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

rigel4
reply to post by JadeStar

 

I'll let you know how I feel when it happens,
This type of thread is a waste of time i think.

People can only guess wat it means to then
based on a supposition... so the thread servers
no value.. Sorry , but it's what i think.

Not having a personal go.

We all know the world is flat, man cannot fly and we'll never make it to the moon, as such all discussion and day dreaming about such possibilities to the contrary of the established fact are a waste of our spare time (and I seem to have to much of it).

reply to post by JadeStar


Omfg we've discovered hell...all aliens are demons.

We must exterminate them asap in the service of our god.

We must start a crusade to send nukes there somehow and engage in holy war against these enemies of our holy book.

Have faith or else God will punish you.

Have nothing to do with these fake aliens; they are just demons masquerading.

God will prevail.

God is great

reply to post by reject


Thank GOD they don't think like that..!

reject
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Omfg we've discovered hell...all aliens are demons.
We must exterminate them asap in the service of our god.
We must start a crusade to send nukes there somehow and engage in holy war against these enemies of our holy book.
Have faith or else God will punish you.
Have nothing to do with these fake aliens; they are just demons masquerading.
God will prevail.
God is great

Because we all damn well know someone fanatically religous or otherwise will do it... for what ever crazy reason.

NewAgeMan
If it was explained to them in the right way, I would bet you dollars to donuts that they would "get it" right away and indicate that their beliefs are not so dissimilar, if they had not already heard about it when the bell rang out throughout all the spheres.

Oh, sure, the concepts might be similar, but we both know that there are a lot of people for whom just "being a good person" isn't enough, and they're not saved unless they specifically state their faith and allegiance to Jesus. Otherwise, there's literal hell to pay.

The best thing from an extraterrestrial contact can be the fact that they detect the deception of our leaders and destroy the new world order. The worst thing can be, their planet is just like ours and they would join forces

rigel4
reply to post by JadeStar

 

I'll let you know how I feel when it happens,
This type of thread is a waste of time i think.

People can only guess wat it means to then
based on a supposition... so the thread servers
no value.. Sorry , but it's what i think.

Not having a personal go.

It might be in ones personal best interest to mull over what their reaction might be.
In other words, react thoughtfully rather than just reacting in the heat of the moment.

it's why people have fire drills, to get a handle on emotions for when the real thing comes, if it ever does.

Blue Shift

NewAgeMan
If it was explained to them in the right way, I would bet you dollars to donuts that they would "get it" right away and indicate that their beliefs are not so dissimilar, if they had not already heard about it when the bell rang out throughout all the spheres.

Oh, sure, the concepts might be similar, but we both know that there are a lot of people for whom just "being a good person" isn't enough, and they're not saved unless they specifically state their faith and allegiance to Jesus. Otherwise, there's literal hell to pay.

Well there you just veered off track because as far as I know there are no or very very few truly holy people although it's been said that "every sinner has a future, and every saint, a past" (Oscar Wilde), neither is a mere profession of faith any good really, means nothing without a change of heart and mind and soul.

What I'm saying is that they might understand the idea of a heavenly intervention in time and history in order to perfect the creation, and they may even have born witness to the miraculous themselves, whether there, or even here. They would know about angels maybe, and of agents of God's will and Grace and may have even played that role as cosmic farmers from time to time. Maybe they were the "sons of God who sang God's praises when He laid the foundation of the Earth" as depicted in Job..?

They might even understand the universal principal and application at the very heart of Christianity, better even than the Vatican in Rome.. they surely chart the stars and even the very fabric of spacetime. They probably know the score and what's going on and what's gone down.

Under the clouds of the heavens and the starry skies, anything is possible.


And at the very least they would have a better education system and universal healthcare. Heck, from the POV of an American citizen, it wouldn't be much different from moving to Canada.

Best Regards,

NAM

stormcell


Astronomers would need to launch a set of Hubble telescopes that orbit the Sun just inside of Earth's orbit. That would give an effective resolution of a telescope the size of the solar system. Spectral analysis would reveal composition of the atmosphere, land, night-time lighting.

Correct pretty much. Though a lot could also be done from the megatelescopes we're building on earth like the European Extremely Large Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope.

In this story Colossus was built and it would rival both of those in terms of size and resolving capability. I think the post you were responding to asked if we'd need an interferometer. Colossus itself has the properties of an interferometer.

From www.the-colossus.com...

The Colossus innovates large telescope technology by creating an imaging instrument that can be as large as 80m across while combining elements of "telescope" optics with "interferometer" design.
This new technology has been developed by Innovative Optics Ltd.
The Colossus consists of 60 independent off-axis 8m telescopes which effectively merge telescope-interferometry concepts, yielding 74m diameter effective resolution.

Keep in mind also that the Colossus scope while it could see into the visible would do its best work in the infrared.

If you want, check out the June 2013 issue of Astronomy magazine which has an article called: How to find ET with infrared light by Jeff Kuhn. It's a good read that doesn't get too technical for the average amateur astronomer.

Astronomy Magazine - June 2013

Also check out the page on the Colossus website on their approach:

Big Questions - Are We Alone

Would we send out a radio signal to them?

I'm pretty certain plenty of people would be trying. Anyone who was an amateur radio operator (hams) in theory could throw together something and aim it at Keid. However, due to the inverse square law those transmission would probably be far too weak.

What would be concerning and hard to control would be commercial operations like the "Lone Signal" people who have been using a powerful radar installation to send out a continuous beacon to the star Gliese 526 (a star which is just a little further away than Keid at 17.6 light years) with people's Twitter messages for the last few years:


I cringe when I watch that video, that those guys could be the first ones an ET could hear from....... (facepalm)

Tweets to the stars...
More here: "Good morning Gliese 526, the Earth says hello"- Scientific American

The thing is, the installation they are using is powerful enough to actually send a message which probably could be received by Gliese 526 which means they would almost certainly switch to letting you send your Tweets and Photos to Keid.

There are also no shortage of large ex-Soviet radar dishes in Russian, the Ukraine and other former eastern bloc countries which would likely be "For Rent" to any company or wealthy individual who wanted to send a message to Keid.

See the "Cosmic Call", "Cosmic Call 2" and "Teen Age" messages for example....
Wikipedia: List of interstellar radio messages


While HAM signals and even our TV and radio would probably be too weak to pick up, those powerful radar installations are just powerful enough that Keid or any planet around a star within say 20-25 light years could pick up such a signal if narrowly focused in that direction.

Would we have to wait 16-years for a reply? or would they send a exploration ship immediately or would they already be here? What would happen if their religion was more conservative than current liberal cities?

Assuming they'd want to reply and used radio or laser pulses yes. If they had some sort of faster than light communications method, we'd not receive the message as we'd not have a receiver for it.

If they had faster than light travel and wanted to stop by (a major assumption that such a thing would even be possible) then yes they could do it in less than 16 years.

However, anything they might want to learn about us probably could be learned through small automated probes which might already have been placed in our solar system by them years before we realized their civilization existed.

There has been very little searching for artifacts within our solar system because the search space is huge and the way the search has been done has been to just look through data already gathered for other purposes ie: tracking near Earth asteroids, looking for objects in the Kuiper Belt, etc.

After such a detection of a civilization you can bet more than one government would probably devote resources to giving our solar system a "Full Body Scan" at multiple wavelengths to see if we had any visitors.

NoRulesAllowed

Nothing can be more "different" and "foreign" than another intelligent species on another planet. The LOGICAL conclusion for me is that it will cause an entire new dimension of war and that we ultimately (or at least TPTB) will NOT see them as the "friendly Aliens" but they will become our worst enemies and worst threat. Maybe you or me won't see it that way...but REST ASSURED that politicians and religious leaders will go nuts to declare the Aliens enemies.

Assuming that all we knew about them was they were a technological civilization just down the road from us in cosmic distance terms and they showed no interest in us as far as we could tell and we couldn't say anything definitive about them until we could see their world better, do you still think that governments and religions would see them as a threat?

Would their indifference (assuming we sent a signal there which went unanswered) be taken as hostility?

The sad thing is...we can actually also not expect that "the Aliens" would be friendly towards us either. This would be a fatal, fatal mistake.

They would be as "friendly" as animals in a jungle, and no-one in their right mind would go into a jungle with not one way to defend themselves. This is simply the universal principle at work that everything different is the enemy...all animals even follow this principle...it's probably a survival instinct.

But you're basing that on an assumption that they'd see us as some sort of threat. What if they saw us instead as a curiosity?

Let's assume they have had a 500 million to 1 billion year head start on us in evolution and technology. What threat could we possibly pose to them that would make it worth their while to expend huge amounts of energy to go to war?

It's a scenario that probably is more "fi" than "sci". Anything that we have here, they could get from any number of uninhabited world. Any threat we'd pose would probably be similar to having spears vs an F-117 Stealth jet.

I also do not know whether an advanced civilization would automatically mean "less violent". It can well be that an "advanced" civilization capable of space travel would use their technological know-how NOT to spread "NewAge" happiness and peace...but doing exactly the opposite.

Why? It would serve no real purpose other than wasting energy and resources. See the point above. Unless you just think they would be alien sadists or professional griefers taking pleasure in watching fledgling civilizations die.

Personally I think the good/evil paradigm would be useless. They'd be neither devils nor angels. They might be bored and indifferent though. If you've seen it all, done it all, why would you want to be an angel or a demon when that would take a fair amount of resources away from whatever sort of economy you had going?

Better to just sit back, grab popcorn and watch us like kids watch Sea Monkeys.

That advanced societies/cultures develop into peace/happiness/enlightenment ultimately is only an assumption. And such an assumption may be fatal. Again..you do NOT go into a jungle and expect lions, snake, crocodiles etc. "welcome you" and cuddle with you, don't you?

Except that, to them, we'd probably be closer to the creatures of the jungle than vice-versa.

I would say "HAH!" "Told you so!"
2 nd line...

From 2010


From 2011


From 2012


From 2013

reject
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Omfg we've discovered hell...all aliens are demons.

We must exterminate them asap in the service of our god.

We must start a crusade to send nukes there somehow and engage in holy war against these enemies of our holy book.

Have faith or else God will punish you.

Have nothing to do with these fake aliens; they are just demons masquerading.

God will prevail.

God is great

This is what happens in the alternate time line where Michele Bachmann is elected President.
In desperation, she declares global thermonuclear war on everyone else in order to trigger the Battle of Armageddon, and in her hopes, wishes and beliefs, the second coming of the Tea Party Jesus.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

reply to post by JadeStar


If such advanced civilizations exist in our galaxy, or in any other capable of reaching us by instantaneous space travel across vast distances, and had any hostile intentions or planetary expansion plans that paid no heed to "natives", then by now the colonization process would have already displaced human civilization on Earth. Therefore, there must be a universal "prime directive", particularly if there is conclusive evidence that we've been visited, unless those were all reconnaissance probes.. they may also just be waiting for civilizations like us to cook our own noodle and self-destruct, before moving in and making themselves at home..

Also, if there are any such technologically advanced civilizations within our own galaxy or local galactic neighborhood, it's a safe conclusion that they've been aware of our presence, all along.

A very nice and perfectly balanced (for life) planet like ours you would think would not be overlooked, and since humanity and human civilization is very very young by comparison, why are we here, and not they?

Also, as the most recent evolutionary development at the apex of the evolution of life on earth, if the universe really is a non-localized, holographic, interdependent cosmological informational processing matrix ie: that evolution is not entirely an isolated affair, then might it be in the realm of conceivable, that the "last are first, and the first, last" meaning that the human phylos (don't know the right word) may be the most advanced from a purely evolutionary perspective, albeit the most primitive in every other way, the implication being that they don't want to be messing around with the crowning glory of all creation, and I don't mean that in an egocentric, narcissistic or solipsistic manner, but as an explanation as to why the Earth was never colonized by technologically advanced Civilizations from another world.

It's also quite possible that they've been observing for a very very VERY long time, perhaps even bearing witness, some among them, wherever to the very formation of our solar system.

Maybe they are farmers. I just hope they don't want to "harvest" our spiritual energies, or our DNA. Then again, even agents of wickedness or of a purely selfish intent could unwittingly do the higher will, even while playing the role of God or of thinking of themselves in that manner, and here I'm thinking of ancient interventions of Biblical times.

It would be funny if there was a God behind it all with a great sense of humor capable of telling a universal joke through the human being at everyone's expense, wouldn't it?! That's what i like to imagine has actually taken place, to the chagrin of some, and the joyful laughter of others.. or as either a groan, or a cheer, going up in the heavens.. or first one, and then the other, as may be appropriate depending on the POV. LOL!

To really get to the root of these questions, we need to learn to think in different ways, imho, from that of a purely seperative, materialist monist and largely atheist POV, to a more unitive, cosmological and universal even spiritual perspective, since context and framing means everything, and that it may indeed be true that "what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, and, what is bound on earth is bound in heaven also" where heaven could have more than one meaning. Of course this would be very very embarrassing for us if we've been projecting all along. Projecting, and not receiving, while presuming falsely, that we have privacy, because it might not really work that way at all, the separation perspective..

And maybe when we are ready and willing to consider everything from a whole new POV that that's when the master will appear, and welcome us into the league of independent and interdependent civilized worlds, whereby some people and aliens could go on a student exchange or some such thing.

It would be the terror to the "PTB" here on earth, because it would lay very low their perceived mountain of power, idolatry and exploitation, and their ways would be rendered as an absurdity and the laughing stock of the whole universe because the great joke is always at the assholes expense, no matter where they may be.

BigfootNZ

parad0x122
Stars for that, I can appreciate a blatant, "this is only a what-if" topic. I just didn't realize that was commonplace on here, I'm sure you can tell by my post count that I'm quite the newbie to the boards. :-) I've gotta say though, in the very least, this place never fails to generate some interesting topics!

Oh it isnt all that common, not sure when the last 'what if' thread was, I just got a bit iffy about people complaining about this threads right to be in here, given alot of the stuff that gets posted in this forum should be in the Grey Area or Hoax forums it gets a bit hypocritical.

Its a better more deserving thread than say an 'I see things in Mars rocks' one.

Ross 54
As the star is apparently a billion years older than our Sun, life and civilization could conceivably have had a very long 'head-start' on us. That such an advanced, nearby civilization had not destroyed us, taken over the planet, or robbed us of our resources in all that time seems a very hopeful sign, I feel.

Who says they would be ahead of us?.. most of their early life on their planet might have been wiped out a billion years after ours started in our solar system (as life on earth has been nearly wiped out many times before), heck compared to long time Dinosaurs existed us modern mammals are just a blip really. Life doesnt have a set starting point in the growth of a star and its planets, heck life might have started on their world only a million years ago but due to the environment they had a fast tracked evolution compared to ours and they might be a global spanning Edwardian technology level civilization. Heck they might have bombed themselves back into the stone age a thousand years ago and had to start all over again

or maybe they where a lost colony from an advanced species that devolved technology wise once cut off from their home worlds. We arent always going to be the cave man in these sorts of situations.

Gotta give humanity at least some form of credit. Heck for all we know if all the UFO subject is bunk and the odd real craft we see are in fact ours then for all we know we might be the most advanced species in our corner of the galaxy... which would throw an interesting spin on things.

edit on 26-11-2013 by BigfootNZ because: (no reason given)

Unless we know otherwise, it seems wisest to assume that life on this planet or any other is neither especially fortunate or unfortunate in the factors that have speeded or slowed its development. Everything being equal, an extra billion years should mean a greater chance of a more advanced civilization.
Besides this, it is stated in the original post that the lights on the fictional planet orbiting the star Keid (40 Eridani) cover a much wider area than on Earth. The quite reasonable interpretation is that this civilization has the superior technical infrastructure and energy production needed to more thoroughly light the darkness than we do.

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

I believe the OP made that perfectly clear in the very first sentence. Nothing personal, Just saying. ~$heopleNation

NewAgeMan


If such advanced civilizations exist in our galaxy, or in any other capable of reaching us by instantaneous space travel across vast distances, and had any hostile intentions or planetary expansion plans that paid no heed to "natives", then by now the colonization process would have already displaced human civilization on Earth.

Exactly what has caused you to come up with that assumption? Please explain the "colonization process" that would have supposedly already displaced human civilization here on Earth? Just curious if you have any facts to back up such a reckless assumption.

Hey NAM, Do you have any idea just how large the Universe is, let alone just our very own Galaxy? ~$heopleNation

NOTE: I despise this text editor ATS uses.....trying to reply to this somehow...

JadeStar


>>
Assuming that all we knew about them was they were a technological civilization just down the road from us in cosmic distance terms and they showed no interest in us as far as we could tell and we couldn't say anything definitive about them until we could see their world better, do you still think that governments and religions would see them as a threat?
>>

Yes, because their political, religious, economical systems will be different. What do we do when a political or economic system is different? We set up nuclear weapons to "protect" our own system and the power structures who drive them.

>>
But you're basing that on an assumption that they'd see us as some sort of threat. What if they saw us instead as a curiosity?

Let's assume they have had a 500 million to 1 billion year head start on us in evolution and technology. What threat could we possibly pose to them that would make it worth their while to expend huge amounts of energy to go to war?
>>

Curiosity, indifference. If they are 500m or 1b years more advanced they see us like ants, no question. When was the last time you saw in the news that someone burnt down an ant-hill?

What threat to fish pose to us? Nevertheless we fish millions/billions, we eat them. No-one bats an eye. Such a culture could destroy an entire planet ....and for THEM it would be entirely insignificant simply because we are extremely primitive in their eyes.


>>
Why? It would serve no real purpose other than wasting energy and resources. See the point above. Unless you just think they would be alien sadists or professional griefers taking pleasure in watching fledgling civilizations die.
>>

Are we acting "sadistic" if we bring out nets and catch 100.000 of fish? We don't care because we see fish or almost any other animal as "less developed" and we spin tales like animals as opposed to us "have no soul" etc. Because we see them indifferent as "below" us.

The aliens may NOT have an evil intention. If you''re 500m years further developed you do not NEED an evil intention, indifference alone may be a threat to us.


>>
Except that, to them, we'd probably be closer to the creatures of the jungle than vice-versa.
>>

This is correct but that doesn't make our position better.

DerbyGawker
I vote to move this to a forum that indicates the obvious fictional (read: hoax) nature of this OP.

I vote to move this in the forum "Examples of failed reading comprehension".

The OP made it clear in the title right away that this is a HYPOTHETICAL question asked for the sake of creating a discussion. And this is exactly what such a forum SHOULD be about. If you, even after reading the title AND the first OP still did not get it is a hypothetical question asked, as opposed to a "hoax"..then I cannot help you.

SheopleNation

NewAgeMan


If such advanced civilizations exist in our galaxy, or in any other capable of reaching us by instantaneous space travel across vast distances, and had any hostile intentions or planetary expansion plans that paid no heed to "natives", then by now the colonization process would have already displaced human civilization on Earth.

Exactly what has caused you to come up with that assumption? Please explain the "colonization process" that would have supposedly already displaced human civilization here on Earth? Just curious if you have any facts to back up such a reckless assumption.

Hey NAM, Do you have any idea just how large the Universe is, let alone just our very own Galaxy? ~$heopleNation

I don't remember, but I read about it somewhere. It is not just an assumption. In the thing I read it presumed the farthest distance to the oldest stars and then worked it's way here from there even based on sub-light speed travel, and they proved mathematically that colonization of earth, if colonization was a "mandate" or objective, would be inevitable by now.

As to size and magnitude, yes, see my signature below re: Milky Way, and, for the Universe multiply by 500 billion to a trillion, probably closer to a trillion galaxies. Because we KNOW that there is at least one in this particular galaxy, then like I said, that bodes very well for earth-like worlds, even if a very special type of moon-planet-star system, like we enjoy here on earth, is a prerequisit for an earth-LIKE world, where of course there may be many that are not earth-like that nevertheless have life, but we're talking here about walking around intelligent life for which a type of equilibrium balance very similar if not almost identical to Earth, would be required, not just a rocky or even a rocky water world in the "Habitable Zone" so it's not just a matter of counting up rocky worlds in the Goldilocks Zone and then dividing a bunch of times to get the number of earth-like worlds whether in our own galaxy or in the universe as a whole.

The Drake Equation is totally flawed by not taking our unique earth-moon-sun configuration into account.

I predict that not every galaxy has even one truly earth-like world, based on my own evaluation of the uniqueness of our earth-moon-sun system, but that would still mean that there are probably at least a billion such worlds in the universe, min. (if 1/100 contained an earth-twin type world).

I do think they are exceedingly rare however, which is why we are being or have been visited, probably from another galaxy altogether, although I'm not ruling out another Earth within our own galaxy, just suggesting that it's rather unlikely.