While the Fermi Paradox, in essence, states if there's intelligence out there we should see signs of it, there are some basic logical fallacies in it's thesis:

[*] 1) The intelligence is broadcasting as well. As our comm net tightens up, what we broadcast becomes less readable the farther out one goes, especially with tight beam to sattelites broadcasts to personal dish recievers.

[*] 2) The intelligence is at the same technological level as we are for us to be able to catch omnidirectional broadcasts. The intelligence may have gone beyond or have yet to the attainment of where we are. We are only talking about what, around a 100 ly radius?

[*] 3) Our glalaxy alone, at 80-100k ly in "diametre" is a big place. We assumethat because life has started here, it is almost a statistical certainty it has evolved elsewhere. Statistically speaking as well, if one assumes a high Carl Sagan number of intelligences, the spread through the galaxy could be dense in places, sparse in others, homogenously distributed, or even possibly only a "local" phenomenon.

[*] 4) The intelligence has the capacity to be technologically advanced through available resourse to do so. Many planets that could have life evolve mayn't have the resources that would eneable the ability to discover and create tech.

[*] 5) We aren't the only sentience in this galaxy. A highly unlike possibly, approaching the virtually impossible, but we could be it here. If so, then we'll have to ask "why?"

[*] 6) Their technological, gestalt, physiological/psychological makeup may be so remotely unintelligible to us, we may not recognize a communication from them if it bit us in the butts.

These sum up the major issues I see, and there are some others, but not so glaring as these.

The FP assumes as one instance we should see some things in advanced enough cultures like the rearrangement of local star groups to obtain more efficient use of energy from the stellar masses. Naturally, it may not be an "economically" rational thing to do.

There are a number of humanly, but perhaps not ET, rationalities standing against why we may never discover them sitting here on this rock. For all we know, there are, to us, undetectable EM filter shields with quarantine buoys around our solar system warning all advanced cultures away for whatever reason.

If you were them, would you want to come to Earth, being able to discover from our emissions what we are?

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hi Bill Mole,

Thanks for your reply. Gald to have an answer for it. Like i said, i saw and was quite startled by it. there clearly was a pattern which i hadn't seen before and i've been crunching pretty solidly since i joined back in novemeber. i did kind of know that the splitter system must leave some sort of marker, but i beleived it not be directly in the source data, i has assumed it was encapsulated in headers or something simular. well at least thats solved.

it's good to know that my processor is atually working and doing the maths right....

Thanks again.

Mark.

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What if SETI is looking for the wrong sort of signals?


Looking at my current SETI work unit, 01mr99.ab6406.9074.386086.1.0_1, recorded Tuesday march 02, 1999, from: 11hr 31’ 48’ RA +24 deg 43’ 5” Dec on base freq: 1.41999999 Ghz.

Around 82% competion is where I notice what seems to be, to me a strange occurrence. There is a quite distinct weaker powered signal that increases uniformly in frequency over time.

Mark Bollman,
University of Portsmouth,
Software Engineering, BSC(Hons)Year 1.

Hi Mark,

I remember this 'signal' from the SETI Classic Days. I've seen it a couple of times.

As I understand it, this effect is an artifact of the splitting and analysis process, and occurs at the Center Frequency of 1.4200000 Ghz., where the software deliberately suppresses the signal a bit to avoid generating a spurious signal when the results are recombined - or some such explanation. The line appears to be sloping across the display becuse the data has been 'chirped', or shifted in frequency with time, to search for signals with a doppler shift component. There used to be a Science Article on it, but it seems to have disappeared.

Congratulations - you have seen a rare demonstration that your SETI cruncher is really working!

Regards,
Bill_Mole

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Seti are looking at other ways to analyise the signals see SETI@home Plans

I would imagine (and hope) that as science and technology develops, newer and better signal analysis techniques will be considered and attempted by Seti@home and others; this would include (I hope) a look at 'alternative' communication techniques (to be discovered ?) and indirect evidence of technology (Dyson, Kardashev, etc).

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

Seti are looking at other ways to analyise the signals see SETI@home Plans

Andy

point conceeded. Like i said though, i was theorising and did state that at least once.

admitted to us it seems to logical way to attract attention would to make some sort of bright EM signal for all to see. although, this is again assuming that 1. they have a simular understanding of what logical is, and 2. they want to be found.

As a certian Dave Lister once said, "Aliens might know we exists and purposely avoid it like 'oh, don't to go Earth, they've got human cooties'" (Red Dwarf)

there's huge number of theories out there, creation, alien, etc etc.

Although i admit my earlier theorising was storytelling to fit, i simply seeking an answer to what seemed to be a quite strange output pattern to my screen. On top of that, it thankfully distracted me away from my systems analysis coursework for half an hour or so which i welcomed ;- P

it's gone 1am here now though, but in the morning i see if i can look up more information on this pattern. i did have a look before posting, but with no luck. i'll try researching more thoroughly now i know there is probably a topic here somewhere.

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making a couple of assumptions, that they are more advanced than us in at least radio transmission technology, and they are able to model large mathematical problems very quickly, it's possible that they could recieve our transmission noise which emits from us transmitting locally (tv, radio etc) monitor it for a while and once enough data has been gathered, use it as a estimate to calculate what is likely to be transmitted by the time their signal arrives here. then make the signal they send inverse that which they predict we be broadcasting. depending on how accurate they could predict our transmissions and calculate travelling time, it's likely a signal could be sent.

Occam's razor, Occam's razor, Occam's razor!!!!

Which is a simpler explanation? That an ETC would spend presumably a lot of time sitting, listening to us and then putting all their effort at stake trying to predict what we will be brodcasting in order to cancel out our signals? Or that they would send a "bright" EM signal to get our attention. No contest here - Although Occam's razor is not failproof, it applies here very well. Besides, if they had been sitting there listening to us and "collecting data" for their calculations for any significant amount of time, we're talking about the reduction of the potential distance of this ETC to a fairly small radius.

Don't get me wrong, it's interesting and definitely worth discussion. Actually I believe SOMEWHERE someone has posted on this phonomenon appearing in the WUs and established it had a quite non-ET origin, but it was a while ago.

While it's good to keep our minds open to possible methods of interstellar signalling, we also have to be careful not to "make too much stuff up" in order to pose a hypothesis, since each condition (i.e. They collected data from our transmissions) reduces the viablity of the hypothesis being put forth. Looking at what SETI is mainly looking for, narrowband signals in the waterhole, all that is required is a detection of this type of signal and upon repeatable verification, we pretty much know ET exists - It doesn't really matter what ET is doing on his home planet, much less what and if he knows about us. With this "noise cancellation" theory, we are writing a story that fits the ending, and of course that means there are millions upon millions of potential "plot lines", all of (or all except one) of which will be absolutely incorrect.

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indeed and i agree. i'm am mearly theorising and speculating on possibilties. hence the reason i'm posting this, as i'm not trying to say: "Hey lookat me i found aliens" i'm mearly trying to say "hey, look at this, it looks strange, could it be a signal? or how else can we explain it?"

also it strikes me as if it is something we can identfy with non ET origins, then perhaps someone's seen something like it before, and could explain it.

Edit: more theorising,

also it's possible that they indend for us to recieve this signal and have designed it for that sole purpose. normally they like us use normal signals, or perhaps they not use wireless signals that generate any EM signal into space.

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You wouldn't really need a solar system with a lot of EM background noise if your intending to send the signal across the vast distances of space, where there is a wide variety of background radiation. Or indeed if you know that the destination is polluted with lots of it, like our system is.

It is a bit of an assumption, but I would argue that the home system of such technology, would be much noisier. Why add the complexity inherent in such a system, unless direct radio communications would require prohibitive power. Maybe there is a reason I haven't considered.

A possible way of trying to get someone's attention with radio is to over-ride a signal their listerning to, or to block it out. then they would realise somethings not normal and would investigate it.

True, but some sign leading to an artificial source would eventually be required. Given we have no sign of a preliminary check, nevermind a larger investigation, but we rarely do.

It certainly is worth a look, but for now I'm a bit skeptical.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

You wouldn't really need a solar system with a lot of EM background noise if your intending to send the signal across the vast distances of space, where there is a wide variety of background radiation. Or indeed if you know that the destination is polluted with lots of it, like our system is.

A possible way of trying to get someone's attention with radio is to over-ride a signal their listerning to, or to block it out. then they would realise somethings not normal and would investigate it.

it does seems to have some sort of logical sense to transmit inversely.
in regard to clarify what sort of pattern i saw, it was an almost zero signal that had an even size which progressively increased over the frequency with time.

like my earlier diagram showed, although think of it instead of a inverse graph, where the low points are significant.

the thing that most struck me as unusal about it, was the constant change of frequency with time. it was like a 99% perfect line. and on the graph that seti draws as it's screensaver it run at 45 degrees from 0 time, min frequency.

if an admin sees this, perhaps they could take a closer look at the work unit. i provided full details of the particular workunit in question.

although your suggestion of a natural cancelation effect could indeed be plausible, the idea of ET life having technology to remotely transmit a signal to cancel out signals here for communication purposes is also plausible.

making a couple of assumptions, that they are more advanced than us in at least radio transmission technology, and they are able to model large mathematical problems very quickly, it's possible that they could recieve our transmission noise which emits from us transmitting locally (tv, radio etc) monitor it for a while and once enough data has been gathered, use it as a estimate to calculate what is likely to be transmitted by the time their signal arrives here. then make the signal they send inverse that which they predict we be broadcasting. depending on how accurate they could predict our transmissions and calculate travelling time, it's likely a signal could be sent.

(welcoming further discussion.)

EDIT: response to Micheal Buckingham:

Indeed. good thought. it is possible that some sort of movement, which created a "blindspot" in the reciever over time does seem a good idea, but it doesnt account for why that would show just a change of certian frequencies, not the entire spectrum which is what i'd expect. or that just a certian range of frequencies got blacked out, not the steadily increasing range of frequencies that were recorded.

it does open a line of thought though. keep them coming.

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There is a quite distinct weaker powered signal that increases uniformly in frequency over time.

Movement of the receiver? ie; the rotation of our planet that aligns the receiver over time?

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I'm not entirely sure this is what you're seeing, but I can see a natural explaination. That could very well be an interference pattern, two natural radio sources being aligned just right to cancel each other out.

The concept of inverse transmission (signal by cancelation) is rather interesting. I can see that being possible for transmissions, but it would be somewhat limited. You'd need a solar system that had a lot of background EM radiation, and the radiation would have to be fairly stable (to allow any reasonable data exchange rate). In some ways the concept is rather like FM.

Edit for clairity (even if it didn't work)

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

What if SETI is looking for the wrong sort of signals?

05 May 2006.

To Whom It May Concern:

It has just occurred to me that we are looking for signals which we are able to generate in the EM spectrum. (high powered spikes or waves at certain frequencies over a period of time)

But what if other life doesn’t send such signals. There are a load of signals and radiation that occurs naturally in space, and sending large amounts of high powered signals, which gets disrupted by distance and noise over the huge distances travelled does seem to have problems. With noise and power required to generate.

So what if they aren’t sending such signals. What if instead, they have technology that sends a beam of some sort which removes all background EM radiation. So instead of spikes, we should be looking for an absence or extremely low signal in frequencies.

Looking at my current SETI work unit, 01mr99.ab6406.9074.386086.1.0_1, recorded Tuesday march 02, 1999, from: 11hr 31’ 48’ RA +24 deg 43’ 5” Dec on base freq: 1.41999999 Ghz.

Around 82% competion is where I notice what seems to be, to me a strange occurrence. There is a quite distinct weaker powered signal that increases uniformly in frequency over time.


I’ll quickly draw a illustration of what I witnessed, bearing in mind this a simplified diagram only:

Time
^
|XXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|______________________________> frequency

X = high power, O = very low power.



As you can see, there does seem to be some sort of pattern. It may be something completely natural or normal, but it struck me as being quite strange indeed.

I hope that if it is indeed something important, that it will be looked into further. Perhaps with the work unit being re-analyzed, with the numbers inverted so that any pattern could be identified.

I’ve kept this purposely short as not to waste too much of anybody’s time if it is explainable. I lack in depth knowledge on the topic of transmission, but felt what I saw begged some sort of second opinion.

Looking forward to a reply.

Mark Bollman,
University of Portsmouth,
Software Engineering, BSC(Hons)Year 1.

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