signals??

[Rastus]

Ever hear the story of how Pulsars were found?  LGM's, Little Green Men they were called, and it sent the nation into a panic for a short time.

[Palehorse]

Hah, I was just about to post that article on the "web bots" thread, and you beat me to it.  Interesting stuff, though.

[Aileron]

Heres the whole digs for anyone interested.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- An unexplained radio signal from deep space could -- just might be -- contact from an alien civilization, New Scientist magazine reported on Thursday.

The signal, coming from a point between the Pisces and Aries constellations, has been picked up three times by a telescope in Puerto Rico.

There are other explanations besides extraterrestrial contact that may explain the signal. New Scientist said the signal could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon or even be a by-product from the telescope itself.

But the mystery beam has excited astronomers across the world.

"If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get exciting," Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath in western England told the magazine.

It was broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe's most common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers say is the most likely means by which aliens would advertise their presence.

The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the SETI+home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data picked up by the telescope.

[wantsumrice]

It'd be really interesting to see how the nation would react to this it were really ET's.

~ivan

[Palehorse]

Don't get too excited just yet, folks.  From SETI's website:

quote:"A recent (September 1) article in New Scientist magazine, entitled " Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away," implies that the UC Berkeley SETI@home project has uncovered a very convincing candidate signal that might be the first strong evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Alas, this story is misleading. According to Dan Werthimer, who heads up the UC Berkeley SERENDIP SETI project, this is a case of a reporter failing to understand the workings of their search. He says that misquotes and statements taken out of context give the impression that his team is exceptionally impressed with one of the many candidate signals, SHGb02+14a, uncovered using the popular SETI@home software. They are not."

Source: http://www.seti-inst.edu/about_us/info_for_media/in_the_news/setiathome_found_signal.php

Oddly enough, the article differs from the CNN report... no mention of a telescope in Puerto Rico and whatnot, but it was posted 9/2.  Either there's two sets of signals being investigated, or someone needs to check their facts.

[Awakening]

perhaps the process has begun. the first step towards contact. human awareness of ET's is beginning to really manifest.

perhaps...

[Logic]

I dont think this is anything entirley new, hasn't stuff like this happened a lot before?

[Manix]

Even if there isn't intelligence behind the signal, I hope it's not a goof. I think it would neat if they found anything that hasn't yet been discovered. Pulsars are just one many astounding things out there.

[Aileron]

So I thought this was interesting enough to post.

CNN announced that there are signals being recieved in Puerto Rico's observatory. The funny thing is as they are annoucning this, they still retain their indifferent expression on cable television.
They question whether they are from other life forms trying to contact us and I think they said it was either the second or third time they have recieved them.
It could however be one of three things:
1) Actual beings trying to communicate with us
2) The dishes or whatevers recieving them, own feedback or signals.
3) Some phenomenon creating the signals being sent. I cant remember where they said they were being recieved from but it sounded like between the constellations aries and taurus or something to that effect.

Im interested in knowing more and have not the time currently to check on that myself, so if anyone else could confirm this I would appreciate it.

[crahzz]

hi,

Just a quick mindbreaker here..

Ok, so we receive radio signals from another culture on another planet, as we all know radio waves do not travel that fast, and the nearest solar system which has possibillities of having life if 4 million light years away. Now if these messages where actually broadcasted from such a planet then even if we travel at the speed of light to them we would be hundred million years too late.

We shouldn't waste our time peering into the sky and hoping for a spike on our screen, but we should decipher the oddities we have here on earth, like the coherence between the mayan the egyptian and the indian culture and the number 72, and such matters.

Because if an sophistaticated alien race really wants to contact us, they will do it in person, it's a lot quicker....

greetings

[Orchild]

That's my man