdom about where communication might be coming from and rule out some basics first when starting a big search like this, for ET existance, the way SETI has.

Now, in the late 19th and 20th century, there were some hot rumors that eath was geiing signals from other places in the cosmos. Tesla thought he heard some stuff from Mars, Lowell thought he saw some stuff on Mars. I think there have been other instances of mysterious radio signals. At Princeton (New Jersey, research-oriented uni in the US) in, was it the 60s, pigeon poop in one of their first radio telescopes produced some initially weird signals. The first pulsars seemed like radio beacons, too. And that 3 degrees Kelvin Big Bang radiation seemes like a signal at first.

My point is, that's where SETI has to start, by unpacking and examining this 19th-20th century mythology about mysterious signals. Just as you rule out vision and hearing problems first when diagnosing a child's reading difficulties, SETI needs to start where fairly scientific human thought was in the 20th century...we have had weird radio signals...let's start there and make sure we know as much as we can about whether or not we are receiving something artificial and understandable.

As Shostak says, SETI has only begun looking, has only gone over @ 1,000 star systems so far. We have to get to know SETI's world of incoming sounds and signals and rule out the false leads. That work has begun nicely, thanks to SETI.

And SETIs efforts have more to offer science than seeing if there are ETs. Listening may also tell us important things about the "world' around us, out there, help confirm or refute hypotheses about how the universe works.

Mary