

Has E.T. Made A Call? (Possible Contact from Intelligent Civilization) - dpapathanasiou
http://www.ktvu.com/news/15054540/detail.html

======
Hexstream
I think it's ridiculous to think the aliens might be hostile to us...

Imagine a civilization 1000 times more advanced than us. Why would they want
to kill the equivalent of cavemen?! And there are so many planets out there, I
don't see why they'd want to enslave/destroy ours specifically.

It's not like they could possibly feel threatened by us. It reminds me of some
people who wanted to prepare for some kind of war against the aliens. In the
very unlikely one is declared, we obviously don't have a fighting chance of
any kind. It's civilization-who-can-barely-go-into-space VS civilization-with-
faster-than-lightspeed-ships.

But as I said, if they're smart enough to travel the stars then they're
certainly responsible enough not to destroy a comparatively irrelevant
civilization.

~~~
rms
>Why would they want to kill the equivalent of cavemen?!

Comparatively irrelevant FOR NOW. But that's discounting the exponential
progress of energy consumption. They aren't afraid of our nuclear weapons, but
why let us live to develop gamma ray bursts? If they study our psychology at
all, they would learn that our leaders wouldn't hesitate to gamma ray burst
any potential threats.

~~~
henning
We're all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~
curi
No, we're all going to die!11!1!!1111111111111

------
khill
They're just informing us that our planet is scheduled for demolition and that
the plans are available for review at the local office in Alpha Centauri.

~~~
angstrom
P.S. Don't forget your towel

------
eVizitei
After searching for correlating articles, I believe that this article jumped
the gun. It's cool to speculate on what would happen if we made contact with
an alien civilization, but it appears this is premature for the particular
signal they're talking about. See here:

<http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/09/64818>

------
dcurtis
Yeah, our very first message to an advanced civilization should be (from the
article):

"Any materials you'd like to give us to help... We're running out of oil," she
said.

~~~
kirubakaran
Too bad we won't hear the dial tone when they 'hang up on us'.

------
kurtosis
Does anyone have a link to more detailed information about the "signal" that
was detected? I'm very ignorant of SETI and radio astronomy - what does it
mean to "decode" such a signal? What is the evidence that this signal is
produced by a civilization, and does not come from a natural source?

~~~
rms
From a Google news search, this is the only only source. There's nothing here:
<http://www.seti.org/news/> so this story is worthless.

------
pg
Has anyone got a link to more solid information about this? How clear is it
that this is a signal?

~~~
dreish
[http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=44764&...](http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=44764&nowrap=true#700669)

has more than you'd ever want to read about it, but I'll attempt to summarize:
Inconclusive, but possibly something like a supernova or a neutron star
collision, probably extragalactic, and almost certainly _not_ engineered by
intelligent life.

------
ggrot
If this is credible, why is the article on ktvu.com and not cnn?

~~~
dpapathanasiou
I was suspicious of this story, too, for the same reason, and that's why I
added the "possible" qualifier to the title.

Still, it's fascinating to think of the possibilities if it's real.

------
jkush
I hate being hopeful when I hear this type of news. It's always a big let
down.

------
edw519
"Did you say it would take them 3 million years just to get here to destroy
us?"

"No, maam, I said 3 BILLION years."

"Oh, good. I feel much better now."

------
curi
The more advanced aliens are, the more we can make reliable predictions about
them. For example, they will have values and ways of thinking closer to what
we call "scientific" than "religious/mystical/superstitious/etc." If they did
not, they would not become advanced.

Wars are very expensive and destructive. It's hard to become advanced when you
keep destroying wealth. On Earth, as we've become more peaceful, we've also
become more wealthy, and more able to travel space. The same logic for why
this would be so on Earth, applies elsewhere.

~~~
tx
_Wars are very expensive and destructive. It's hard to become advanced when
you keep destroying wealth._

You have it backwards. Wars create wealth. That is, in part, why we keep
having them.

~~~
curi
Is this like breaking windows creates wealth, or what?

Physical goods are destroyed. Man hours are used up. How is that wealth
creation?

~~~
pchristensen
I think he means that the need for technological superiority in order to win
wars paves the way for future wealth creation. Just look at how many wonderful
new technologies started as DARPA projects.

More controversially, war deaths reduce the supply of labor, making it more
valuable for those who survive. The Black Plague had a similar effect.

~~~
curi
Breaking windows increases the need for new windows, thus paving the wave for
new window technology.

But you could have researched that anyway, without breaking the window first.
When you are forced to research something b/c of a broken window, or war, you
set aside what would have otherwise been a higher priority.

Being forced to do something is not a good way to discover the _best_
priority. Free choice, while imperfect, works better.

