Would we have the technology to detect E.T. transmissions?

So I was recently at a UFO conference and I heard Nick Pope talking about Jodrell Bank and their new radio telescopes they'd be putting to use, he said something along the lines of this will be the worlds biggest project of its type and that it would prove once and for all whether E.T.s were out there.

I thought this was quite an extraordinary statement to make and it got me thinking...

You have the likes of SETI and other organisations that set out to prove there is or isn't life out there and they scan the galaxy for transmissions using radio technology.

Now I'm no expert on radio technology and how the scientists do this, so feel free to explain if I'm missing something, which I'm sure I am, but why can we 'guarantee' that our technology can pick up anything from E.T.s. If they're far ahead of us then maybe they're using technologies that can't be detected by our scientists, isn't this possible?

Just a passing thought, any input would be greatly appreciated.

a reply to: R1CK3O

Let´s hope they are not to far away from earth then or it could take some time

Would we have the technology to detect E.T. transmissions?

IMO no.

IT would be like using a radio antenna to listen to a smoke signal from native Americans.

Just don't work.

originally posted by: Spacespider
a reply to: R1CK3O

Let´s hope they are not to far away from earth then or it could take some time

What does our transmissions have to do with the alien transmissions we are trying to detect?

originally posted by: neo96
Would we have the technology to detect E.T. transmissions?

IMO no.

IT would be like using a radio antenna to listen to a smoke signal from native Americans.

Just don't work.

That's kind of what I thought tbh but thought surely I must be wrong as the scientists and experts must have thought of this.

From what I recall, with our current technological level, the only types of radio broadcast we could detect would be extremely powerful directed signals.

I believe when compared to what we've put out ourselves, some of our high-intensity radar scans, and intentional broadcast (such as the Arecibo message), are examples of what we may be able to pick up from another civilization. And even then, the distances we could detect this was very limited (not due to the speed of light travel, but due to the degradation of the signal and our technologies sensitivity).

There have been cases like the WOW signal which makes me wonder if that would fit a scenario like the Arecibo message... but like the one we sent, it's not repeating, and it would have to be directly targeted at our location as we move through space to detect the broadcast.

We're still a long way from detecting general airwave broadcast, and if I remember correctly to do so would require a huge telescope on the dark side of the moon to prevent our own radio pollution. That is part of the reason I don't lose to much sleep out us not finding the universe filled with TV shows and radio broadcast.

~Winter

Edit Note: I'm personally more hopeful we'll detect something in our large sky surveys. The idea of possible detection of megastructures and their effects, or a future space telescope being able to conduct spectrography on identified planets within habitable zones seems more interesting to me.

a reply to: Alien Abduct

Because it displays how much time it would take for radio signal to spread..

So if the aliens where sending out signals they had to be very close to us
Or they have to be a ancient civilization that have been sending out signals for millions of years

originally posted by: R1CK3O
[...] but why can we 'guarantee' that our technology can pick up anything from E.T.s. If they're far ahead of us then maybe they're using technologies that can't be detected by our scientists, isn't this possible?

I guess the idea is that even if they've advanced far ahead of us and are now using some form of exotic information transmission system then in order to get to that point they would probably have to go through all the stages of development of radio, and we would pick them up at that point in their history (thousands of light-years away and a thousand years ago).

So at any given moment, depending on how many technological civilizations you think are out there, there will always be some small percentage of them dirtying up space with their radio transmissions, which we might be able to find.

If they're looking at the right frequency. If they're close enough for the signal to even get here through decay and noise. If... if... if...

originally posted by: R1CK3O

originally posted by: neo96
Would we have the technology to detect E.T. transmissions?

IMO no.

IT would be like using a radio antenna to listen to a smoke signal from native Americans.

Just don't work.

That's kind of what I thought tbh but thought surely I must be wrong as the scientists and experts must have thought of this.

I don't put much stock in 'scientists' these days.

They play fast and loose with what it's suppose to mean.

And if their not transmissions ? Is our comprehension sufficient to understand any other source ? Thought ? what other sense, we are limited there.

Like Carl Sagan description of 4 dimensions. Are limited like the flatlanders ? www.youtube.com...

i'm thinking about monkeys saying
"ok, now we have the technology to knock on wood with stones. if you hear knocking on wood and it's not us then it proves humans do exist, because that's how they would likely communicate".

I remember reading an article saying that after 50 light years radio signals would be so weak that the universe background noise would be absorb it into something that cannot be detected

But also what about the possibility that they could be cloaking their signal??

originally posted by: Plotus
Like Carl Sagan description of 4 dimensions. Are limited like the flatlanders ?

We're limited by our animalistic perceptions of time and space. We're also very limited in intelligence by our freaky little monkey brains. It's very possible that just like a flea in your ear, we would not be able to comprehend or recognize highly advanced intelligent life even if we were living on it.

So to partially mitigate that problem, we're starting by trying to look for technological civilizations as much like us as possible that have also evolved from little dumb creatures and somehow learned how to build radio transmitters. Even if their transmissions get them killed by roaming bands of alien super-predators, they will have broadcast for a little while at least.

originally posted by: American-philosopher
But also what about the possibility that they could be cloaking their signal??

I think as Blie Shift has already said there's just so many variables isn't there.

So many ifs and maybes, so much room to speculate and theorise.

a reply to: R1CK3O

Our own radio transmissions have gotten weaker over the years due to efficiency, plus they're spread out over a larger and larger sphere, so they get weaker, and get weaker faster and faster, as it's an inverse-square law.

By the time you get a light-year away I'm pretty sure the signals are mighty weak, you'd need a large antenna to capture them, and even then they'd be noisy. Noise is just a nuisance for analog TV, but for the newer digital, it's a disaster, leading to a very high bit-error-rate, which will make the picture not just noisy, but undecodable.

Eventually as you go farther and farther out the signals get weaker than the cosmic background noise level, and they become undetectable.

Any aliens that are even 100 years ahead of us might have their transmitting and receiving systems technology so sophisticated that their transmissions would be nearly undetectable just a few light years from their planet.

How can they detect technology they have no idea about? We are on the verge of quantum communication. Alien races are probably way more advanced and bypass the fabric of reality even further. SETI is nice money dump and kinda awesome vacation like job.

Project GLIMPSE.
might be a good place to start

a reply to: R1CK3O

I bet we cant because they are demonic or angelic in some way and they use telepathy

originally posted by: Plotus
And if their not transmissions ? Is our comprehension sufficient to understand any other source ? Thought ? what other sense, we are limited there.

Like Carl Sagan description of 4 dimensions. Are limited like the flatlanders ? www.youtube.com...

Consider the “Foo Fighters” (not the band) from the 1940’s. And other similar UFO’s. I believe that these “orbs” or “balls of light” could be just what you described above. We may only be able to perceive a small amount of whatbis actually there due to us being limited to our four dimensional senses. Kind of like the flatlanders seeing the flat section of a pencil as you poke it into their flat land.