Alas, even if pro-ufologist supporters have a valid argument (absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence), they face an even more formidable rational and methodological principle: Ockham's razor. And, until further extraordinary proofs and evidence are presented, that's where the energy/ressources chips should fall.

If it can't be ruled out as not coming from an advanced civilization then I would like to know why. Either:

It contains a message and the right people are not looking at it .
It is easily explained by cosmic phenomena that we apparently haven't seen before or can't figure out.
It is a repeating phenomena that is used by the putative civilization to manage their everyday affairs
It is hype to keep the money flowing in.

Only the third option in my list would still merit any doubt--I would like to read that " the signal has been analyzed by signal processing experts, code breakers, linguists and statisticians and they have found no sign of intentional modulation indicating a sentient intelligence." or most welcome would be the opposite--" we have found non gaussian modulation and are attempting to extract any message from the transmission"

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020

If it can't be ruled out as not coming from an advanced civilization then I would like to know why. Either:

It contains a message and the right people are not looking at it .
It is easily explained by cosmic phenomena that we apparently haven't seen before or can't figure out.
It is a repeating phenomena that is used by the putative civilization to manage their everyday affairs
It is hype to keep the money flowing in.

Only the third option in my list would still merit any doubt--I would like to read that " the signal has been analyzed by signal processing experts, code breakers, linguists and statisticians and they have found no sign of intentional modulation indicating a sentient intelligence." or most welcome would be the opposite--" we have found non gaussian modulation and are attempting to extract any message from the transmission"

Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study, says scientist Kevin Knuth
June 28, 2018
https://theconversation.com/are-we-alone-the-question-is-worthy-of-serious-scientific-study-98843

One of the most pertinent articles referenced in aforementioned article:
Groundbreaking UFO Video Released By Chilean Navy - 01/05/2017
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/groundbreaking-ufo-video-just-released-from-chilean_us_586d37bce4b014e7c72ee56b

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020

An interesting newspiece from Michael:

The new Canadian CHIME radio telescope has detected another of those strange Fast Radio Bursts, this time at a substantially lower radio frequency than ever before. As the linked article, below, points out, it can not be ruled out at this time, that FRBs are the work of a very advanced, very distant civilization in space.

I found it interesting to chart the positions of the FRBs in the sky. About 1/3 of the 36 FRBs so far detected are confined to the same ~2 percent of the sky. This seems to be bucking the odds for a natural phenomenon, which would presumably be more or less evenly distributed in intergalactic space.

The odd bunching of FRBs occurs through increasing Right Ascension: 16 to 0 hours, and Declination 0 to -20 degrees.

https://www.cnet.com/news/new-radio-telescope-picks-up-mysterious-signal-from-space/

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020

That was a great listen! Thank you for posting it.

My takeaways are these:

They didn't really address the degradation of our inadvertent radio signals, like tv transmissions, over interstellar space.

He made a good point about the speed of light and how it's fast for our earthly purposes, but in the grand scheme of things it's kind of slow.

Another good point was about why we don't have better pictures nowadays of UFO's with so many people carrying mobile phones around that have pretty good camera systems in them.

I also liked the point about the discovery of an alien signal or contact being so different than what we may expect that our preparations for response may be very inadequate.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Listened to the entire podcast. Mike Garrett thinks that intelligent life is rare in the galaxy, chiefly because we've found no evidence of it in our SETI searches. I consider this is a premature conclusion. As Dr. Jill Tarter has said, the SETI work done so far is like scooping a glass of water out of the ocean. If we find no fish in that glass, should we conclude, she asks, that there are no fish in the ocean? On that basis, it doesn't appear that even the rarity of fish, or extraterrestrials, can be established.

An example of this inadequacy of our cumulative SETI investigations: Mike Garrett remarks, in passing, that there is no evidence for Dyson spheres around any stars we have observed. This is incorrect. A good many stars have been found that are dimmer in visible light than expected, given their distances and spectral types, and where there is no ready astrophysical explanation for this.

Since a Dyson sphere would absorb much of a star's visible light, this constitutes evidence for Dyson spheres. What is keeping this from being a scientific headline? Our current observations are not yet good enough to rule out all possible natural causes. We need to dip out many more glasses of water from the ocean before we can say that there are or are not Dyson spheres in our galaxy.

Is there anybody out there?
"There are 100 billion stars in our Galaxy – surely we can’t be the only intelligent lifeform out there? In this week’s Science Focus Podcast we ask Mike Garrett what we’ll do if we find them, and what it means for us as humans."
12th July 2018 #podcast #SETI
http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/space/science-focus-podcast-mike-garrett-bluedot-extraterrestial-communication-seti?utm_content=buffer014c0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020

Wiggo,

Can you send us a picture of the Southern Cross from Down Under ?

That's what the sky looks like here on a clear night with the street lights out (if the street lights are on then a 3km drive will soon fix that). ;-)

Cheers.

That's right. The only Milky Way I can see is the one in my candy bar drawer.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

NASA Probe Primed; 20,000 Worlds Await
Bill Retherford - Jul 14, 2018
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/07/14/for-nasas-tess-the-search-starts-soon/#6b43e1b31315

The robotic spacecraft, launched 12 weeks ago, is now locked into “final science orbit,” says NASA’s Padi Boyd.

So far, all is good. Everything on TESS checks out, including the four cameras.

A spectacular test shot, an image of more than 200,000 stars, is just “a taste of things to come,” says Boyd, the TESS project scientist at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Soon—perhaps by the end of July—the spacecraft will begin its long-anticipated search for exoplanets.

It is so cool to see images like this. Many people have no idea of just how many stars there are. They look up at night and see only the few hundred that are visible to the naked eye and think that's all there are.

Unfortunately most of us now live in areas with terrible light pollution and can't even see the milky way anymore.

NASA Probe Primed; 20,000 Worlds Await
Bill Retherford - Jul 14, 2018
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/07/14/for-nasas-tess-the-search-starts-soon/#6b43e1b31315

The robotic spacecraft, launched 12 weeks ago, is now locked into “final science orbit,” says NASA’s Padi Boyd.

So far, all is good. Everything on TESS checks out, including the four cameras.

A spectacular test shot, an image of more than 200,000 stars, is just “a taste of things to come,” says Boyd, the TESS project scientist at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Soon—perhaps by the end of July—the spacecraft will begin its long-anticipated search for exoplanets.

It is so cool to see images like this. Many people have no idea of just how many stars there are. They look up at night and see only the few hundred that are visible to the naked eye and think that's all there are.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

NASA Probe Primed; 20,000 Worlds Await
Bill Retherford - Jul 14, 2018
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/07/14/for-nasas-tess-the-search-starts-soon/#6b43e1b31315

The robotic spacecraft, launched 12 weeks ago, is now locked into “final science orbit,” says NASA’s Padi Boyd.

So far, all is good. Everything on TESS checks out, including the four cameras.

A spectacular test shot, an image of more than 200,000 stars, is just “a taste of things to come,” says Boyd, the TESS project scientist at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Soon—perhaps by the end of July—the spacecraft will begin its long-anticipated search for exoplanets.

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020

MeerKAT, a scientific mega-project to unlock cosmic conundrums from dark energy to detecting extraterrestrial life was given a boost on Friday, July 11, when the 64-dish MeerKAT radio telescope was inaugurated in the remote South African town of Carnarvon. Built at a cost of 4.4 billion rand, MeerKAT will be incorporated into the complex Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/south-africas-meerkat-help-unlock-mysteries-universe/

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Apr 3, 1999 – Apr 26, 2020