when should we send a signal ?

Stephen Hawking has pointed out that through out all human history contact between an advanced civilization and a less advanced civilization has never gone too well for the less advanced group.

Seeing that that chances of any Extra Solar civilization capable of detecting our transmisions being on par with us "technologically speaking", are very slim, I'd have to bet that they would be much more advanced than us.

In that case, I'd rather they didn't know we're here.

And then again maybe we're the only ones, or the first to attain sentience and a technological civilization?.

who knows what if the government id already talking with an advanced civilization and the could be sending advanced video signals or something back in forth like using long ranged web cams or something and they don't even tell the public that they have made contact.Or the government has already built a ship with a hyperdrive that is capable of reaching that planet..I know the government has already made contact we can be trading technology back in forth and even knowledge of our history.Well thats just my thoughts it could be true but you never know peace.

It would be rather ironic if, we the assumed 'weaker' race, searching the cosmos for intelligence somewhere else in the universe ultimately were the most advanced/intelligent race....(i doubt this though, just a thought).

I personally see this:

There are a handful of ancient races from early Milkyway or previous galaxies that have collided with us. (Don't forget, we're moving through one of those galaxies right now, in our journey through the Milkyway! It isn't even done joining into the Big MW...technically we are in both right now!).. at best, they know all about all the races.


If they were a super ancient, evil/malevolent race, then we would already be detected and dead/invaded by now. How can you be ancient and 'evil'? Xenophobic. Realize this, some races might hate ALL other life BUT their own. Thus making them warlike without being self consuming... or if they are advanced enough...just exterminating pests. This is the worse case scenario for ANY race trying to make contact...to meet these. I call these EP-ER (Xenophobic Elder Races, even if they kill for fun, it is a form of xenophobia), and they are the worse nightmare...

If they are a super ancient, do-gooder race, then they will stay OUT of everyones way and "pull strings" behind the curtains. A race like this has NO need for direct contact with ANY race. Thus, they can do as they please without answering to anyone. Their 'good' might not be accepted by the mid-level races. Thus, they are on their own or in a secretive alliance of other like-minded races. You can not assume just because they are ancient / advanced in this term, that they will come down and hug you whilst uploading schematics to your data matrix. I call this race type DG-ER (Do Good Elder Races)

Seeing as we are not dead or enslaved... then the 'evil elders' have not found us or do not exist (yet). In all possibility, the 'good elders' have long been influencing us, leading us the right way. They will never directly 'land' or anything... why do that when you can do it 10x more effectively by pulling strings and pressing buttons?


This leads us to the next 'level'. The "Empire / Republic" level. These are advanced but not ancient races that have vast star 'nations' or 'UN' style organizations across the galaxy. These nations would have no reason to NOT contact us. If they need resources, population, trading, etc. then they can do so. If they're waiting for us to 'reach' a point... thats not logical. If you have a vast empire/UN/republic, why WAIT on a planet? You don't even need to land. Just broadcast your presence, your supremacy, your intent, what ever. The planet at best can hurt you a little bit... you think our nuclear or even advanced cutting edge 'stolen or invented' technologies SCARE a race capable of running a galaxy or near galaxy wide organized force? Do you think they are afraid we might 'go war like' on them? WE ARE ONE PLANET. Even with what would be given to us, we are nothing! Thus, I must conclude, unless there is something highly special about earth (some ancient super weapon), there would be no reason not to contact us. If you think "oh well the population will freak out"... you are right. That wouldn't stop them. They have hundreds if not millions of planets. This race is called a ST-UN, or Steady United Nations. They are the 'end means' of most races. If humanity does not end up killing itself, we will probably end up like this. This sort of race will never be 'for the greater good of all' or 'kill kill kill' (unless XenoPhobic). Either way, they still would have made contact. Don't you think it is BETTER for a race to land and make contact EARLY on to PREVENT issues? Or to wipe us out while we are still weak?

Thus, I highly doubt this race is near our Star System. If it is, then the Elder race that MIGHT be influencing us, MIGHT be stopping them, through indirect means.

Now we get to what is most likely around us. Considering all things. Since the previous still could be true, I can not say for fact... but if they are 'older' than us, from empire sized to elder race type... then they would have come and done the deed already. We would know. Either they would have come to ancient earth and did it or directly attack/contact us... or interfere out of sight which we will ignore from now on.

The most likely race, then, are the Neo-Nations. These are the nations that are the future like ours will someday be. Small space expansion (small includes 2 or 3 hundred stars, or more...considering how many exist), with interstellar travel. Going to other stars is possible but a great task that is not accomplished without need or technology (say, gates or stable rifts?). Thus, they would NOT come here unless we TOLD them we were here. Since we are not to equal to them, but still have weapons capable of severe war... they would either wipe us out from afar or contact us. If we did NOT tell them, they would probably do a massive, intense study of signals coming their way by chance. Then after, probably hundreds of years, they would eventually make their way here (unless we are lucky and they are closer than 50 LY!)... political debates of a new planet, building of new ships to go that far, planning routes, what ever they must do... then, if we are really lucky, they will show up to invite us or conquer us. They won't 'respect and leave'. They just went out of their way and spent massive capital to come out to us. They will get what they want... These I call N-SN/C (Neo-Space Nation/Civilization)

Then, the least likely type we will actually have come to us unless they are A: direly close, B: have by chance advanced travel technology and not much else, C: we go to them..., are Fledgling Space Civilizations. Races like us. Not to big, not to small. At least basic space exploration. These guys are more likely to be friends. Since we have not had any major Elder or Empire races conquer us yet, odds are if there are any nearby space faring life, then they are this type. They are in the same boat as us. They could become our best friends or our life long foes. They won't come to us or us to them any time soon. At best, long distance talks. Though, as the cold war and fear of it has shown us... gaps in civil accord, lead to amazingly fast technological break throughs. If we DO run into this kind of race first, we have the best chance at surviving. Its nearly equal.

Any races under this, don't even go to space...no need to mention. Though, its possible our signals might get to them by the time they can read space signals~ no garuntees. By then we COULD be in space on our own...then they run into the situation we are in...depending on age. My 2 cents.

I think Carl Sagen said the same thing as Hawkins, if two civilizations meet the odds are one is going to be far more advanced, and since we dont travel out there, if we meet one, it will be them that is more advanced. Of coarse Carl was part of putting the 'come and get it' dinner call record on that satalite floating out past pluto now. It had star charts, directions, and a full technicolor menu of the different tasty humans available. To Serve Man indeed..

Imagine this, lets say Columbus and no other Europeans got that weird Idea to sail West to China. Would you recomend to the Indians in America or the Aztecs that they should light a really big bon fire to get the Europeans attention?

(please don't give me "they wouldn't see a fire because of the curve of the earth" thing, its a hypothetical. Besides before Columbus sailed, the earth was flat so they could see it.)

I vote No Seti Signal, and No Vegan Nazis

Sending out our own signal is a double edge sword. On the one hand we can hope that some one will here us and know that we are out there. But they would have to be able to pointing there telescopes and radio receivers at us and it would take thousands ofyears before it gets there. Also, we have been beaming out tv and radio signals for 100 years now in to space. It is a matter of time till some one hears it. Right now it is only about 100 light year radius.

The opposite end of blasting a signal in to space is the "Independance Day" senario. Do we want a galatic empire oppresor to try to kill us or even worse, enslave the planet in the "Battlefield Earth" situation.

We need to think long and hard about what information that we send out too. We alreadyhave Voyager out there with some of our most vital information. Do we want to send that, or something basic like a mathmatic formula, because mathmatics is the universal language.

If we do send a signal. We need to be careful.

What is so often over looked is that we (mankind) is not mature enough or wise enough to embrace any alien influences into our culture, hostile or otherwise. Any intelligent race would know that you cannot accelerate the development of a civilization beyond its normal rate of awareness without it causing major social and economic problems at some point or other.

Could our current social/economic/religious beliefs all withstand an 'official' announcement that we are in direct contact with an alien race? The answer is no, mankind as a whole is not ready or prepared enough to take a giant leap in its development that it had no understanding of the possible repercussions this might have on it.

Until we can change our warlike nature that still governs and influences the further development of our species, we will never be anything more than children playing with matches.

In closing, SETI is a positive step towards our global understanding and awareness of the cosmos. Its our ears on a large stage and until we are conversant in its affairs and policies, we should remain silent listeners.

As others have already mentioned, we've been sending signals out since radio and television started to be picked up mainstream and it's only gotten louder from there.

I'm unsure whether this noise is detectable over long distances and there would most certainly be a huge lag involved but we are definitely making our presence known.

One thing I always found amusing was the thought of some alien race using similar technology to us thousands upon thousands of years ago, maybe even more, that we could detect.

Wouldn't it be amusing to suddenly have most TV and radio stations suddenly drowned out by interference from thousand year old broadcasts by another civilisation?

I'm sure that'd never happen but it's an amusing thought none the less.

Originally posted by g210b
What shall we send?
Some pulse with a small or no content but makes sure it's artificial and has to come from an inteligence. Less is more I think. So small and simple.

The LHC collider at CERN could exceed all planned results when it's finally switched on in May '08 and create an artifical exotic-radiation pulse that could be detected as a sign of advanced technology and worth investigating

Originally posted by citizen smith
The LHC collider at CERN could exceed all planned results when it's finally switched on in May '08 and create an artifical exotic-radiation pulse that could be detected as a sign of advanced technology and worth investigating

Even if this is possible, I imagine releasing a high energy pulse of 'exotic' radiation would be extremely harmful to anyone near the LHC. Isn't this structure underneath Geneva? That's a populated area. I don't really see this sort of thing happening personally.

umm we send out our own signals everyday.

Every radio signal has the potential to penetrate the ionosphere just what frequencies depends on the sun spot cycle and the charge of the ionosphere at any given time we ham radio operators bounce our signal off of the moon at times to communicate with each other across the world at VHF UHF and microwave frequencies.. it is called moon bounce or EME (earth moon earth)

at any rate here is a link to some info
en.wikipedia.org...(communications)

also wanted to point out that we emit spurious signals into the atmosphere everyday with our wireless devices cell phone cell phone towers in particular
1.8-1.9 GHZ and around 150 watts per tower (that will cook a bird)

also with satellite communications (all of your favorite cable and satellite TV stations anyway you get the point wouldn't be anything new what would be new however is a signal that is directed by a type of phased array at on one fixed point in space..

2 cents spent

Respectfully
GEO

I'm intrigued with the idea of an 'exotic pulse' that one person mentions, but bear in mind that SETI is 'listening', not sending an active signal. Weak 1950s TV signals don't really cut it - not to say some civ might have sensitive enough equipment to collect and amplify weak signals.

According to Wiki, you have to be a Type I Civ. in order to be able to spare enough energy to send out a Giga-Watt signal (think lighthouse), and I suspect this is a minimal requirement.

(note that 'Giga-Hertz' is wavelength; Gigawatt is power).

Any 'exotic pulse', istm would have to overwhelm the cosmic background, but I'll ask around and see if this makes any sense.

Good thread.

I've said many times I agree with Hawking. Heads down until we're spacefaring (which means more than just LEO-capable).

2 cents.

reply to post by Badge01


Good note I should have noted that myself about Power vs wavelength to clarify I mean that at 1.8-1.9 GHZ 140 watts would cause severe RF burn..

As far as producing a gigawatt goes are you talking about Effective Radiated Power, Peak envelope Power, or Actual power output, or Actual power used
or DB's I am sure there are more but these are the most commonly used methods for measuring power.. DB being used more for Gain calculations
both received and sent as applied to free space or in DBI the I being an isotropic radiator or perfectly resonant radiating antenna in free space.

at any rate by using a large array of antennae you could with a fairly large but still moderately sized amount of Amplified power achieve a Gigawatt of effective radiated Power without needing to produce a gigawatt of actual power..

also isn't HAARP Radiating more power than this already.

Respectfully,
GEO

[edit on 12/5/2007 by geocom]

[edit on 12/5/2007 by geocom]

Originally posted by Badge01
Any 'exotic pulse', istm would have to overwhelm the cosmic background, but I'll ask around and see if this makes any sense.

What if the signal was sent as pulses counting through prime numbers to 100, or string together seperate complex mathematical equations such as pi to 100 places..

Hi, first post.
I was wondering if it wouldn't be easier to come up with a way to contact the ones that are already here?
Just a thought.

Originally posted by EverAfter
Hi, first post.
I was wondering if it wouldn't be easier to come up with a way to contact the ones that are already here?
Just a thought.

Well, yeah that'd be easier in theory. I think SETI assumes that any extraterrestrials out there are literally out there though! That is, they're not on the Earth or trying to communicate with us yet. That's just my thoughts on the matter anyway.

[edit on 5/12/07 by Duality]

reply to post by geocom


Hi Geocom,
Its good to read your thoughts and I have been a member for some time now, 2 years ago, I signed up but never used my membership until now. I to was a Ham years back and I was part of a New Products division for Radio Communications, Low band,Vhf & Uhf radios used by commercial users and Police as well. We transmitted from low Rf power on handhelds to high power on Base stations, you get the jest, for sure.
One time in particular I was working a base loaded whip antenna mounted on a Low band handheld, yea thats right, in the realm of going where no man has gone before, prototype experimenting, you know what I mean. Well I was working the ionosphere to CQ anyone out there, guess what a german returned my call signal and he was astounded to say the least, I was transmitting about 8 watts of power and he was loading his roof with a dipole in our direction with 500 watts of power, we both were amazed.
Your thought of directional beam technology sounds really great but for sure it is being done as we speak but I just hope we are in the right place on earth to do it and I hope we also cover all the bands of radio freq's.
My thoughts are if I could talk to Germany with 8 watts then just how far did my voice go into space when I transmitted 500 watt base stations, wow, you have a keen way of talking radio keep it up and it made me look back into my past life experiences 1974-1979, thanks for your thoughts, gwhint

I was wondering if it wouldn't be easier to come up with a way to contact the ones that are already here?

first your goning to have to provide proof there is anyone visting us.

second if they are visting and wanted to contact us it wouldnt be difficult for them would it? all they need to do is blast a signal to Acribo from the moon hey presto first contact, but that hast happened yet. So if they are visiting they dont want to contact the masses

you should seti those pictures from the Blog TV advertisements with a message that says dont support same sex marrige.

realy we should send another signal into deep space as soon as posible stateing and saying that we need help with our modern tecnology can you help. And can you come in peace thats what we need to be sending. the only problem with that would be is that all countrys would retaliate with them comeing to earth. We will think its an invasion and posibly attack thats probly why their not coming. they have already been seen observing us plenty of times but their to smart they know whats going to happen if they come. My whole life i have been waiting for something great to happen and i feel its coming soon wether its bad or good i dont know but i feel it coming. personaly i cant wait for it to happen cause if it does i wouldent want to stay on earth. they will be able to teach us things we thought was inpossible. imagine them teaching us tecnology so we can travel in space with no limit go as far as we want travel the speed of light we can if we let them teach us how. My point is simple send a realy spacific message to space and ask for their assistance mabe they will listen mabe they wont but the universe is to big for us to be the only inteligent ones out their.