SETI: On the Verge of a Breakthrough?

The cometary or 'exocomet cluster' explanation for the dimming of KIC 8462852 is doubtful, at best. It was merely seized upon because it was the one reasonable natural explanation that could work at all. that doesn't make it probable.
Dr. Wright, a major player in this matter, and who became involved in it very early, has called the cometary explanation 'contrived'. Scientists, as a whole, are very reluctant to evoke an explanation involving intelligent extraterrestrial life.

a reply to: Ross 54

The fact that we are constantly being surprised by natural phenomenon in the cosmos (it seems with each mission, we discover some new aspect of the natural universe that we previously felt were not possible) makes me take pause that just because we can't think of a natural phenomenon that could cause this, that does not necessarily mean it is caused by alien artificial megastuctures.

It might end up being an alien artificial megastucture, but discerning that it is alien through the process of elimination is hard to do when you don't know what possible natural explanations can be eliminated.

Any extraordinary hypothesis requires compelling evidence before it can be embraced as plausible. That said, if all conceivable mundane explanations are empirically ruled out by observations in due course, then I don't think it would be unreasonable to at least go with the remaining plausible scenario we can conceive of at that point and at least say, "We don't know what this is, but the only explanation we can currently speculate about and conceive of which has yet to be ruled out, is the ET intelligence hypothesis."

In my opinion that would be rational and suitably rigorous. The alternative would be to instead say, "We can't conceive of any other possibilities currently, but we have ruled out all the ones we consider probable, therefore we're choosing to regard something we've never heard of, theorized, or conceived of as still more probable than this other thing we can conceive of," and at that point it becomes biased and unscientific in my opinion.

There is nothing intrinsically unscientific about, should it come to that point, saying, "We don't know, but we've ruled everything else out that we can think of other than ET intelligence." Letting normalcy bias prevent such a conclusion from being openly discussed would be unscientific IMHO.

We're very, very far from that point however. Extensive observation, brainstorming, peer review, hypothesizing, and probably even further observation years down the line will be required before they can even come close to saying any of that.

Peace.

originally posted by: AceWombat04
..."We don't know what this is, but the only explanation we can currently speculate about and conceive of which has yet to be ruled out, is the ET intelligence hypothesis."

In my opinion that would be rational and suitably rigorous.

I agree with that in principle, but using that "process of elimination method" still would leave me with one big caveat, that caveat being "but do we know if we eliminated all natural possibilities".

I would still want positive evidence for it necessarily being alien, not simply "we can't find a known natural phenomenon, based on what we know about those natural phenomena, that matches the observations".

Even though I might relent and say "Yeah - I agree that science can't think of what else it possibly be other than aliens", it would still nag at me that there is a natural phenomenon out there that we don't know about that it could be. To be positively sure, positive evidence would be required, not evidence through negation.

I mean, when pulsars were first observed, science had no explanation whatsoever for a natural phenomenon that could manifest itself as a highly concentrated and regular radio emission. Science was stumped, and some even considered the possibility that these pulsars were intelligent alien signals, because science at the time had no natural explanation. The scientists who discovered the first one even (mostly playfully) designated it as "LGM-1" for "Little Green Men".

But eventually science learned that pulsars are natural radio sources, and not artificial.

Little Green Men, White Dwarfs or Pulsars?

a reply to: amazing

Moons would not block 20% of the light. Jupiter like planets usually only block 2-3% of the light. So a moon this is not

originally posted by: Box of Rain

originally posted by: AceWombat04
..."We don't know what this is, but the only explanation we can currently speculate about and conceive of which has yet to be ruled out, is the ET intelligence hypothesis."

In my opinion that would be rational and suitably rigorous.

I agree with that in principle, but using that "process of elimination method" still would leave me with one big caveat, that caveat being "but do we know if we eliminated all natural possibilities".

I would still want positive evidence for it necessarily being alien, not simply "we can't find a known natural phenomenon, based on what we know about those natural phenomena, that matches the observations".

Even though I might relent and say "Yeah - I agree that science can't think of what else it possibly be other than aliens", it would still nag at me that there is a natural phenomenon out there that we don't know about that it could be. To be positively sure, positive evidence would be required, not evidence through negation.

That's essentially what I said, though. If you read what I posted, I didn't say, "So we're declaring it's ET intelligence because we've ruled everything else out we can currently conceive of." It said, "We don't know what this is, but the only explanation we can currently speculate about and conceive of which has yet to be ruled out, is the ET intelligence hypothesis," and even then, only once that exhaustive, rigorous process of elimination has taken place. And I'm saying even then, only after the best minds in astrophysics have brainstormed and tried to hypothesize other currently unknown, as yet unthought of phenomena that might account for it.

But after that point is reached, then imho the "We don't know what it is" leaves room for it to be something other than ET while also simply making the honest, rational statement that that's the only remaining possibility we can currently think of.

There will always be the possibility that there are natural phenomena we know nothing about yet that could account for whatever we find. And it's also possible even if there's artificial structures around this star, we might never have positive proof of their existence. All we might ever end up with is, "Well, we know it's not X, Y, or Z, and we can't think of anything else it could be other than ET intelligence/artificial structures. That doesn't mean that's what it is. We don't know what it is, and it could be something else. But right now, today, that's all we can think of that it could be."

That's all I'm saying. And only after we exhaustively get to that point. We will never be able to prove a negative in the absence of unequivocal proof, and it's quite possible that will never come.

Peace.

I think its aliens and I think that the powers that be know all about it, why are they letting us in on it after 3 or so years? Because people are becoming less and less open to the fact that there is life in the universe all around us and we arent at the top of the universal order of things. Its all part of the slow enlightenment of our society.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

I read this and similar posts that say "TPTB have known about [X,Y, and Z] all along, and are just spoon feeding us the information", and I have to wonder...

....What doesn't TPTB know? Also, when and how did they attain this knowledge? 10 years ago? 50 years ago? Longer? Are TPTB omniscient about every conceivable thing there is to know, or are there some things they don't know?

If we think there are things they don't know, then quite possibly can't "proof of alien life" be one of those things they don't know? If they are omniscient, then when exactly did they learn that final "thing there was to know"?

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
I think its aliens and I think that the powers that be know all about it, why are they letting us in on it after 3 or so years? Because people are becoming less and less open to the fact that there is life in the universe all around us and we arent at the top of the universal order of things. Its all part of the slow enlightenment of our society.

And that is what the Agenda's are...was called Agenda 21, now i believe it's Agenda 30...

a reply to: slip2break

Yeah, an alien structure. Around a star. That would be one hell of a mining/manufacturing operation. It would be easier to find the factory, no?

My money is on natural phenomenon.

originally posted by: HighDesertPatriot
a reply to: slip2break

Yeah, an alien structure. Around a star. That would be one hell of a mining/manufacturing operation. It would be easier to find the factory, no?

My money is on natural phenomenon.

u are assuming that their way to mine/manufacture is like ours.

originally posted by: HighDesertPatriot
a reply to: slip2break

Yeah, an alien structure. Around a star. That would be one hell of a mining/manufacturing operation. It would be easier to find the factory, no?

My money is on natural phenomenon.

NASA is 50%+ in belief this can not be natural so a Dyson sphere is being talked about quite a bit now. An advanced alien species can reach a level where they could harness the power of a sun and with this star to dim close to 40% ( 15% then a few days later another 22%) in a few days on a non-regular bases that would be one hell of a planet. (Jupiter is about 1%) What we would be talking about is another star to do this but there is no other star. This star is close to ours in size, but a little hotter, 6,000 and 7,600 K.

Right now the smartest people on the planet can not say it is a "natural phenomenon".

Ironic that the apex of civilization on Earth has always been megalithic architecture, or at least "monumental".

My thoughts...

Could it be a black hole forming ?

On the Dyson Sphere Theory - Using the natural rocks / space debri floating around in orbit as part of a Dyson Sphere contraption could be a way to pool resources that aren't abundantly available.

leolady

originally posted by: leolady

My thoughts...

Could it be a black hole forming ?

leolady

probably not, black holes also refract light and that is not seen.

originally posted by: HighDesertPatriot
a reply to: slip2break

Yeah, an alien structure. Around a star. That would be one hell of a mining/manufacturing operation. It would be easier to find the factory, no?

My money is on natural phenomenon.

you're not considering automation and robotics used for fabrication all you need to do is supply raw material.

So does anyone have any idea what the megastructure looks like?
Are there any pictures of the thing?
Post pics if there are any.

Does NASA even say what the objects are shaped like?

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
So does anyone have any idea what the megastructure looks like?
Are there any pictures of the thing?
Post pics if there are any.

Does NASA even say what the objects are shaped like?

How do you post a pic of an object 1500 light years away? lol All they can say is there something causing the star to dim up to 40%, so something is there getting in the way....

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

They can only theorize what it may look like and they do this by considering data they already know about stars and other planetary objects and stuff in space and how it all acts. They can then build an idea of it based on the known characteristics it portrays... We then can decide in our own minds what we think it looks or is shaped like.

Here is one small description of what ever it could be, they think it (what ever is causing the dimming) has to be larger than the star itself...

Constraints

If something is getting in the way of the star, the first step would be to figure out how big it is and how close it is to the star. In that way, the researchers put constraints on it. For example, to block this much light, it could either be big and close to the star or smaller and far from the star. But if it’s small and far away, it couldn’t be moving fast enough to produce the right duration for the dips in brightness. All of these put constraints on the object(s).

Similarly, you can constrain the minimum possible size of the clumps by looking at the depths of the dips. It turns out that at least some of the clumps have to be a significant fraction of the size of the star. The authors found a number of similar constraints based on other characteristics of the observations.

Putting all this information together, they found that whatever the clumps are, they have to be at a distance roughly equivalent to Jupiter and the other gas giants’ distance from the Sun. And it would have to be large, larger even than the star itself.

It’s possible that a small planetary body known as a planetesimal could have a large collection of dust orbiting it. That way, the planetesimal itself might have escaped our detection because it’s so small, but its gravitationally bound dust might be enough to block all that light.

Radically dimming a stars light

leolady

I very much agree.