Contact with Aliens?

[troutman]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/09/02/s...reut/index.html

An unexplained radio signal from deep space could -- just might be -- contact from an alien civilization, New Scientist magazine reported on Thursday.

http://planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/index.html

[Daradon]

Wow, very cool.

I had the SETI@home screensaver running on my computer for quite a while years ago.

It's probably more excitement over nothing again, I remember how stoked scientists and many people in general (and how freaked out religious fundmentalists, hee hee) were getting over that rock from Mars a few years ago that supposedly had (I think) bacteria fossils in it. Turned out it was so far past inconclusive it wasn't nearly as exciting as they billed it.

Still, gotta keep searching I suppose.

[octothorp]

Is this the first time that Seti has actually come across anything remotely interesting? I can't remember them ever finding anything previously.

[troutman]

Originally posted by octothorp@Sep 2 2004, 05:48 PM
Is this the first time that Seti has actually come across anything remotely interesting? I can't remember them ever finding anything previously.

About the previous "WOW" signal:

http://planetary.org/html/news/articlearch.../2002/Wow2.html

The possibility that it was interference now seems stronger, but the signs of a celestial origin were pretty strong too.

http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti...y/History10.htm

Since 1977 several attempts had been made to find the "Wow!" signal once more - to no avail. To this day we do not know the source of the strongest and clearest signal ever to come through on a SETI search. Since it was undoubtedly artificial, and almost certainly of celestial origin, Jerry Kraus speculates that it may have come from a space probe (human space probe, that is…) that he and the Big Ear staff were not aware of. That would certainly make it an intelligent celestial signal, but not an alien one. And still, there is always the possibility that it was something else - a true signal from an alien civilization. Unless the signal is detected again, we may never know for sure.

[Daradon]

Just reading up, this new signal seems a bit more exciting than the 'WOW' signal because it has already been received or found 3 times. The 'WOW' signal was only ever found once.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Oh boy I hope so.

[Jiggy_12]

That's cool, this kinda thing is very interesting to me

[troutman]

The original story:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/nog...?id=ns99996341

“It’s the most interesting signal from SETI@home,” says Dan Werthimer, a radio astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and the chief scientist for SETI@home. “We’re not jumping up and down, but we are continuing to observe it.”

David Anderson, director of SETI@home, remains sceptical but curious about the signal. ”It’s unlikely to be real but we will definitely be re-observing it.” Bell Burnell agrees that it is worth persisting with. “If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get exciting,” she says.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Lets hope that the signal is a sign of intelligent life out there in the universe, because there isn't much here on earth at the moment.

[calculoso]

Hopefully those data packets have been evaluated by more than one computer. I'd hate for them to get all excited and have it turn out to be nothing more than a hacked program giving false results....

[calculoso]

multiple post.. oops

[troutman]

Related news; New class of planets discovered:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/08/31/s....cnn/index.html

Our planet is not alone. It may not even be lonely.

Astronomers on Tuesday announced the discovery of a new -- and possibly abundant -- class of planets that has more in common with Earth than the uninhabitable gas giants previously discovered.

[troutman]

Originally posted by calculoso@Sep 2 2004, 09:00 PM
Hopefully those data packets have been evaluated by more than one computer. I'd hate for them to get all excited and have it turn out to be nothing more than a hacked program giving false results....

From the New Scientist article:

Possible fraud


There is also the possibility of fraud by someone hacking the SETI@home software to make it return evidence for an extraterrestrial transmission. However, SHGb02+14a was seen on two different occasions by different SETI@home users, and those calculations were confirmed by others.

Then the signal was seen a third time by the SETI@home researchers. The unusual characteristics of the signal also make it unlikely that someone is playing a prank, Korpela says. “As I can’t think of any way to make a signal like this, I can’t think of any way to fake it.”

[icarus]

Excellent, we've found someone to play with. Now time to perfect our death ray! Bwahahaha!

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally posted by calculoso@Sep 2 2004, 03:00 PM
Hopefully those data packets have been evaluated by more than one computer. I'd hate for them to get all excited and have it turn out to be nothing more than a hacked program giving false results....

I seem to recall hearing that overclocking from enthusiasts resulted in erroneous SETI processing to a relatively high degree. I know I had to dial back my system a good 0.3 Ghz before i could get it to pass the Prime95 torture test.... and I know many O/Cer's dont....


I think I'll watch Contact tonight....

[Mike F]

Update

According to Wired it turns out that this was much ado about nothing.

What surprises me is how long it took the government and the religous right to step in and cover up our latest contact with aliens. B)

How dare deny humanity the opportunity to acquire advanced anal probing technology :angry:

[Stormchaser]

The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the SETI+home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data picked up by the telescope.

Can anyone explain this screensaver bit? It would seem like an invasion of privacy to me!

[troutman]

How SETI@Home works:

http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/HIW0.htm

The SETI@home receiver scans the skies from its perch on the Arecibo radio telescope, completing a survey of the entire sky every 9 months or so. It collects radio data on a frequency band of 2.5 MHz around the central frequency of 1420 MHz. This raw data is then delivered on tapes to SETI@home headquarters in Berkeley, California. There it is chopped up into small "work-units" 107 seconds long and about 10 KHz wide. These work-units are then distributed to SETI@home users around the world, who analyze the data on their PC's.

one must still sift through the billions of channels surveyed, and differentiate between man-made interference, naturally occurring signals, and "The Real Thing". This requires massive amounts of time on the world's largest and fastest computers. Sadly, these kinds of resources are rarely available to SETI researchers, and processing the signals has become a bottleneck in the search.

As of November 2000 almost two and a half million users have downloaded the program onto their personal computers! This makes SETI@home easily the world's largest supercomputer.

[Stormchaser]

Interesting Trout. Thanks