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Scientist warns the world to 'think twice before replying to alien signals

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SETI
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« on: July 26, 2015, 03:45:25 am »


Scientist warns the world to 'think twice before replying to alien signals from outer space'


Professor Matthew Bailes said 'the history of weak civilisations contacting more advanced civilisations is not a happy one'
Victoria Richards Author Biography

Thursday 23 July 2015


A scientist responsible for finding signs of life on other planets has warned that human beings should probably think twice before making contact with aliens.

Professor Matthew Bailes is based at Swinburne University in Melbourne - and is leading Australia's efforts to find signs of extra-terrestrial life.

But he warned that making contact with aliens capable of transmitting powerful signals to Earth over tens of thousands of light years could lead humanity into disaster, because they're likely to be so much more advanced.
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"The history of weak civilisations contacting more advanced civilisations is not a happy one," he said.
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Prof Bailes was recently put in charge of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation's $100m search for alien life, which is being financed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and is backed by Professor Stephen Hawking.

The team working on the project will use the Parkes radio telescope - one of the largest in the world - to scan the universe in what has been described as bringing a "Silicon Valley approach to the search for intelligent life".

The initiative will cover 10 times more area of sky than previous programmes, according to News24.

The first moonwalk in 1969 was beamed to the Parkes telescope where it was beamed around the world Prof Bailes told the news outlet that sophisticated computers would have to be installed at Parkes - which was the first telescope to receive transmissions showing Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon in 1969 - to sort through as many as a billion samples a second to try to detect patterns or likely signals.

"The difficulty is to know what sort of signal we are looking for," Prof Bailes said. "There is no manual on how to find aliens. We'll have to imagine the sort of transmissions an alien race might send."

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The computers, he warned, would take a year to build, and the project has five years to run. But he said that the signal - if and when it arrives - would likely be quite feeble after travelling across such vast distances.

He said that scientists hope that aliens will send a pattern human beings would be able to recognise - such as prime numbers.

But he warned that we may all be "long dead and buried" before we worked out how to reply - and the aliens got an answer.
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SETI
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« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2015, 03:51:50 am »

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SETI
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« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2015, 03:52:26 am »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/scientist-warns-world-to-think-twice-before-replying-to-alien-signals-from-outer-space-10408201.html
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Gremlin
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« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2015, 03:54:50 am »

I always thought sending signals into space was the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell.
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The Creeper
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« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2015, 03:56:54 am »

If we're going to be concerned about humanity leading itself to ruin, there's plenty of better issues on which we should focus our worry. I'll pass on the anticipatory stress associated with actually caring about hypothetical alien invasions.
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5thColumn
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« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2015, 03:58:34 am »

I agree. We could search for signals and learn from them without trying to contact them. I mean, to what end ? If they gave us answers, new tech, it will only serves the gov and if they want to kill us / harvest us, it will be bad for everyone, so this is a no-win situation.

plus, maybe once they found our answer, they can teleport to our location with this kind of signals and were dead.
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Okane
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« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2015, 04:00:13 am »

I wonder how many more "experts" are going to come out and claim that it is in our best interest to avoid contacting extraterrestrial beings.
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Dark-Knight
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« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2015, 04:02:12 am »

We should greet ET with a nuclear war head in my expert opinion.
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Pax Unum
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« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2015, 04:06:15 am »

I still believe that the potential benefits of contact with an advanced race far outweighs the danger.

Considering how costly it is to mount an invasion here on Earth (e.g. Iraq), can anyone come up with a  real world, not science fiction, scenario where the cost of an interstellar invasion would be worth it ?

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We should greet ET with a nuclear war head in my expert opinion.

What a lovely way to greet your neighbors. :wacko:
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle
Monument of Monsters
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« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2015, 04:08:24 am »

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We should greet ET with a nuclear war head in my expert opinion.

WHAT? What have they ever done to us? Anyway, if they can get here to start with, our puny missiles wont do much.
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"The Sleep of Reason Brings Monsters."
Monument of Monsters
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« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2015, 04:11:16 am »

Most civilisations are peacefull till something can be exploited or extracted then the hostility begins.
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"The Sleep of Reason Brings Monsters."
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« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2015, 04:11:38 am »

Most civilisations are peacefull till something can be exploited or extracted then the hostility begins.
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"The Sleep of Reason Brings Monsters."
Gremlin
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« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2015, 01:16:26 am »

Logic isnt an advanced skill of the FTBs. It never was and it never will be.
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nativechick1996
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« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2015, 01:17:56 am »

Also, how about this aspect: Are we (as a civilization) even interesting enough for advanced ETs to put in the resources necessary for traveling the vast distance to pay us a visit? Seriously, if it costs a *bundle* to visit the galactic version of 'Moosebutt' ET probably isn't going to show up.
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Hunt for Extraterrestial Lifeforms
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« Reply #14 on: July 27, 2015, 01:19:09 am »

They may utilize wormholes to minimize the amount of resources used for traveling such distances.
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