Why SETI Could be Pointless

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been in existence for over 20 years. After over two decades of apparently highly sophisticated research SETI has not so much as produced a blip on their radar screen (and the "hits" that turned out later to have "known" origins only frustrated people seriously following this program).

This is vexing to one of a great number of people who were optimistic about that program at its inception. Those people, at least I, have soured on SETI after year after year of phenomenal testimony and powerful evidence presented by not only high-ranking military and political officials coming forward, but anyone present at the right time and place with a video camera.

If SETI ever hit a radio signal, I'm afraid it would be drowned out by the cacophony of excitement over the hours and hours of persuasive photographic and video evidence that seems to be growing exponentially, elsewhere. Where has SETI been looking all this time?! *tapping on SETI's shoulder* "Hey. Psst. Why don't you pull one of your telescopes back from the orion cluster for a sec. and point it in the sky over Phoenix?"

Sophis, I don't know if I was one of those referenced in your post, either as not presenting, or arguing facts, or for invoking an unpopular conspiracy theory, but I wanted to make a point. First, SETI may have optical detection or whatever it is - frankly, they could have super-powerful, laser guided alien homing technology - but they have netted a goose egg with that technology.

Gazrok is hopeful for a lottery win, but as stated above, what good is waiting for the lottery with a radio signal, when there are free hand-outs on the Internet that offer several times the payoff? Maybe the shareholders are satisfied with a "once in a lifetime intercept", but it's hard not to look at what's going on in the grass roots department and still maintain an interest in SETI. The odds of getting a hit after 20 years may be increasing, but between SETI and the Internet, it's a race between the tortoise and a beam of light (SETI's the turtle of course...).

Second, I wasn't disputing facts, nor was I strictly stating facts, but presenting what I considered a reasonable point of view with regard to SETI and NASA's relationship. Let's talk about all of the NASA video that has recently come to light. Fantastic and very difficult to explain NASA near earth video from the 90's. After doing a cursory amount of research on NASA, I've found more and more people compiling a picture of deception and lack of forthrightness on the part of that organization, and that's a serious understatement.

Let's talk about astronaut's revelations of seeing "alien" craft while orbiting earth and the moon. Let's talk about the Disclosure Project. Let's talk about the volumes of evidence being presented on the Internet, local news, and nationally televised documentaries. How many more facts need to be presented to compile a persuasive case that the show is here and now?

When you put together NASA and the government's past and present absolute, dead silence on the subject, and you see that SETI is funded in large part by NASA, you can go ahead and hit yourself on the forehead for failing to see why SETI has missed all of this despite very sophisticated technology.

Maybe SETI should invest in a video camera and common sense, but I doubt that's the problem. No, SETI should extract itself from the U.S. government's sticky, bloody claws and operate with more transparency and a philosophy that what they are doing is not simply operating a government funded science program, but pioneering on behalf of thousands of years of others who've stumbled around on this planet in darkness only to parish, ignorant of the reason for their existence, or their place in the universe.

The people you pass on the street everyday need this information. The people dying overseas need this information. And I need this information. But we're not getting it from SETI

[edit on 15-9-2006 by OnTheDeck]

Actually, OTD, SETI isn't funded by NASA or any other government agency. NASA pulled out of SETI back in 1993 and has done much to distance itself from the endeavour, and the organisation itself. The SETI Institure gets its funding from private donations by philanthropists and from public donations and sales of their goodies like T-shirts, caps, books and though paid public seminars etc. The Institute is pretty much completely out of the government's sticky hands...... publicly at least. Actually, SETI was only directly funded by the government during the late 80's to early 90's, which isn't for very long at all.

As for their reasons of finding diddly-swat upto now, I think I pretty much covered a few good reasons why in an earlier post of mine in this thread. They have a very daunting task, and the equipment they had in the past for one wasn't upto the task, nor have they really had that much telescope time in the years they've been looking (nearly 50, now). You'd be surprised at just how little telescope time SETI has had. In all it would amount to about 1 week of continuous telescope time...... nothing at all, really.

They should be spending at least a day, and for really juicy candidates possibly a week, for each target star!!!. Not a few seconds for each like they've done in the past and still do now.

The closest they've come was the "WOW" signal they received back in 1979 (I think). That signal was, for certain, extraterrestrial because it came from an area near the Galactic Bulge (it wasn't a local signal). Unfortunately, it was a "one off", never repeated. It wasn't a pulsar, or anything like that either. What it was is still a mystery.

About the "super powerful optical laser" facility....... probably the reason they haven't found anything there is it shot down the poor guys!!!


[edit on 16-9-2006 by GhostITM]

Hey! Thanks for the post. I just checked the list of benefactors to SETI and at the top of their list are NASA Ames Research Center and NASA Headquarters. That's followed by the National Science Foundation, which is headed by Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., who is also a board member of the NSB.

The function of the NSB (Natl Science Board) is to "Oversee and guide the activities of, and establish policies for, the National Science Foundation" and to "Serve as an independent national science policy body that provides advice to the President and the Congress on policy issues related to science and engineering that have been identified by the President, Congress or the Board itself." The Board has 24 members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

These are followed by the U.S. Dept of Energy, US Geological Survey, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory...it goes on. There may be philanthropic contribuitions mixed in there, but I think the U.S. gov. has dibs. This really is a mute point evidenced by the fact that NASA's own near earth orbit cameras, recorded hours and hours of bizarre, unexplained and UNACKNOWLEDGED footage of craft of various sizes and speeds flying loop-d-loops in our outer atmosphere and has failed to communicate this to SETI? I understand NASA, like the government, remains silent on this issue.

What about SETI taking the initiative and investigating ANYTHING that happens within the confines of our stratosphere? We're all doing it with terrific results. All of this, coupled with the daily revelations occurring outside of SETI just makes you scratch your head. In light of the absence of anything from SETI, despite a virtual carnival sideshow happening all around us, I have to think that SETI is either a misdirection designed to undermine and possibly obviate anyone's need to investigate themselves by saying, "We're really on it folks, and we can't find anything," or SETI's hands are tied and we will never hear anything from them.

It occurs to me that SETI may have had a "hit" earlier to show they're really trying, but really just served to perpetuate its apparently useless existence. HOWEVER, I will say that SETI has science education programs, etc., in place and I am all for that. I think that part is great. But in the ET search category, they should surrender their seat to that guy in Arizona who keeps shooting...you know...those things up in the sky...with his video camera...he's shown more over a weekend than SETI has shown in, well you said almost 50 years. I'd say those vaults are sealed up tighter than a baby doll T on...oh no, my humorous analogy requires a fat celebrity...omg there are none.

The lack of a response can now be considered an official response. It means, "We do not talk about that." So when SETI, or NASA, or the gov. is asked about, oh, unidentified craft swarming the stratosphere, the Mexican government's irrefutable ufo evidence, or commercial jetliners spraying thick streams that spread across the sky into rainbow colored clouds that block out the sun, their response, you can rest assured, will be no response. That means, "We don't talk about that."

Slightly unrelated, did you know that Bush has apparently quietly signed an agreement with NAFTA, including Mexico and Canada, to build a super highway that runs from Mexico right through the middle of the U.S. to Canada? He seemed so busy with the war, but not too busy, apparently, to build a superhighway four football fields wide that runs from Laredo, TX, to the Canadian border north of Duluth, MN? I wonder if he's doing that to silence the Mexican government on its findings...Really, how do you work that into a schedule that includes, well, a war with three countries simultaneously? How much damage can one administration do to this country in 8 years?

As far as ET is concerned though, it's becoming more and more clear that the right information is getting to the right people, us, and we're getting it from the source.

list of benefactors to SETI and at the top of their list are NASA Ames Research Center and NASA Headquarters.

Hmmmmmm.....something must've changed because NASA tried to run as far as it could from the SETI Institute not all that long ago. Change of mind, then. Thanks for the update

You get the feeling that given NASA's track record with ET, and especially with the way they fobbed of Pres Jimmy Carter over the subject that they, and those others in the US government who would have an interest in these matters, are once again getting in on the ground floor before anything in announced. Just so they can control the flow of information. However, as I mentioned in a previous post, they do have a hurdle to jump, in the UN agreement on ET signal discovery, and the other interested parties in any detection (like other radio telescopes around the world and the institutes that run them). Could make non disclosure rather difficult. Although in that case they could "bend" the truth a bit and hope that the other parties don't come out and spoil the day for them.

The WOW signal was actually detected at the "Big Ears" radio telescope at Ohio State University. Actually, there's a surprisingly good article on it at Wikipedia....

en.wikipedia.org...!_signal

But given the preponderance of evidence that is about, anecdotal or otherwise, you'd think someone would come out and say..."Well, everyone can't be crackpots or hallucinating, there must be something in this". Then again, the ridicule and derision that'd be heaped on them for saying so, especially if they were in a prominent position academically or politically, would keep most from doing anything. Plus they have some pretty powerful "forces" not exactly in their corner pocket, so to speak, who would rather see it stay the status quo.

Like the old Chinese curse says "May you live in interesting times".





[edit on 16-9-2006 by GhostITM]

Originally posted by OnTheDeck
This really is a mute point evidenced by the fact that NASA's own near earth orbit cameras, recorded hours and hours of bizarre, unexplained and UNACKNOWLEDGED footage of craft of various sizes and speeds flying loop-d-loops in our outer atmosphere and has failed to communicate this to SETI?

I haven't seen such footage. Does it exist? Actual, proven CRAFT, you say? Do you mean the footage that looks (to me and many others) like a combination of lens flare, particles "changing" direction due to thruster actions and zooming, blooming of the CCD making things look large, out-of-focus notched disks that are optical artifacts of close-by dust when a lens is focused far off, etc? Because I don't remember seeing any footage that NASA has of craft that are not our own, hence no need for NASA to tell SETI about this alleged fact.

What about SETI taking the initiative and investigating ANYTHING that happens within the confines of our stratosphere?

I have a better idea, and it's one that folks involved in SETI projects have talked about but not done much about. They should look for artifacts within the solar system, like probes. Chances are several of those have collected into orbits around planets, around our moon, on our moon, etc.. Wouldn't do to look on Earth because Earth is too active geologically and biologically and you would never find a probe that had landed here thousands of years ago. They DID look in certain orbital points with telescopes, but this was quite a limited search, as I recall.

First, Ghost, it's hard right now to tell if the heightened increase in sightings is due to the fairly recent availability of video cameras, or if this phenomenon is actually intensifying.

I would have to say (and hope) that with events such as the 1997 Pheonix lights, the Mexican airforce sightings, the Mexican "fleet" sightings and similar large scale sightings, continued government stonewalling on the subject despite stronger and growing evidence on the subject, and just plain old increase in reports of sightings, that the phenomenon is intensifying. I think the discovery of these NASA tapes may be part of a movement to accelerate the exposure process on a large scale, but that part is a guess.

As far as our (or any) government preventing disclosure, it's going to be harder and harder to do every day, you're right. I just read that almost 4 million U.S. citizens claim to have been abducted. This is either an unprecedented en masse psychological disorder affecting almost 4 million people, or there is something to this. When you have credible people coming out of our own government and military, and equally reputable people from other governments and military sectors, private citizens, children of all ages, presidents, the list goes on, coming forward to claim that they were either abducted, or have witnessed craft that they believe to their core was not of this earth, then that can't be ignored. I believe all of those people.

There was some open acknowledgment from the U.S. government earlier on with regard to this phenomenon. That's already known. You may have seen the Project Blue Book misinformation and misdirection program...then everything went to black. Literally. After that, the subject was not only not denied, it was just not acknowledged. If someone asked a question about it, the response was silence. The question didn't even exist as far as they were, and are, concerned.

It's hard to even mention things like this without someone using the word "conspiracy". That word has concluded inquiry for many before any real, honest probing is begun. Period. It's dismissive. Area 51 = conspiracy. Chemtrails = conspiracy. It's amazing, but truly, if the government wanted to run a program without attracting notice, do it in plain sight, then invoke the word conspiracy. That word seems to have a power beyond measure. Beyond any misinformation campaign. It can deflate an argument before it's begun.

But I still question these things, despite being lumped in with the possibly misguided individuals who really pioneered the original "conspiracy theories". Now that an unprecedented amount of information has been revealed through the Internet, its like shining a light in the darkest recesses of our world and societies. And after all of the revelations I've had researching my government, country, and the strange world I live in, I can't help but feel how alone those people were with the truths they may have been carrying and trying to bring to light to a society that vilified them. The government may have coined the term conspiracy theory...

Sophis, here are two links to an in depth analysis of the NASA tapes (first NASA ufo analysis Part 1, then Part 2):
video.google.com...

video.google.com...

Here are more:

You can "Youtube" ufos, or "Google: Video" ufos, or there's www.ufocasebook.com, www.ufosnw.com, www.cnufos.com, www.uforeview.net, www.ufos.about.com, www.iwasabducted.com... www.ufoevidence.org, www.psitalk.com, and www.pagenews.info.

I would say SETI could search for probes, but I'm seeing a lot of ultraviolet and infrared video of objects that don't seem to be visible to the naked eye. I'm not so sure that looking for a piece of metal is the right way to go about it. If you talk about propulsion and mass, you're talking about using light and not matter for these objects...

[edit on 16-9-2006 by OnTheDeck]