I think if we were to make contact it would be the most world changing event, I hope it would be for the good of all mankind, whoever contacts us first I'd hope they would be friendly and I expect they would be thousands of years ahead of us in science, and maybe they could resolve the health and other problems we have in this wee BLUE planet.

Bob Anderson

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Your last sentence is both perceptive and comforting with my Saturday morning coffee.

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Pat Richardson
Texas

Where life can it will

If we are the only one then there is a lot of wasted space out there!

If we are the only one then there is a lot of wasted space out there!

There is anyway.


My thoughts:
(1) We can detect civilizations only on the same level of technology as we conduct our search, as far more advanced civilizations will use far more efficient methods to communicate with each other; these are theoretically and practically undetectable for us. So the ones we can detect won't have too much to teach for us. Beside that "we're not alone". BTW humans are a social beings, the lingering for ETI is the extrapolation of this to cosmic dimensions - we did it in the past when we the vastness of outer space was unknown to us - think of all the mythical creatures.
(2) I think far more advanced aliens are able to hide their presence from us if they wish, even if they are very near to us.
(3) I think "aliens" regularly do "fly" in Earth's atmosphere -- as they are far more advanced technologically they do it most probably for thousands or even for millions of years -- obviously they have no intent either of making contact, or to destroy us; we can/will do the latter on our own, either intentionally, or unintentionally. (I'm inclined to know that they have made bets on the actual outcome.) They won't save us from ourselves, that's for sure, because
(4) the only real value on this planet which makes it unique for a far more advanced ETI is the evolution of it's biosphere, including but not limited to "the latest and greatest" of it: humans. Therefore they don't need our minerals, our lands, or our water (there is a lot of such resources on uninhabited celestial bodies); so the "Europeans colonize America" metaphor is void for the relation between aliens and humans.
(5) They probably see us as they have seen any previous beings (including for example the neanderthal man) on this planet: a temporary one. A link in a very long chain of slowly changing generations of evolving species.
(6) If we find a signal which is proven to came from ETI: the orthodox believers will deny it. The more liberal ones could say: "Hey, God almighty could have created the universe with aliens in it." - I think we have more to fear from the reactions of extremists than from ETI itself. But people will adopt.
(7) The chances of finding ETI the way we do it is very low, as any given technological civilization transmit radio signals for a very short time period (in cosmic timescales), as they either destroy themselves very soon after reaching the technological level of radio signals, or else they find more efficient ways to communicate.

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Perhaps they will find among us a segment of society that will through the power of all that is positive overcome all that is negative. There was a profile comment from another seti member who commented that the message into outer space should be

HELP!

. Sounds good to me.

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Life - lothe it or ignore it you cannot love it

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Douglas Adams aserted in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy "that some people believe that if we ever get to understand pupose of the the universe, it will be instantly destroyed by something even more bizaree and inexplicable, others suggest this has already happened citing the Banking system as proof", I would suggest BREXIT as backup evidence. To sum uo with another DA quote "people are a problem".

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Even if there are a million planets out there populated with ET`s, you would be lucky if one visible star in the night sky supported an ET.

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Nice read. Thanks for sharing.

Well one thing is 100% for certain, if we don't look we certainly won't find anything.

Carl Kruse

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Carl Kruse
SETI League

Mr. Lawn,

I suspect that the majority of us participating in seti@home search are doing so because we believe
that the odds are far too great to preclude that we are alone, but that there is intelligent life out there somewhere.
If that is the case, then we should use caution if and when a signal is observed, monitor that signal closely until it can
be determined it is safe to do otherwise, preferably de-code it before attempting a contact. Chances are
any such signal is likely to be beyond our ability to do so anyway, never mind a trip through space.
Hopefully we can learn a great deal just from monitoring . Thank you for such an insightful article.

John

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I have read "The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Observations of 1327 Nearby Stars over 1.10–3.45 GHz", June 17, 2019 where it says that:

"The EIRPmin for our GBT observations is 2.1×10^12 W, and 9.1 × 10^12 W for Parkes observations at the 50 pc maximum distance. We find no evidence for narrowband transmitters from observations of our target stars above the EIRPmin values of 2.1 × 10^12 W for GBT observations and 9.1 × 10^12 W for Parkes observations."

We can't expect ET to use TW transmitters rather kW to MW. Even with power added from many out of phase transmitters it is impossible to reach TW. Resulting in a very limited maximum detection distance beyond which BL resources are wasted in search of ET.

Have I interpreted the results correctly?

A more realistic but still optimistic power level would be search for signals 30 (40) dB lower than TW. This aside from the almost non-existent possibility of seeing a gigantic planetary radar if it exist. 30 dB lower with todays sesitivity is a distance 1.56 pc,  5 lightyears, i.e. not many stars. The way to increase sensitivity to 50 pc is likely to add effective antenna area through  Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) and using coherent integration. The same technologi used to get a picture of the black hole. A slow but effective process that requires bigger international commitment.

Please comment if correct or incorrect assumptions.