Mystery Signal from Outer Space Heard by Arecibo

Let's all take a deep breath...

Now exhale. I think there was probably a knee-jerk reaction to this news. I am able to bring up the story just fine. Here's the skinny on it:

“The sudden burst of radio energy lasted only 0.005 seconds,
and had spectral characteristics that suggested that it was from a distant galaxy,
probably billions of light-years from us." - Seth Shostak, Ph.D., SETI Institute

That's it. A 0.005 second signal. To most people it's so quick if it were a sound and not a radio signal, you wouldn't even realize you'd heard something. If it were a message, it would be longer, and almost certainly repeating. If it was intelligent in origin, then at best, it'd be some sort of "stellar ping" broadcast out to get a response, rather than a directed message towards Earth (or even our galaxy) specifically.

In all likelihood, this was almost certainly some sort of stellar explosion, galactic collision, or something else that could easily produce some radio -wave noise burst. The article didn't even say it had a pattern to it. Even if it were an alien species that produced the signal, keep in mind that the signal itself would be billions of years old.

Now think about the implications of aliens having to cross billions of light years of distance to reach us. If they had technology advanced enough to do that, then in a few billion years, they'd have already reached the technological point at which they could exceed the speed of their own initial signal.

And in the off chance that matter truly cannot go faster than the speed of light, and they decided to immediately give chase to destroy or subjugate the first life form to respond to the signal (because you sure as hell wouldn't allocate the resources to invade a place that didn't respond), our best relay technology is also radio waves, and it would be billions of years before they received our reply, and then another several billion years before their invasion force could reach us (since they couldn't travel faster than light either).

That's not to say I don't think there aren't some clever life forms out there somewhere, but this news isn't nearly as exciting or scary when the facts are examined logically.

reply to post by thelibra


Unless they're able to travel faster than the speed of light. Which they may well be able to do.

Originally posted by forestlady
Unless they're able to travel faster than the speed of light. Which they may well be able to do.

Riiiiight, but I think that possibility was rather addressed by the point that if they could travel faster than light, they'd almost certainly have reached us before their signal, because they'd have outrun it. Or, if they were waiting for a response, and could just "instantly" travel to wherever they got a reply to the signal from, it would still take billion of years for the signal to reach them.

Anyway, as it turns out, my initial guess was right. SETI Project Scientist Matt Lebofsky reveals in the SETI forum that:

Other vexing time-sink: Bogus news reports that we found a "mystery" signal should be summarily ignored. This was a gross misinterpretation by a reporter of an quick comment Dan made off the record about AstroPulse progress and recently published millisecond pulsar findings by another group. These are new stellar phenomena which are astronomically interesting (and AstroPulse hopes to find many of) but not ET. Sigh.

It was a pulsar.

Don't know if this has been posted, but the original story can be seen in google's cache here:

209.85.165.104...:3TnP-VnqhS0J:www.ktvu.com/news/15054540/detail.html+www.ktvu.com...&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
NOTE: you will have to copy the entire string to see it!

I was going to do a podcast about it with audio clips, and I might still if google yanks it too... But there's really no point as long as we can still all see this.

[edit on 17-1-2008 by TrueAmerican]

reply to post by Nohup


Answer it with morse code............

Meanwhile, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, said he was hopeful that future technical advances will eventually point scientists in the right direction. ‘I'm cautiously optimistic we'll find something by the year 2025,’ Shostak said.”

This bit is quite interesting. Why giving the year (if any year) 2025 as some sort of a deadline? As if he knows when they'll find something. Fact is there have been hundreds of encounters all over the world already. This wholeSETI thing is one big joke and set up only to slowly convince the public on their existance.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
Well, so much for that... The link at KTVU-TV displayed this:

Article Not Available
The story you are trying to view is no longer available through this Web site.

And the media blackout begins?

yea, you're right
I wonder who's family member got threatened
to get that taken off the news

Originally posted by MrAndy
Whoa wait a second, wasn't there a member on here a few days ago that said he picked up a single?

yes there was
I think it was member "hello123456" or something like that
he had the software and had spikes and he showed some
screenshots and sent his data to Berkley for analysis.
I don't remember seeing the thread after that. But I would
bet these 2 incidents are related in some way.

reply to post by SimonSays


For some reason I don't think the signal he was "getting" was related in the slightest.

I was there and watching/flipping out with him!

First: the signal he had was sustained... Much, much longer than .005 seconds.
Second: He got the signal from SETI@home. He provided screenshots for the more skeptical of the bunch of us following along that night.
Third: The signal he received was from an information pack 13 months old! (if I recall correctlly). In other words, it was not in realtime.

I don't doubt that SETI is a big cover up, especially after hearing the gentleman from SETI on C2C last night.

I don't remember it all, as I was drifting off to sleep, but I recall George Noory asking about this very signal. The gentleman said that it is "impossible" to hide anything from the public due to the nature of signals originating in space. Something to the effect of needing to involve Telescopes in other parts of the world due to the Earth's rotation, and the source of the signal transiting below the horizon.

That is true- but don't tell me that it's "impossible" to cover up. We're not ALL morons.

If you need me, I will be watching "Judge Judy" and eating MacDonalds...

Originally posted by Blaine91555
reply to post by benevolent tyrant

 

Thank you for the info. I suspected as much. Good luck getting everyone to believe it though.

Why would we believe it. Its always a convenient mistake? What was the signal then? Statistically its impossible that we are the only intelligent life in the universe since you know the universe is infinitely big, you know as far as math as concerned. Furthermore, if you use statistics and common sense, then it tells you that if it i i statistically impossible for us to be the only intelligent life then it would also be statistically impossible for us to be the only beings poking around space. I mean thats of course if you use math and understand limits and stuff. But, if you want I'll agree we are the only beings in the infinitely large universe. That sure felt silly.

Originally posted by thelibra
In all likelihood, this was almost certainly some sort of stellar explosion, galactic collision, or something else that could easily produce some radio -wave noise burst.

oh great !!! here I am taking a shower & gettin my best clothes on
hoping et shows up for a beer and I find out it's only the stellar cops
showing up to investigate a cosmic interstellar rear-end collision.

Hey, I wonder do they have annoying accident chasing attorneys
outside our galaxy as well ??? It's a thought

This article was linked in this thread

Since the burst was seen only once, it is as yet unclear what produced it, although many scientists suspect that it was caused by the collision of two highly dense neutron stars. Radio astronomers are planning a search for more such radio bursters, as they may be a new (and clearly interesting) type of natural phenomenon.

So if a signal was found or has even been found do you think we would ever hear about it,i don't think we would because this article changed it's tune after a while as if they were told to do so.
We could have been sent numerous signals over many years but we're just never going to know whats out there if this keeps happening all the time.

From the Bad Astronomy site:

I talked with my buddy Seth Shostak, who is a Senior SETI astronomer, and he told me that this whole alien signal thing is a big misunderstanding on the part of the KTVU reporter.

Basically, Dan Wertheimer, a radio astronomer who is affiliated with SETI, detected a pulse from space. The source is certainly extragalactic, and is most likely some sort of natural event. It’s unclear exactly what kind of event, but there is a long list of things it could be. Aliens phoning us is pretty far down that list.

There's more, but click on this link to hear it from the horse's mouth...

www.badastronomy.com...

Originally posted by rhynouk
So if a signal was found or has even been found do you think we would ever hear about it,i don't think we would because this article changed it's tune after a while as if they were told to do so.

Well that could also be the fact that misrepresenting the statement of a SETI scientist to implicate it meant intelligent alien signal would be a gross violation of that station's credibility in the eyes of the public. You can bet your bottom dollar that any credible non-Fox news station is going to double and triple-check their facts before claiming something so sensationalistic, and pull the story as soon as they find out it's not true.

Could they have been "ordered" to silence by "them"? Sure. Do I think they were? No.

SETI is composed mostly of university students, artists, and free-thinkers, all competing very hard to get some scope-time desperately searching for any concrete sign of intelligent life. If enough of them thought, for even a minute, that they'd found some sort of proof, it would be EVERYWHERE. These are the sort to distrust government as much as us, and they'd want to make sure everyone heard about it before the USG did.

Even with MSM suppression, government censorship, and threats to close SETI, the type of kids that work there would still find a way through pirate radio, podcasts, student television, and any other means, to make sure as many people heard about it as possible.

reply to post by thelibra

I kind of agree a little. How's that for commitment?
The scientist on C2C last night also said that one time about 10 years ago they thought they had a signal, and he kept waiting for the "men in black" to show up and pull the plug. He said it never happened, and he thinks it's because they have bigger fish to fry.

This reminds me so much of the famous WOW signals that happened in the mid 1970's. 1975/6 if memorty serves me right. That was never satisfactorily explained. So this event may turn out to be the same As to what this new signal could be, well it could be ET saying no more repeats of I Love Lucy pleasseeee !!

It would not suprise me since they took it down. They dont want the extra publicity if it
turns out to be nothing. They have recieved other transmissions in the past if I recall.
It's fun learning about our neighborhood and seeing whats out there.

reply to post by Horusnow



Seth says by 2025 because the Allen Telescope Array is set to check for signals from 1 million stars. I imagine that given probability, he's saying that assuming alien life exists, the odds of us running across a signal among that 1,000,000 is pretty high.

well I might not be the smartest apple on the tree but
I don't think our gubment is stupid enough to make all
this equipment, point it at the stars, pay somebody to
monitor it and send off messages to other galaxies and
then NOT expect an answer. They know there's something
out there else we wouldn't have S-4 or area 51.

My question is, if the gubment has already made contact
with aliens and has the saucers to prove it AND have aliens
among us. WHY are they still listening to the stars when
the aliens can speak to them personally or are we just
listening for other civilizations we haven't met yet ???