It occurred to me that since SETI is looking for more advanced civilizations, that they might communicate with something other than radio waves.

One possibility is gravitational waves.

NASA want to launch a space based gravitational wave detector called LISA

I heard that lasers as well as gravity can distort time-space. What if ET found a connection between laser like apparatus and gravitational waves to communicate with?

Where would that leave SETI?

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It occurred to me that since SETI is looking for more advanced civilizations, that they might communicate with something other than radio waves.

One possibility is gravitational waves.

NASA want to launch a space based gravitational wave detector called LISA

I heard that lasers as well as gravity can distort time-space. What if ET found a connection between laser like apparatus and gravitational waves to communicate with?

Where would that leave SETI?

There are already GW detectors of various types in USA, Italy, Germany and Japan. Some of their data are being crunched by a BOINC application in Einstein@home.
Tullio

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Another possibility is neutrinos:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/34283

Stanislaw Lem wrote a very good novel- 'His master's voice'- about Earth receiving neutrino messages from ETI. There are still some interesting radio frequencies that apparently haven't been seriously checked for continuous, comparatively high power signals of the sort that has been more or less ruled out at and around 1.42 GHz. The positronium line at 203.385 GHz, where the remnant background radiation from the Big Bang is strongest has been advocated. This might be considered a more 'obvious' hailing frequency than the hydrogen line by some extraterrestrials. Signals at this frequency wouldn't penetrate the atmosphere, so a satellite receiver would be indicated. Perhaps we're expected to be accomplished enough to do this experiment, and interested enough to actually carry it out before we are deemed ready for contact. Michael

Stanislaw Lem wrote a very good novel

... I loved Andrei Tarkovsky's film adaptation of his novel Solaris...

. . . what IF they use 'Pulsed Laser' sigs

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

It occurred to me that since SETI is looking for more advanced civilizations, that they might communicate with something other than radio waves.

One possibility is gravitational waves.

NASA want to launch a space based gravitational wave detector called LISA

I heard that lasers as well as gravity can distort time-space. What if ET found a connection between laser like apparatus and gravitational waves to communicate with?

Where would that leave SETI?

In the dark, Up a creek, Down a hole, with no paddle or rope.... road kill

Despite my flippant comments... this is actually a serions issue. I have thought for many years that radio is ok for beginners but serious space going folk are not going to give their position away with it... if I was out there nosing around then I sure as heck would not use "normal" radio... would you??

we ??may?? hear another civilisation that like us hasent yet learnt to shut up.. perhaps.

very shortrange stuff (or direct line of sight) would very likely be by light or near-light(uv or higher) comms, longrange comms who knows??

Gravity waves (manufactured high frequency variety) do hold a LOT of promise though, it is being investigated by quite a few people and from what litte we get to hear they have some progress in the field. It seems that gwaves can be focused and used in a torch-light like mode so they are not captured/detected by off-beam detectors.


some random gw stuff here

There are already GW detectors of various types in USA, Italy, Germany and Japan. Some of their data are being crunched by a BOINC application in Einstein@home.
Tullio

DOH! That reminds me I need to add Einstein@home to my boinc.

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The gravity wave, it is anything, I just contacted, is not clear. I only knew that every will have thing of definitely outward radiation place gravity wave the nature, will look like the periodic current to cause the electromagnetic wave to be the same, will be not too clear, in society mystery will be so profound, I will only know in society one jiao.

I've always had a very strong hunch that the whole premise of this thread is actually correct and that ET doesn't use radio waves to communicate and won't send them to us because there is some other, better method of communication civilizations typically find and use over a longer period of time. We ourselves may be less than a thousand years from finding that technology, and if we are, then that means a typical civilization will have a better method of interstellar communication within 1,000 years of discovering radio waves. That's a breathtakingly short period of time....



If that's the case though (as I strongly suspect it is), I still have hope that a signal from ET can be detected within my lifetime.

The reason is simple:

Our astronomical tools of observation are getting better and more powerful as time goes on...
Our ability to view the universe around us is getting more and more complete.

If extraterrestrial civilizations *do* exist, even if they do not have vast galaxy-wide high energy signatures (as seems to be the case), I think that the detection of their technology is inevitable.

If they're signaling Earth but not using radio, then I believe our technology will eventually inadvertently detect it anyway, with or without SETI. Neutrino detectors, gravity wave detectors, etc etc If a signal is being sent our way, I think it's inevitable that we'll detect it.

Even if a signal is *not* being sent our way, I'm very confident that as our observational tools get better and better we will stumble onto evidence of alien technology sooner or later. It may just be that we stumble onto some phenomena that is not explainable by natural theory, even if that phenomena is not easily interpretable as artificial....

Then again, of course, I do feel radio SETI is worth doing since I do think that the premise is fairly valid: ET is likely to know that an emerging civilization will use radio, if only for a brief period of time.


Either way, given the rate of technological evolution, I have a decent expectation that we will have a confirmed detection of ET within my lifetime.

I read somewhere that the estimated age of the universe is 15 billion years. If we detect anything at all it will be a civilization close to us in technological evolution. With the universe being as old as it is that gives rise to the possibility that alien civilizations could be 1 year or billions of years ahead of us in technology. I think a civilization 1 billion years more advanced than us is not likely to use radio waves anymore.

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Speaking of a billion years ago... Did you know that Mars is red because the soil has a high concentration of iron oxide (rust). In most regions of Mars it is a very thin layer of red soil. This is due to the ancient civilisation on Mars becoming extinct and the structures that were left were eventually worn into a fine powder and blown around the planet by dust storms after the planet dried up. What percentage of the surface of Mars would have to be covered by artificial structures in order to leave a layer of rust around the whole planet? How many years would it take to erode all signs of previous owners. I am not sure about the age of Mars but I know that Earth is supposed to be over 4 billion years old. Could it be possible that life evolved on Mars as it did on Earth but Martian life went extinct so long ago that there are no traces left on the surface? Just a few random thoughts.....

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sorry for some reason the edit button is not showing up on the post for me to edit my comment

civilization*

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sorry for some reason the edit button is not showing up on the post for me to edit my comment

civilization*

You are only allowed to edit a post for one hour after the time of the initial posting. After that, the EDIT button goes away.

This is due to the ancient civilisation on Mars becoming extinct and the structures that were left were eventually worn into a fine powder and blown around the planet by dust storms after the planet dried up.

No, unfortunately the red sands of Mars aren't the result of rusted artificial structures.

Iron is a ubiquitous part of the solar system and exists naturally and in abundance particularly within the cores of every terrestrial planet.

This might be of some help.
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=953
http://www.slate.com/id/2093779/

I've always had a very strong hunch that the whole premise of this thread is actually correct and that ET doesn't use radio waves to communicate and won't send them to us because there is some other, better method of communication civilizations typically find and use over a longer period of time. We ourselves may be less than a thousand years from finding that technology, and if we are, then that means a typical civilization will have a better method of interstellar communication within 1,000 years of discovering radio waves. That's a breathtakingly short period of time....



If that's the case though (as I strongly suspect it is), I still have hope that a signal from ET can be detected within my lifetime.

The reason is simple:

Our astronomical tools of observation are getting better and more powerful as time goes on...
Our ability to view the universe around us is getting more and more complete.

If extraterrestrial civilizations *do* exist, even if they do not have vast galaxy-wide high energy signatures (as seems to be the case), I think that the detection of their technology is inevitable.

If they're signaling Earth but not using radio, then I believe our technology will eventually inadvertently detect it anyway, with or without SETI. Neutrino detectors, gravity wave detectors, etc etc If a signal is being sent our way, I think it's inevitable that we'll detect it.

Even if a signal is *not* being sent our way, I'm very confident that as our observational tools get better and better we will stumble onto evidence of alien technology sooner or later. It may just be that we stumble onto some phenomena that is not explainable by natural theory, even if that phenomena is not easily interpretable as artificial....

Then again, of course, I do feel radio SETI is worth doing since I do think that the premise is fairly valid: ET is likely to know that an emerging civilization will use radio, if only for a brief period of time.


Either way, given the rate of technological evolution, I have a decent expectation that we will have a confirmed detection of ET within my lifetime.

If we must wait for that to come from outside the civilized signal, how long that is going to wait? If really has that a signal to pass on, our earthman also not necessarily may discover, because this must think that which wave band wave they have used, but this is actually unknown, how should our earthman determine that the natural frequency carries on the resonance? Moreover this kind of signal, once passes through Earth, we were impossible to pursue again to it, because we impossible the speed surmounting speed of light. Therefore said that accepts outside the civilized signal probability is very small. On the contrary, outside civilization, if wants to accept our signal probability also to be weak. Only if their science and technology and the civilization distant surpass us.

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This is due to the ancient civilisation on Mars becoming extinct and the structures that were left were eventually worn into a fine powder and blown around the planet by dust storms after the planet dried up.

No, unfortunately the red sands of Mars aren't the result of rusted artificial structures.

Iron is a ubiquitous part of the solar system and exists naturally and in abundance particularly within the cores of every terrestrial planet.

This might be of some help.
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=953
http://www.slate.com/id/2093779/

I saw a program on TV recently which implied that the oceans on the early Earth had a high concentraion of Iron salts around the time life was getting going.. If Mars was similar at some point in it's past, and those Iron rich oceans eventually evaporated, you'd be left with piles of Iron salts where the oceans were, which could then be blown around the planet over the eons..

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It occurred to me that since SETI is looking for more advanced civilizations, that they might communicate with something other than radio waves.

One possibility is gravitational waves.

NASA want to launch a space based gravitational wave detector called LISA

I heard that lasers as well as gravity can distort time-space. What if ET found a connection between laser like apparatus and gravitational waves to communicate with?

Where would that leave SETI?

I hear you. I personally believe that advanced civilizations would prefer to use gravitational waves, not EM waves, as a method of interstellar communication.
I had the pleasure of presenting this idea in a poster session at the AbSciCon 2008 conference last April. The reasons ETs would use gravitational waves as their preferred mode of communication, are as follows:
1. They can be monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of weather conditions.
2. Gravitational waves are more like sound waves, which can be detected (or heard), regardless of detector orientation.
3. Gravitational waves are not impeded by interstellar dust.
4. Gravitational waves produced by natural sources have a relatively low frequency (< 5 kHz). Intelligent signals are likely to be much higher.
5. Only the most advanced civilizations would have the technology to receive gravitational waves.
6. Currently, there are no terrestrial sources of gravitational waves that we know of.
7. Since the demand for wireless (EM) services is constantly growing, radio interference will become more and more of a problem. Satellites orbiting the earth also cause major interference. For this reason, advanced civilizations will be forced to use gravitational waves as a method of extraterrestrial communication and reserve EM waves for terrestrial communication. I predict that once we develop the technology to transmit and receive gravitational waves, we will also use it for interplanetary communication.
You can go to: http://www3.telus.net/foamyether/seti/seti.htm to view my poster and also watch a video of my presentation.

Excellent points, Peter.

7. Since the demand for wireless (EM) services is constantly growing, radio interference will become more and more of a problem. Satellites orbiting the earth also cause major interference. For this reason, advanced civilizations will be forced to use gravitational waves as a method of extraterrestrial communication and reserve EM waves for terrestrial communication. I predict that once we develop the technology to transmit and receive gravitational waves, we will also use it for interplanetary communication.

I think this is an especially insightful point, and I don't think it's ever really even been considered before...

Thank you for sharing your presentation with us, I will definitely be watching that video.

Just a quick question;
Do you think that LIGO or some other gravitational wave detection endeavor in the near future would stumble on an ET signal relatively quickly once we've made the first confirmed detections of natural waves?...
...or do you think it would take decades or even centuries? This is probably covered in your presentation, but I thought I would ask anyway.

Excellent points, Peter.

7. Since the demand for wireless (EM) services is constantly growing, radio interference will become more and more of a problem. Satellites orbiting the earth also cause major interference. For this reason, advanced civilizations will be forced to use gravitational waves as a method of extraterrestrial communication and reserve EM waves for terrestrial communication. I predict that once we develop the technology to transmit and receive gravitational waves, we will also use it for interplanetary communication.

I think this is an especially insightful point, and I don't think it's ever really even been considered before...

Thank you for sharing your presentation with us, I will definitely be watching that video.

Just a quick question;
Do you think that LIGO or some other gravitational wave detection endeavor in the near future would stumble on an ET signal relatively quickly once we've made the first confirmed detections of natural waves?...
...or do you think it would take decades or even centuries? This is probably covered in your presentation, but I thought I would ask anyway.

Taurus,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Gravitational wave theorists have a pretty good idea of what naturally occurring gravitational waves should look like. Once we build a detector that actually works (and has an adequate amount of sensitivity), I believe we will notice intelligent signals almost immediately. Of course it will take some time to confirm that the source is not caused from our own interference and that the signal is indeed extraterrestrial in origin.

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