Possible Signal

I have been reading information on the website, and I have found that a signal must be seen with the telescope at least 2 times to even be considered a signal of interest. This is because the random noise in space can also produce such a signal. If an advanced planet sent a strong signal only 1 time, it would be missed. The chance of this happening is only 1%, but it can't be ruled out.

If an intelligent alien society sent a signal they would hopefully know that for science any test or signal needs repeatability. So that society would be doing itself a disservice by only sending a blip in our general direction
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

Perhaps sending only one blip in our direction, from an advanced world may be a test if this were so? If they were well advanced they could already be aware of other inhabited worlds at various levels of evolution and they could be staying away from us for a reason? perhaps until such time, the inhabitants of earth can understand enough so as not to venture to far from our home planet and cause a trail of devastation every where we venture ? we still cant manage our own world effectivel! The damage we could do to other life we may encounter! I can only assume that any advanced civilisation looking our way would do every thing in its power to prevent us from knowing to much until humanity grows up a fair bit more!
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There is a 99% chance that a strong spike is just random noise from space. There is a 1% chance that an advanced planet is sending a strong signal only 1 time. Still, the stronger the spike, the better.

not really since we are talking a minimum 6 light years so anything too strong would indicate local interference
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

There is a 1% chance that a very strong spike is a very strong signal sent by an advanced planet only 1 time. There is a 99% chance that it is a signal of no interest.

A signal weakens as it goes a long way in space, so a signal may not be strong by the time it reaches earth. An advanced planet may send a very, very strong signal, so by the time it reached earth, the signal would still be very strong and the signal would cause a big spike.

Most likely a transmission from an alien civilization would be a one-time, weak signal that would contain an unmistakeable sign of intelligence and a "we are here" type of message. I hope that we are looking for this type of scenario, Fear that we are not.

There is only a 1% chance of this happening, but I think that a very strong spike we see on our screen could be from an advanced planet. There is a 99% chance that it is a signal of no interest.

There is only a 1% chance of this happening, but I think that a very strong spike we see on our screen could be from an advanced planet. There is a 99% chance that it is a signal of no interest.

It is an extraordinarily small chance that it is an alien transmission; If we cast away single examples of strong signals without trying to decode them and look for a message then the chance is zero in my opinion.

I have suggested on another forum that it is very unlikely that any other group of intelligent beings in our galactic neighborhood would be sending any greetings signal specifically in our direction, especially if they have been conducting any passive monitoring of what we've been broadcasting over the last 100 years or so.

So really the only signal we are likely to intercept is one of a random nature similar to those sent from earth. I think it is much more likely that we may some day indirectly detect the presence of another civilization via the chemical signatures of elements in a planet's atmosphere that indicate the activity of a non natural nature.
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Bob DeWoody

Considering we've only started making electronic transmissions that could reach space in the last 80 years it is unlikely that any civilization would have received and then sent us a message back. If they had gotten the messages from the earliest days of transmissions they would know they were getting accidental and incidental transmissions and that we were still electronically in our infancy.

Even if they were dumb enough to send something back our way and we were to get it today that would mean the civilization is less than 40 light years away. Still a very large leap to attempt in space travel.
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

By strong we would mean any signal significantly above the noise and therefore all signals that do not represent noise should be scanned for intelligence regardless of other ideas about strength. A Clutter Map could easily be built to screen out much of terrestrial (or satellite, or known radio sources in space) originated signals.

I have suggested on another forum that it is very unlikely that any other group of intelligent beings in our galactic neighborhood would be sending any greetings signal specifically in our direction, especially if they have been conducting any passive monitoring of what we've been broadcasting over the last 100 years or so.

So really the only signal we are likely to intercept is one of a random nature similar to those sent from earth. I think it is much more likely that we may some day indirectly detect the presence of another civilization via the chemical signatures of elements in a planet's atmosphere that indicate the activity of a non natural nature.