Astronomers Detect First 'Clear Signs of Civilization' Beyond Earth - How will you react?

****DISCLAIMER*** The Following "news" story is fictional, but the people, projects, organizations and science are not. With only one or two exceptions their names have been changed. While this discovery has not happened yet, it very well could in the next decade or so based on current and planned science.

I would be very interested in what your reaction will be when this story is real.

Thanks.

Astronomers Detect First 'Clear Signs of Civilization' Beyond Earth
Alien Civilization exists just 16 light years away.

November 25, 2019

SEATTLE, WA - Astronomers at the 228th meeting of the American Astronomical Society have made a major announcement whose implications are only beginning to be understood. During a press conference this morning a group using one of the largest telescopes in the world confirmed what has been rumored for weeks, the first signs of intelligent life beyond our planet.

Researchers from France, Switzerland and the USA held a joint press conference to announce the that they have found the first clear signs of intelligent life in the universe, following the lifting of a 48-hr embargo on their paper in the Astrophysics Journal.

Using the Colossus Googlescope atop a mountain near Mauna Kea Hawaii they collected spectra, or light signatures from a planet circling the star HD 26965 (also known as Keid A). These signatures have been best explained as the hallmarks of artificial city lights. The star and planet are fairly near to our solar system, just 16 light years away.

Image of Keid A c released today
Keid A c, as the planet is called, is 1.3 times the size of the Earth and in the habitable zone of its star which is slightly older and cooler than our Sun. This is the area around a star which liquid water can form.

As a result of its closer orbit to its star, Keid A c's year is only 269 days long as opposed to our Earths 365 day year.

Keid A c was one of the first planets known to possess biomarkers, or the atmospheric characteristics of life present. This planet has been under intense scrutiny since it was initially discovered 4 years ago.

Life's Markers

Just last year it was announced that Keid A c was one of two planets the ground based observatories in Chile and the James Webb Telescope detected oxygen, nitrogen, ozone, water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane in cyclical variations best explained by the presence of life on its surface.

That discovery, great as it was, will now has been overshadowed by today's news which has sent the science world abuzz.

FIRST LIGHT

Geoff Khan, of the University of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy and chief investigator on the Colossus project explained the findings: "What we have here are the clear signs of a technological civilization on a planet we already knew most likely had life. We are seeing the spectral characteristics of heat and artificial light on Keid A c's night side similar to the light our own cities radiate into space at night. "

Khan elaborated:" Furthermore for this light to be detectable by our telescope their cities or whatever is radiating artificial light, has to cover a much higher portion of their planet's surface surface area than our cities presently do. Keid A is a star about a billion years older than our Sun so perhaps they have covered part of their planet with megacities larger than say, New York, London or Mumbai."

Comparison: Earth's night side as seen from the Rosetta spacecraft.


Kahn continued: "Additionally we've seen seasonal changes to the the amount of light we're detecting over the course of two of Keid A c's years. These seasonal changes in the infrared may be indicative of heating during Keid A c's winter. While we can not rule out some sort of large bioluminescent colony of organisms it is very hard to imagine anything organic giving off the characteristics of the spectra we are seeing. The most likely explanation is technology being the source. "

WE'RE ALL LIKE KIDS

Astronomer Sarah Sagan, co-discoverer of Keid A c's biomarkers last year commented on todays announcement of the new discovery: "This is the icing on the cake. What we see here is the holy grail of exoplanet and SETI research combining years of careful study done by teams around the world. Beyond the science itself, from a purely philosophical standpoint, this discovery may have a profound impact on how we see ourselves and our place within the universe. Keid A is a star you can go out on a dark night and point out to your kids right now if you are at the right latitude. At this point we are all like kids in amazement at what we're seeing."

When reached by our news desk, Sho Sethak at the SETI Society proclaimed the discovery to be "Phenomenal. Great work from all involved, some of whom work with, or got their start here at the SETI Society. More amazing work on this discovery is just starting to begin. I have not been this busy in years."

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER 'SCOPE


When asked about how this discovery reflected on his own research Dr Sethak was reflective: "For decades we've looked for a sign of radio signals out there only to come up short. I've watched the bottle of champagne we kept on ice for the big announcement that we weren't alone reach a decent vintage. I am very happy these guys were able to crack open a bottle a lot sooner than we were and we will be focusing the telescope array and our optical SETI experiment which looks for nanosecond laser pulses, on Keid A c to see if we can learn anything more about its potential inhabitants. Perhaps some form of communications could be going on which may be detectable, but I think as they said in Jaws, "We're gonna need a bigger 'scope."

Dr Sethak confirmed his team had looked at this star on a few occasions in the past: "We've had looks at it on several of occasions, covering a number of frequencies since the 1990s but never heard so much as a peep out of them. If they're using radio its either too weak for our instruments to detect or we're not looking at the right range of frequencies."

Longtime exoplanet hunter, Mark Jeffries of the California Planet Survey said the discovery has galvanized the exoplanet world and that they will be focusing "like a laser beam" on this slightly larger, earthlike world around a slightly smaller sun.

"We've been looking for something like this for years, this hits all the marks. It's a home run."

GOOD STUDENT

Tara Owens, one of Jeffries post-graduate students was a co-discoverer at todays press conference. "I always expected big things from her. This is as big as it gets and I am very proud of her and the work of her colleagues."

Beyond the science world the announcement is causing ripples through economic markets and politics.

The United Nations called a special session of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday to discuss the implications on the discovery. Members of several UN scientific advisory committees including Masayu Mahathir, a Malaysian astrophysicist and the head of the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs.

(cont.)

Why is that dated September 25th, 2019? Is this a story?

continued...

SPACE AMBASSADOR

In 2010 Masayu Mahathir was also appointed as the UN's point person on all things of an extraterrestrial nature.

Widely referred to as the UN "space ambassador" she stated at the time that her position was necessary due to among other things: “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day human kind will received signals from extraterrestrials. When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.”

In the UK, Parliament has also called a special joint session for Thursday following the meeting of the UN to discuss the discovery, its implications on British society and ways in which astronomical facilities such as Jodrell Bank can be bolstered and best leveraged to study this new world and perhaps make new discoveries of a similar nature.

US President Hillary Clinton cancelled her trip to China and will address the nation tonight along with White House Science Advisor, Mitch Kako.

Both NASA administrator Charles Golden and Department of Energy chief Lenora Pizzaro are due to give a joint press conference tomorrow afternoon regarding this discovery.

There is speculation that a bold, new Apollo era style program to fund research into the study of the alien civilization on Keid A c will be the centerpiece of Clinton's address and the NASA/DOE joint conference.


MARKETS RALLY

The discovery seems to have been greeted with optimism across markets.
Wall Street closed 367 points higher the day the first news about the discovered leaked out on Facebook a week ago. After today's official confirmation the Dow closed 791 points up across all sectors. On the NASDAQ tech stocks rallied. Biggest movers were Google the main financier of the Colossus telescope's $1.5 billion dollar price tag. Google shares rose by 152% to $2,413 USD per share.

London's FTSE posted similar gains.


ALIEN SOCIAL

Almost as interesting as the discovery itself has been the reaction of people around the world.

Some people have begun calling the Keid A c civilization "The Keids" or "The Vulcans". The latter, due to Keid being the star around which the fictional planet Vulcan orbited in the Star Trek franchise.

Others are looking to make a quick buck. For example, even before this story was published there were already t-shirts for sale featuring the grainy pixelated image of the planet taken from the Colossus website. Superimposed on that image is another image of the hand sign commonly associated with the Star Trek character Spock emblazoned with the words "Live Long and Prosper".

Alien Entrepreneurs move in to cash in.


On social media the news was greeted with plenty of traffic from both the hopeful to the conspiratorial.

One tweet remarked: "This is another sign of the apocalypse, it's called Project Blue Beam, look it up and keep your powder dry."

Along similar lines someone else was fearful of how close Keid was to the Earth: "16 light years huh? Time to get my prep on for real. Just in case."

Another seemed confused at the science: "How can they see city lights on a planet light years away in another galaxy? Something's not right, this seems forced."

The majority however, were slightly less ominous:

"I hope they don't mind we've been beaming Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga out there all these years. We're sorry."

"OMG They Found Vulcans!!! Beam me up Scotty!"

"Hey aliens, don't tase me bro!"

"Isn't Keid also known as Vulcan in Star Trek? So when do we meet Spock?"

Alice Boylan is a science writer for Press Associates International.

So what would your reaction be to this news?

And apparently, the 228th meeting of those guys is going to be in San Deigo in 2016.

November 25, 2019 -

Someone will create another Nibiru Thread.
Another someone will create another Anunnaki thread.
Another other someone will create some religious nutter thread.
Another other other will create a WWIII thread.
A Skunk Works Thread will pop up saying the civilization is OURs, built and colonized in secret by TPTB using TR3Bs or something.

It's a fun article.
Someone had some time on their hands.
S+F

Mon1k3r
Why is that dated September 25th, 2019? Is this a story?

no a fabrication of what if tho he done it well.

Mon1k3r
Why is that dated September 25th, 2019? Is this a story?

Not yet. But it could be. I am curious as to how people who frequent this forum would react to such a story. The people and projects are real, and ongoing or in development the names have been changed.

The discovery lays in our future though.

sparky31

Mon1k3r
Why is that dated September 25th, 2019? Is this a story?

no a fabrication of what if tho he done it well.

Had I left the date off it would have no doubt sent a few hearts aflutter. I would have thought "President Hilary Clinton" would be enough of a giveaway that this wasn't a current story but I didn't want anyone getting confused this was real yet.

reply to post by JadeStar


I stopped reading at "President Hillary Clinton" they really went all out with their fiction writing dept eh??

Is this hypothetical..? What a waste of time reading this nonsense

Can I buy some of that smoke off of you?

reply to post by JadeStar

Jadestar,

Are you pulling our chain here? First I heard of this. Sounds really plausible, i'll give you that.
Seems we would have detected radio signals by now. Maybe they have been watching our transmissions,
and have decided to maintain "radio silence" in fear of an insane species discovering their existence.

God dammit, that was MEAN. I got all deliriously excited over a What If article that looked pretty convincing & authentic off the bat. You gotta put a disclaimer up at the top before it even starts, buddy. It's the worst kind of unintended April Fool's joke

Suffice it to say, if this is ever a real article, I'd be fine with it. The whole point for me to look upward isn't just to understand the universe's workings, but to find out if we have any kindred out there, and where. I'd be perfectly OK with indisputable proof.

reply to post by JadeStar


I was excited as well till it went complete fiction or eerie foreshadowing with the whole Hellary Clinton president talk then the smirk came over my face and I realized I was had for a good couple minutes of my time......

nice OP....... nice

SaneThinking

JadeStar

sparky31

Mon1k3r
Why is that dated September 25th, 2019? Is this a story?

no a fabrication of what if tho he done it well.

Had I left the date off it would have no doubt sent a few hearts aflutter. I would have thought "President Hilary Clinton" would be enough of a giveaway that this wasn't a current story but I didn't want anyone getting confused this was real yet.

my view is it would excite the general public for like a week or two,thats why i don,t get if there is any truth in ufos etc why they want to hide it

i think those who really didn,t care would lose interest pretty quickly,so my message would be just tell whats to know,us that are actually interested will be the only ones still talking about it after two weeks.

Personally, I'd be excited when faced with "Official" news of an ET civilization out there. Even if It would be obvious considering there's life here on this planet... It's always nice to know that I could one day meet and talk to an ET in the far future.

-accidental double post-

get a life people this articial is like taht discovery program that immanged US sending a ship to a inhabited planet.
anyway Cool read they sure did a good job making it all fit into the real world .Give it a 10 on the best short scifi story of the year.
As for what would I feel? well kinda hard to say isnt it? easy to say wow it would be so cool .
But 16 light years citys twice as large as any wwe have ((implys a much larger poplation))
lights implys tek alest as adavanced as ours Citys size also says even higher tek then we have assuming
3 times the poplation of earth =ruffly 21 billion .
Bigger planet heaver gravity = meening they will be physicly stronger many times then we are .
so here we have this heavy gravity race with tek alest as good as ours .
Mite approch with coushion huuu?

on the other hand maybe they evolved from herbivores and every thing will be bunnies and puppy dogs .
lol

Well i would say about bloody time!

then hope some fool doesn't try and contact them!