Aliens and a comment by Garfield

Garfield does have a point.

"City Lights"...not a photograph but skewed science

Can't time and money be spent more wisely than looking for aliens?

"Is There a City on Pluto? Before You Answer, Consider: We've Never Looked. Two Scientists Want to Change That"

by

Michael D. Lemonick

November 10th, 2011

Time

Before Ed Turner and Avi Loeb tell you about their research, they want to make one thing perfectly clear: they do not claim that there's a city on Pluto. But if there were one, they say, we could see it. And as they suggest in a paper they've submitted to the journal Astrobiology, it's worth taking a look, just in case.

The whole thing began a couple of years ago, when Loeb and Turner, astrophysicists at Harvard and Princeton, respectively, were at a conference in Abu Dhabi. The organizers sent them on a tour of nearby Dubai, where the guide bragged that his gleaming, ultramodern city was so brightly lit at night that from space it would outshine London, Paris or New York City.

That got the pair thinking: how far away could you see a major city on another world using existing telescopes? The question percolated for a while, until Loeb mentioned it to Freeman Dyson, the Institute for Advanced Study physicist famous for spending more time thinking outside the box than in it. (In the early 1960s, Dyson worked on the idea of a rocket propelled by atom bombs, and has suggested that astronomers look for aliens who might have enclosed their stars to trap solar energy.) Dyson was, predictably, intrigued by the question of extraterrestrial cities. "He encouraged us to write it up," says Loeb.

The city the researchers picked as a reference wasn't Dubai; it was Tokyo. "I love Tokyo," Turner admits, but that wasn't the reason for the choice. Instead, it is because the loss of the Fukushima nuclear plants in last spring's earthquake and tsunami forced major power cutbacks in Japan. As a result, there was a lot of information publicly available about how much electricity Tokyo uses for what purposes, which made its light output easy to calculate.

Unsurprisingly, there's no way you could see city lights on a planet orbiting another star. Even if aliens used a whole lot more light than we do, says Turner, the ability to detect it at such vast distances is "two or three generations of telescope away." But closer to home, you might see a glimmer. Tokyo, Turner and Loeb calculated, would be visible at the very edge of our solar system, 30 times farther out than Pluto — though it would take a long exposure on a telescope like the Hubble to see it.

Even if you spotted something suggesting a city in space, you'd still have to figure out whether the light was artificial — alien-made, in other words — or simply reflected back from the sun. One way to do that is with a spectrograph, which breaks light into a rainbow of colors; artificial light makes for a different sort of rainbow from the one sunlight produces. Again, though, that takes a powerful telescope.

But Loeb and Turner realized there was a much simpler way to do things. As Isaac Newton showed, the intensity of light drops off with the inverse of the square of distance. In plain English, this means that if you move a light source twice as far away, it becomes a fourth as bright. Move it three times as far and it becomes a ninth as bright. Many objects in the Kuiper Belt — the ring of comets and other bodies that surround the solar system — are in highly elliptical orbits, meaning they get closer and farther away as they orbit the sun. A Kuiper Belt Tokyo would get brighter and dimmer with that motion, and it would do so according to Newton's inverse-square law.

The nifty thing is, the law applies only if you're seeing light produced by the orbiting object itself. If all you're seeing is reflected sunlight, it would be much dimmer, since the light has to travel from the sun, bounce off the object, then bounce again to Earth, which doubles the Newtonian effect. If the object were to move twice as far from Earth, its light would be not four times dimmer but 16.

So all you need to do is watch Pluto and its kin for a while and see which rule their light follows. And while keeping a constant eye on them would ordinarily be a time-consuming chore, a new instrument called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will be coming on line by the end of the decade. Its only job will be to survey the sky every few nights with the world's most powerful light detectors. Among other things, it will note anything that changes, including stars that pulsate, stars that explode, potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids — and Kuiper Belt objects that move and, maybe, brighten or dim in unexpected ways.

One obvious question Loeb and Turner's idea raises is, Why would aliens have lights on, if we always see the sun-facing, daylight side of Kuiper Belt objects? The answer: the sun is so faint at the edges of the solar system that any beings that evolved closer in would feel the need to supplement natural light by a lot, even at high noon. And the aliens would have to have evolved closer in because the emergence of life, as far as we know, requires liquid water. Once they had emerged and evolved, a gravitational encounter with a larger planet would have shotgunned them out to the fringes.

O.K., the fact is, it's vanishingly unlikely that there's some thriving Manhattan or Minneapolis stuck on an ice ball in the depths of the Kuiper Belt. But the same principles of reflected light that would reveal the existence of such a city can also help scientists study the size, rotation and reflectivity of other worlds. And of course, the zillion to 1 improbability of a Kuiper metropolis is not the same as absolutely ruling it out. "It's unlikely that there are cities in the Kuiper Belt, but we should not pretend we know this for sure," Turner says. "If it involves no additional resources, we should definitely [look for it]."

In that, Turner echoes the words of Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi, whose forward-looking 1960 paper in the journal Nature laid the intellectual foundation for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. "The probability of success is difficult to estimate," they wrote. "But if we never search, the chance of success is zero."

UFOs and foreign invasions [Earthly kind]

Now would this be some sort of subterfuge to perpetuate the study of the potential for UFOs in the sense of alien visitation?

"Unidentified Flying Threats"

by

Nick Pope

July 29th, 2008

The New York Times

ON the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, pilots and airport employees at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago saw a disc-like object hovering over the tarmac for several minutes. Because nothing was tracked on radar, the Federal Aviation Administration did not investigate. Yet radar is not a reliable detector of all aircraft. Stealth planes are designed to be invisible to radar, and many radar systems filter out signals not matching the normal characteristics of aircraft. Did it really make sense to entirely ignore the observations of several witnesses?

A healthy skepticism about extraterrestrial space travelers leads people to disregard U.F.O. sightings without a moment’s thought. But in the United States, this translates into overdependence on radar data and indifference to all kinds of unidentified aircraft — a weakness that could be exploited by terrorists or anyone seeking to engage in espionage against the United States.

The American government has not investigated U.F.O. sightings since 1969, when the Air Force ended Project Blue Book, an effort to scientifically analyze all sightings to see if any posed a threat to national security. Britain and France, in contrast, continue to investigate U.F.O. sightings, because of concerns that some sightings might be attributable to foreign military aircraft breaching their airspace, or to foreign space-based systems of interest to the intelligence community.

Most of the incidents investigated in Britain have been easily explained as misidentifications of stars and planets, aircraft lights, satellites and meteors, but some cases have raised national security or air safety issues.

On Dec. 26, 1980, for instance, several witnesses at two American Air Force bases in England reported seeing a U.F.O. land. An examination of the site turned up indentations in the ground and a level of radiation in the area that was significantly higher than ordinary. More witnesses at the same base reported the U.F.O. again on subsequent nights. The deputy base commander reported that the aircraft aimed light beams into the most highly sensitive area of the base — a clear security breach.

On March 30 and 31, 1993, there was a wave of U.F.O. sightings over Britain. One witness described a triangular-shaped craft that flew slowly over an air force base before accelerating away to the horizon in an instant, many times faster than a jet. The British military reported, "There would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the U.K."

On April 23, 2007, a commercial airline pilot and some of his passengers reported a huge cigar-shaped U.F.O. — the pilot estimated it to be a mile wide — near the Channel Islands. At the time, air traffic controllers reported to the pilot that radar picked up something, but that it was "unknown traffic."

In addition, there have been several incidents of near misses between U.F.O.s and known aircraft — enough to prompt the Ministry of Defense and the British Civil Aviation Authority to advise pilots, if they encounter anything, "not to maneuver, other than to place the object astern, if possible."

The United States is no less vulnerable than Britain and France to threats to security and air safety. The United States Air Force or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should reopen investigations of U.F.O. phenomena. It would not imply that the country has suddenly started believing in little green men. It would simply recognize the possibility that radar alone cannot always tell us what’s out there.

Nick Pope, the author of "Open Skies, Closed Minds," was in charge of U.F.O. investigations for the British Ministry of Defense from 1991 to 1994.



Birth of a very popular mythology

British UFO data released

Myths/science; science/myths--needed...compatible?

Pseudoscience...be careful

SETI--ultimate loneliness?

Space ethics

Tied to the previous post is the much broader question of "space ethics". It will happen...mankind will explore the universe; we will visit other solar systems and planets and hopefully encounter other beings. What sort of criterion should be established in exploring the universe as regards to extraction of resources and, assuming that we are not unique in the universe, alien life forms? Does mankind march in with dollar signs in our eyes [greed and the desire to make a "quick buck"] or with our Model 101445 Atomic Blaster Ray Gun blasting those different from us out of their chairs--either scenario radically modifying/destroying environments and other life forms? Essentially, what sort of rules of conduct should be employed on mankind's odyssey and who should contribute to those rules of conduct: Scientists, philosophers, teachers, you and me?

It's quite possible that we are descendents of a "cosmic" sneeze. Scientists are still fussing over the Mars rocks. But as an extrapolation, consider this: It is truly one species feeding off another. We just happen to be at the top right now unless we are confronted with faster, stronger, and smarter species [or in the wrong place at the wrong time]. But those are anomalies such as the human being eaten by a tiger, stepped on by an elephant, or succumbing to a bacterial infection, etc. This situation is reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode called "To Serve Man" : A cookbook for aliens feasting on mankind. We could be just a link in an enormous food chain--not yet realized.

Mankind will probably carry the history of plunder into space. If there is a buck to be made, someone will be there with exploitation high on their agenda. Tucked away in the back of the space ship's cargo bay will be crates of chewing gum and pretty beads.

Here's a sticky situation. Suppose that man met with an alien life form equally intelligent and yet, despite all attempts, communication could not be established. Would it be the wise thing to step backwards, throw the ship in high gear, and place an "X" on the celestial map warning all others to avoid the planet at all costs or...? The issue of galactic language [communication] truly muddles the issue even more. It would be lucky indeed if there were a common universal means of communication. Some have offered mathematics, but those are very precise descriptive forms of communication of common events and by no means tender emotions. Some have offered pictographs. We now have the metaphorical "Tower of Babble" in outer space. Thus, one must start all over again. Perhaps it would be better to stay home and read a book. You know, when one thinks about it, regardless of a working set of galactic ethics, all of it is totally worthless when confronting an alien species if communication is impossible. Certainly universal tragedies would happen. Perhaps "distance" and "communication" will define the history of mankind's movement and contacts in space more profoundly that a set of good ethics and technology. Homo sapiens may really be reduced to an existence of isolation and loneliness.

Who would initially be involved in establishing a workable sense of ethics. Granted, as eons passed and other beings became involved, a set of ethics must be established. By whom? Do we take advise from philosophy, theology, science? And what a confusion would occur when other cultures incorporate, as quite normal, something that mankind would find repulsive. Who or what body would be the ultimate arbiter in the formation of intergalactic ethics?

Similar to the idea of establishing intergalactic buoys warning species who share our perspectives to avoid this planet would we disdain similar cultures that have a sense of ethics extremely repulsive such as a ritual sacrifice involving their own species. Suppose these individuals could provide something that would be very important to enhance mankind and the travel in space...maybe a fantastic cure for a debilitating disease or a serum to eliminate or reduce toxic chemicals ingested by humans. Would practicality over shadow a set of ethics. Could we condone a savage situation to take home a box of trinkets--regardless of the benefits?

How ironic it would be to discover at least one or all galactic cultures exactly like ours. A stagnant universe? A universe of the same species would certain alter one's perspective in the formation and acceptance of the universality of ethical concepts. Perhaps the basic traits of benevolence and bellicose postures and everything in between are universal characteristics of all species. So, essentially, we need not be too concerned about establishing a sophisticated ethic. We will just meander the universe plundering and reconstructing the damage done. My Model 101445 Atomic Blaster Ray Gun would be ethical after all.

"Prime Directive"? A directive fraught with potentially disastrous results. The issue of "interference" regarding another species could run the risk of self-annihilation or another species being eliminated. And the issue could well be compounded by the factors of "pain and suffering" which most humans find intolerable. And yes, western influence run the same risk here on this planet. Whatever the motivation in the name of greed, power, conquest, or religious conversion the western influence can certainly cause major changes. I well remember a story regarding an anthropological study of one of the indigenous peoples of South America--the feared head hunter tribe called the Jhivaro. The deal was that the anthropologists were to strictly observe and yet a rather unpleasant episode happened that would cause one to stop taking notes and do something to alleviate the botched decapitation of a woman from a rival tribe. Where does one draw the line, for the anthropologist could have finished the demise of the woman with a single gun shot but opted to let the events play out as agreed. The same could be applied to ethics in space. As far as NASA is concerned, I seriously doubt that the astronauts are provided much ethical material since the space travel issue hasn't even begun. I suppose that each astronaut carries a bundle of personal ethics.

Maybe we have this all wrong. Perhaps the most practical posture to adopt is nothing more than the perpetuation and protection of Homo sapiens. To the trash can for any ethical stands of universal fairness or "prime directives". The universe may well be a cauldron of vicious and violent species where only the strongest and aggressive survive. Species will come and go in an infinite universe. So the "prime directive" may now state: "Shoot now and ask questions later". Perhaps the "conflict resolution" posture would work well on a large scale of species vs species. But suppose you were at the O. K. Corral on a Venutian desert facing a very hostile and armed alien bent on beating you to the draw and terminating your existence. I seriously doubt that talking your way out of that potentially mortal situation is going to keep you alive. The "conflict resolution" notion evaporated and was replaced by a "quick draw". The "prime directive" has become very personal--your life is on the line and there are not very many individuals that would succumb to the ultimate sacrifice.

I am not convinced that altruism, good will, fairness, etc. permeate the universe. Such a notion is unfounded and simply may be a minority point of view doomed to universal evolution of all species. But, from our perspective, they are fine ideas to carry into space and subject to rejection and modification despite being somewhat Pollyanna. A set of rules and regulations from NASA would be inadequate for not taking into account all contingencies and possibly biased depending on the constituents of the NASA committee that agrees on a code of "space ethics". Who are these people And, the "exception to the rule" idea is an open ended interpretation that may precipitate disastrous consequences depending on circumstance and various individuals.

The history of mankind has not been too stellar [pardon the pun] with greed and violence among many more characteristics being all too normal. There is no current evidence or belief that mankind will change anytime soon. Thus, those traits will be carried into space and practiced on alien environments and species. Mankind is just not mature enough to develop a set of universal ethics and travel in space. It is possible that those characteristics are temporary [evolution will dictate a better species] and that the whole of the universe is peopled with similar species. Good news for the former for it shows change and hope. Bad news for the latter for it shows a violent and aggressive universe. Perhaps by the time mankind achieves a higher set of universal ethics, the chances of contacting other life forms may have faded away if one subscribes to the popular hypothesis of the "big bang" and the ever expanding universe--it would be impossible to contact anyone for the factor of "distance".

Don't misunderstand me...ethical goals are a "good thing" regardless of the inherent nature of the universe.

If mankind is to remain in solitude by design [the uniqueness of a species/a theological view] or a result of the physics of the universe, a heuristic set of ethics will surly ensure an extended duration of the species Homo sapiens. Life without ethical values is not a life worth living.

Outright declared hostility by an aggressive species would dictate self-preservation without a doubt--"prime directive" or not. It may well be that the definition or interpretation of "self-defense" may be wrong. The apparent aggressive species may be just posturing to protect themselves much like a growling/barking dog, the rattle of a rattle snake, the discharge of n-butylpercaptan by a skunk, etc.

And another factor to consider, and this compounds the issue too, is the issue of language. There just may be no way for communication and, as exemplified on earth, many words/phrases have different meanings: A "hello" may be misunderstood as "get off our planet" and who knows what would result from that situation.

Assuming that the incident of the demise of an alien happened in the early stages of mankind in space and there was no universal judicial system then the individual that caused the demise of the alien would be responsible and perform a certain retribution. That could be a problem for it may extend beyond something personal. If communication with the rock were possible, it might well be that to satisfy the demands of the aliens that the individual must forfeit a life--maybe the lives of the entire crew. Now that would cause problems. Problems would be compounded if it were discovered that these rocks held some important information or harbored certain necessary resources. If the event, way distant in the future, where there was a consortium of aliens in conjunction with humans whose purpose was to adjudicate such species infraction, then the issue would be different. I suppose that when the time arrives and we become friends and trade with many species, that such a body of lawgivers would exist. Oh my, lawyers in space!

Remember the book by H. G. Wells called The Time Machine where in the very distant future on earth the subterranean subspecies called the Morlocks bred and fed upon the weak surface subspecies called the Eloi? Perhaps "ethics in space" is a non relevant issue or so we may discover--just a big "free for all", the old West mentality, only the strong and dominate survive. Frankly, I would invest my money in stock that promoted a set of "universal ethics". That might even the odds against the bad guys of the universe and level the playing field a bit. Universal justice may prevail.

Mankind will begin a journey into space with the best set of ethics possible based on our limited knowledge and experience and as the universe unfolds modifications will be made. Endless global debate without mankind taking the first step would be counter productive. And there may well never be a unified set of ethics--mankind's course of existence as the species Homo sapiens may just disappear.

It is somewhat ironic that there is the notion that man wants to perpetuate his species through, for example, efforts to curb world hunger and financially assist third world countries; but, on the other hand, man is forever redefining and refining methods to self-destruction. Perhaps this existential dichotomy will work out.

Being the recipient of extra terrestrial assistance is also an issue of philosophical significance for the paranoid features may be demonstrated in not really knowing the authenticity of a benevolent alien race. I guess when faced with ultimate peril, mankind, if such an offer were presented, would cash in on the offer and sort things out later.

It is interesting to note that some of the linguistics that we use to discuss these issues may have no universal antecedent. The term “pride”, for example, may exist nowhere but on earth. Thus, such philosophical statements are meaningless and further the complications with other beings.

Our questioning about our species in relation to the universe is not unique. Grant that there are conditions in the universe for the evolution of sentient beings and that sentient beings evolve and also contemplate their own existence and juxtaposition to the universe. We and they ponder the possibility of extraterrestrial life and contact with same. Would this conclude a posture of cascading universal interrogatory questions of co-alien existence: That there is a possibility of a universal body of ethics too? Interesting to discover, as we are now finding out, that there are many fundamental laws governing the function of the universe and just perhaps there is a body of ethical precepts that await unfolding by all sentient species. Sentient species uniqueness would not be necessarily measured only by what we ethically carry into space, but simply by our physical constitution and whatever matrix of dominant species characteristics is promoted--a propensity for conquest, subjugation, and dissemination of evil, the antithesis, or a mixture.

There is room for freedom of species diversity. The point being that similar questions of the universe may well be shared by all inhabitants of the universe. Not all aliens have to be thinking of mankind as a food source.

In conclusion, there is something more fundamental here and that is the major types of ethical values employed. Two salient types are: 1.) “universal” ethics and 2.) “situational” ethics. In the former it is assumed that the principles of ethics are true throughout the universe and that all sentient beings will adopt such values and strive to abide by them. This is sort of another “argument ad ignorantiam” whereby the postulate is considered true by virtue of the fact it cannot be proven untrue. That is somewhat on shaky ground even though the values are considered good and worthy. There is no guarantee that sentient beings would adopt the same philosophy let alone the fact that there may or may not be other sentient beings that we would even contact. The “situation” ethics simply states that ethical values are contingent upon such factors as cultural dispositions, geography, and time [historical]. In other words ethical values are constantly changing. Historical evidence is abundant, for we today would look at Spartus and its ethics as barbaric and crude--but it worked for them. Even today there are situations that are common and accepted in Asia that are not approved of in Western Europe. So to extrapolate this concept to space travel, it would be apparent that man’s early sojourns and possible alien contacts be based on one set of ethics and always subject to modification. To have a positive relationship with aliens that consume their pets as fine cuisine, mankind might just have to adapt rather than storm the kitchen with lasers blazing in an attempt to save the "Trebles”. No doubt, such modifications don't come easily and will certainly affect all humans as our species is dispersed throughout the universe. It would be arrogant for mankind to assume that the “universal” or “situation” ethics would be the “correct” ethical principles. Somehow, we must learn to get along with our neighbors be they next door or on the other side of the galaxy.

Further reading...

"A Grim Reckoning"

"Astroenvironmentalism: The Case For Space Exploration As An Environmental Issue"

"Law, Ethics and Extra-terrestrial Life"

"Life, Longevity, And A $6,000 Bet"


And finally, a spaceperson's personal hygiene may be everyday issues on deep space ventures and may become a serious issue of "space ethics". Bad enough for the travelers to endure each others personal issues but all may well fall short when the ambassadors of Earth finally contact the inhabitants of planet Mongol and Emperor Ming gets "wind of" the emissaries. All that cool advanced technology denied and potential galactic wars ensue because Captain Pharto and crew neglected to address those issues. I'm sure NASA is somewhat concerned about the problems of personal hygiene, containment of bacteria, and the general placation of the crew's overall general well-being and comfort.

"No Bath Time/ In space, it's not easy being clean"

SETI--ultimate loneliness?

I am glad that it isn't sponsored by a government institution and that it remains in the realm of private enterprise. SETI --an appendage of modern mythology? Certainly mankind would like to know if we are alone in the universe--something truly unique. And we would like to have a glimpse into the fate of our species. We would like to know the purpose of the universe and mankind's role...a plan or just a freak occurrence.

NASA and SETI:

Here is some background material of NASA's involvement with the SETI program before funding from congress curtailed the relationship.

"Searching For Good Science: The Cancellation Of NASA's Seti Program"

"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Seti"

"PROJECT ORION: A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extrasolar Planets"

"LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE"

SETI commands a huge public interest--over two million hits a month at their web site. Popularity waxes and wanes. Nothing has been discovered regarding alien intelligence. It is estimated that only one billionth of the universe has been investigated. It is interesting to note that time is slipping away for the universe is expanding rapidly and thus decreasing our odds of communication. Also consider that even if we discern some significant radio signal, say something from a star system 50 light years away, the signal is 50 years old. Imagine setting up meaningful dialogue that require 100 years for two messages:

Year 2050--

"Hi. We are from...."

Year 2150---

"Hello there. We are from..."

Tedious and nearly worthless other than knowing someone else was out there 50 years past. And all of that based on the ability to even decipher the radio signal. But even knowledge of the presence of another intelligent life form would certainly alter much of mankind's philosophy.

Even Freeman Dyson has chimed in on SETI. He has offered a wager: "The first discovery of extraterrestrial life will be someplace other than on a planet or on a satellite of a planet"--that contact with other beings will most likely be via probes instead of our usual perception of alien contact. He may be correct. Consider Voyager1's plunge into deep space. The only drawback is that data [conversation of you like] will be so outdated that the species involved may have expired.

"Dyson's Long Shot"

A corresponder wrote:

"I think it is worthwhile even if it only confirms life out there, it would be profound. As you say, the possibility of two-way communication seems remote with few exceptions. Our first contact is likely to be someone's earlier radio broadcasts. Such as " The Wilslix Knows" or "The Lone Ramspok" and maybe later things like "Route ## " or" Days of Our Wifeers" on television broadcasts. Of course our earlier radio broadcasts have been going out at the speed of light for over eighty years now. Still any kind of reply could take quite some time. I hate to think what they might think of our survival shows when the television broadcasts hit them! Also even if they are more advanced they might learn a few things from us as well."

"Also even if they are more advanced they might learn a few things from us as well."...like stay away! It would be so arrogant for mankind to believe and perpetuate a philosophy of species solipsism. Oh deity!...species analysis based on the bulk of radio and television signals would be mankind's kiss of loneliness. And then again, there may be others like us or those that would find pleasure in emulating us--ARGH!

Kelic: "Hey Gort, check this out...some male of the species is eating grubs in a pit of vipers."

Gort: "Way cool!!!!"

Gort: "Set course for planet #4530949...warp speed."

Gleek: "Aye, aye Captain."

Robert Roy Britt of Space.com wrote an article the idea of "intergalactic messages" is mentioned. Essentially there are two methods in view: The current method of electromagnetic signals and, as the article states, the "message in a bottle" approach. Each method has failing features. The former to be successful would require way too much energy for signal propagation and may miss a potential recipient. The latter is slow and cumbersome since there is no way now known to propel such a "bottle" near speeds of light to have a successful means of communication.

"Researchers: ET Should Write, Not Call"

What about broadcasting the Internet?

The "Good, the Bad, the Ugly"? Scanning the universe [or at least a very small section of it] for signals of extraterrestrial signals is one thing, but a continual broadcast of Earth originated data is another, especially when it is proposed that the "world wide web" be transmitted. Is the "www" what we want aliens to witness of Earth's citizens? The web is filled with hate, violence, racism, pornography, bias, crackpots, bad reasoning and bad science. A lot is not in a single language which could be difficult for translation and understanding. Web formats of textual data and images could be inaccessible. Where will all the passwords come from? Could "Gortreon" from a distant galaxy use his Mastercard for subscriptions? I suppose "Gortreon" and his colleagues could hack the sites. Granted, the "www" does exemplify the "Good, the Bad, the Ugly" of mankind, but do we really want to display the whole package of the human race to potential friends in the universe without and explanation and defense? Wouldn't it be better to pick and choose the information prior to submission and put our best foot foreword?

"What Do You Say to An Extraterrestrial?"

Well, this is interesting: A reversal of the modus operandi of the goals of SETI. Instead of, or in addition to, "waiting" for a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence--send an "invitation" via the Internet. This novel approach ["Invitation to ETI"] is the idea of Allen Tough Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr. Tough has some unusual and optimistic ideas concerning extraterrestrial intelligence and man's position in the universe.

"Welcome to the home page for the Invitation to ETI"

Well, this could be a problem: Missed or misinterpreted potential alien messages. Compare the shortness in time of our listening apparatus and methodology to an alien civilization far advanced in sending messages through out the universe with peers.

"Would We Mistake Signals from ET?"

Maybe it "is" about time to re-evaluate the functions of SETI.

Abstract:

"Motivated by recent developments impacting our view of Fermi’s paradox (absence of extraterrestrials and their manifestations from our past light cone), we suggest a reassessment of the problem itself, as well as of strategies employed by SETI projects so far. The need for such reevaluation is fueled not only by the failure of searches thus far, but also by great advances recently made in astrophysics, astrobiology, computer science and future studies, which have remained largely ignored in SETI practice. As an example of the new approach, we consider the effects of the observed metallicity and temperature gradients in the Milky Way on the spatial distribution of hypothetical advanced extraterrestrial intelligent communities. While, obviously, properties of such communities and their sociological and technological preferences are entirely unknown, we assume that (1) they operate in agreement with the known laws of physics, and (2) that at some point they typically become motivated by a meta-principle embodying the central role of information-processing; a prototype of the latter is the recently suggested Intelligence Principle of Steven J. Dick. There are specific conclusions of practical interest to astrobiological and SETI endeavors to be drawn from coupling of these reasonable assumptions with the astrophysical and astrochemical structure of the spiral disk of our Galaxy. In particular, we suggest that the outer regions of the Galactic disk are most likely locations for advanced SETI targets, and that sophisticated intelligent communities will tend to migrate outward through the Galaxy as their capacities of information processing increase, for both thermodynamical and astrochemical reasons. However, the outward movement is limited by the decrease in matter density in the outer Milky Way. This can also be regarded as a possible generalization of the Galactic Habitable Zone, concept currently much investigated in astrobiology."

"Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI"

Below is an excellent overview of the SETI program.

"SETI Searches Today"

Now this raises a troublesome issue...the real possibility of never establishing contact with anyone else in the universe.

Larry King interviewed Stephen Hawking in 1999. [ full interview ]

KING: When, Professor, did the universe begin, and do you know when it'll end?

HAWKING: We have good evidence the universe began in a big bang, about 15 billion years ago. We are less certain how it will end, but recent observations suggest a universe will expand forever at an ever- increasing rate.

Respect for a brilliant scientist, yes, ...certainly Hawking doesn't hold the key to open the door to reveal the fate of the universe. But, one part of his answer is quite fascinating and equally baffling: "...recent observations suggest a universe will expand forever at an ever- increasing rate." The words "forever" and "ever-increasing rate" are words of merit, weight, insight, mystery, and doom. The current model of the "Big Bang" provided the initial outward force to propel the universe into existence, but yet there is "something" that is supplying energy to increase its speed. Counter force of gravity--hypothetical "dark energy"? Einstein's fudge factor--"cosmological constant"? The universe isn't static. The Chandra x-ray telescope checking on galaxy clusters some one to eight billion light years distant has illustrated the fact that the universe is expanding and rapidly. Maybe there is no "dark energy"--an unknown feature of gravity. Perhaps the expansion, unlike Hawking's stance, will slow down and reverse. The "Big Crunch"? The "doom" part is also fascinating for it can define man's relationship to the universe as being a truly unique species [by chance or design] in that the universe will expand and thus increase distance and communication with other potential species and space travel. On the other hand, if the "Big Crunch" is a viable model, then there may be a window of opportunity for communication and travel. Longevity and maturity of our species will be a paramount issue. The "Big Crunch" is certainly a better deal than an ever expanding universe resulting in human isolation and loneliness.

No contact with alien intelligence coupled with not a trace of a species existence--JEEZE. That is sadness. "Humility" may be the key word there. The ancient Greeks had a word for that: "Tyche"..."knowing ones place on the scheme of things" with humbleness and reserve. Maybe that is the only certainty we may ever know?

I seriously doubt that many citizens of the world contemplate the focus of this topic. Is this citizen pusillanimous in addressing this issue? No...they are more interested in survival, feeding themselves and family, coping with illness [short term and terminal], avoiding pain [mental and physical], paying bills, dodging the rebel's bullet, etc. [Of course there is overlapping.] It appears that it is the poets, philosophers, and scientists that are keenly interested in the role of mankind with the universe and the potential fears of species loneliness. Not an egregious situation for those are the ones that institute new thought and doctrines of belief. But that may not be all that detrimental. Striking a conflict between the positive and negative metaphorically producing fire and consummation, there will arise the legendary Phoenix. Humm--Hegel still lives. On the final analysis, for an individual, those "worry and despair" issues evaporate in but a few decades. Let the next one in line carry the torch of mankind's fate.