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SETI, which searches for alien radio signals, is seeking your ideas of whether we should answer, and what to say, if we find them.

L.A. Times (How do you greet an extraterrestrial? ):

Now, the private Bay Area organization has launched a companion project called Earth Speaks that asks space enthusiasts around the world to think about what we should say when, or if, we finally get that cosmic phone call.

The homepage of the Earth Speaks site invites your response to this question:

"If we discover intelligent life beyond Earth, should we reply, and if so, what should we say?"

People from around the world are invited to submit pictures, sounds, and text messages that they would want to send to other worlds. The project aims to foster a dialogue about what we should say to extraterrestrial intelligence, as well as whether or not we should be sending intentional messages.

To submit your messages, follow these steps:...

Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway in Contact; the character in Carl Sagan's novel is based on SETI Research director Jill Tarter. "Carl Sagan wrote a book and Warner Brothers made a movie about a woman who does what I do. I've experienced much of what Ellie Arroway did, including the death of my father when I was young and the termination of government funding - unfortunately I have not yet detected a signal." -- Jill Tarter.

So what are people saying? The L.A. Times reports,

Center director Jill Tarter, a lifelong alien hunter on whom the Ellie Arroway character (played by Jodie Foster) from the movie "Contact" was based, said there is no simple answer. But it is vital, she said, that there be a global consensus on what we say and do before it happens.

Based on the first few hundred suggestions collected by the Earth Speaks website, that consensus might be elusive. So far, the messages break down into a few distinct categories. Some people want to throw a block party to welcome the aliens to the neighborhood. Others, less trusting, would warn the aliens that we've got guns and know how to use them.

Another group, possibly influenced by having seen too many movies, would have us hide under the bed until they go away. "If we discover intelligent life beyond Earth, we should not reply -- we should freeze and play dead," wrote one contributor.

There is a fourth category of people who refuse to take the whole idea seriously. One tongue-in-cheek writer suggests we broadcast, "There's nothing to see here. Move along."

Read the messages Earth Speaks has posted so far. (They're moderated.)

There is also a substantial fifth group there apologizing for us and the mess we've made.

I hope some poets get involved in this. Many don't try to imagine with what or whom they might be communicating, and don't present us very well.

It all does make me think about what I'd like to say. I'd expect galactic explorers to be telepathic and, if they're actually nearby, I don't think they've been riding around on top of burning rocket fuel for decades to get here. On the other hand, the SETI project is also asking if we should stick our necks out by letting anybody know we're here at all.

I think they might figure it out looking at our planet though. Earth is surrounded by space debris:

NASA has an Orbital Debris Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Their illustration at right shows the low-earth objects, much closer than the satellites. (The dots are the actual locations of objects, enlarged to be visible.) From its FAQ:

1). What is orbital debris? Orbital debris is any man-made object in orbit about the Earth which no longer serves a useful purpose....

2). What are examples of orbital debris?
Derelict spacecraft and upper stages of launch vehicles, carriers for multiple payloads, debris intentionally released during spacecraft separation from its launch vehicle or during mission operations, debris created as a result of spacecraft or upper stage explosions or collisions, solid rocket motor effluents, and tiny flecks of paint released by thermal stress or small particle impacts.

3). How much orbital debris is currently in Earth orbit?
Approximately 17,000 objects larger than 10 cm are known to exist. The estimated population of particles between 1 and 10 cm in diameter is greater than 200,000. The number of particles smaller than 1 cm probably exceeds tens of millions.

We're on a blue ball decked head to toe in hardware bling.

 Tags  aliens SETI

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1 Comments

pie said:

Passive listening maybe the best answer. No answering to signals from deep space. Instead, we should listen for a long time before considering answering a possible alien, and unfriendly signal.

There is a reason we have not received a signal from space. Something or someone may be killing off pre-advanced civilizations. Fermi question is as real as ever. If they existed billions of years before we were around, they would have been here by now. With all the billions of galaxies and no evident of dyson spheres from Hubble, something is wrong with our thinking on advanced civilizations, or something is wrong with our hopeful outlook on space civilizations.

Link | July 4, 2009 8:01 PM
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