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[NatureDevil]

LONDON (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.

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."


Thoughts??

NatureDevil

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

This is an exciting developement.

I need to see more of the findings first. What I would like to know more about is it in fact, discovered thru the Seti screensaver program. I was a participant for a while in the late '90's, but dropped it after about a year.

Aliens "Absolutely" Exist, SETI Astronomer Believes

Here is a link to a National Geographic article with the lead Seti astronomer, Seth Soshtek who I hold in high regards...http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0331_030401_setishostak.html

Let's see more data and graphs.

[stargazer]

Joe,

Ask Ron about it over at my site. He does the Seti stuff.

B

[starbux]

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is famous for discovering pulsars back in the mid-sixties. LGMs or "Little Green Men" as she and others initially speculated on the possibility that the pulses were artificial in origin.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

As a kid in the sixties, I read about pulsars, and how incredibly bright, regular and yet distant they all were. I thought that they might be "Space Lighthouses" for space faring craft. It was only years later that I read about the origin of the Pulsars, one being having an artificial theory behind them.

Could be!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Somehow, I knew the news would be a non-discovery...

Astronomers deny ET signal report

From the BBC:

Astronomers have moved swiftly to quell speculation they may have
received a deep-space radio signal from ET.
It was reported on the internet that the signal had been found using
the Seti@home screensaver that uses computer downtime to analyse sky
data from telescopes.

But researchers connected with the project told BBC News Online on
Thursday that no contact with extraterrestrials had been made.

"It's all hype and noise," said its chief scientist, Dr Dan
Wertheimer. "We have nothing that is unusual. It's all out of
proportion."

And Dr Paul Horowitz, of Harvard University, who specialises in
hunting for possible alien contacts added: "It's not much of
anything
at all. We're not investigating it further."

Not a signal

For six years, the Seti@home project has used a downloadable
screensaver on millions of computers around the world to sift through
data for anything unusual.

The data has been collected by radio telescopes scanning the sky for
any unusual signals from space.


At the moment, we have no candidates that we are particularly
excited about
Dr Dan Wertheimer

It is believed that any extraterrestrial intelligence might want to
send radio messages across the cosmos to make contact with other
intelligences.
Over the years, Seti@home has detected many hundreds of thousands of
spurious signals and has used statistical techniques to identify them
as interference.

About 150 signals survived the process and were subjected to further
scrutiny but none passed the final test to be classed as a potential
signal from ET.

Large numbers

The "signal" that kicked off furious media excitement on
Thursday is
called SHGb02+14a and was first detected by computers running
Seti@home software in Germany and the US.

It has a frequency of 1420 megahertz - one of the principal
frequencies of the most abundant element hydrogen.

Speaking to BBC News Online from the Arecibo radio telescope in
Puerto Rico, where he is preparing an observing run to follow up
Seti@home analysis, Dr Wertheimer said: "It's all hype. We don't
have
anything we are excited about.

"At the moment, we have no candidates that we are particularly
excited about and the new 'signal' is not a priority."

He continued: "With Seti@home having analysed some 50 trillion
frequency bands, it is not surprising that a signal like this occurs
purely due to chance."

Dr Horowitz, who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes,
told BBC News Online that it was "not new and definitely not a
signal".

-----------------

...Or are they keeping it all secret? Hmmmmm.

[TheCriticalEye]

it would be hard pressed to keep something like that secret. here just recently they found 3 distinct signals but could never regain them.
there is also over 150 candidate sources for deeper study.
they just got thrown millions of more $ and are expanding the bandwidth and anf frequencies.
maybe some day within the next 50 yrs. we might recieve a signal. who knows. seti@home is a cool project though

[starbux]

maybe some day within the next 50 yrs. we might recieve a signal. who knows.

Hey didn't Frank Drake say something to that effect almost 50 years ago?

[Centaur]

For those interested in obtaining a richer understanding of the SETI, I highly recommend the excellent book "Extraterrestrials : Where Are They?". It is a collection of thoughtful articles submitted by leading scientists providing their detailed analyses of various factors related to the SETI.

Click below to link to information on the book:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521443350/curtrenz-20

Once there, click "Search inside another edition of this book" for more details.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I enjoyed reading the reviews about the book, and of course the debate rages on there as well. But it looks like a good book to own.

I read one disparaging line tho:

After ten billion years, and among hundreds of billions of stars, we may well possess the most advanced brains in the Milky Way Galaxy

You, mean... we are at the top of the pyramid?...

[Centaur]

"I read one disparaging line..."

I took it as a compliment.


"You, mean... we are at the top of the pyramid?"

Let's hope so. Sharks live longer than minnows.

[Maddad]

The universe is such a large place that the galaxy could house 10,000 intelligent, spacefareing civilizations and we'd never know it. Suppose that each one lasts 100,000 years on average. That's a stretch, ten times as long as humanity has given up hunter-gathering, but hey, why not?

The galaxy is 10,000,000,000 years old. With 10,000 civilizations, we'd have one show up in the galaxy every 1,000,000 years. Since it last 100,000 years, there's only a 10% chance that one exists in the galaxy now. Yeah, we might well be all there is.

Warning: The numbers above are bogus.