My tinfoil hat is still on from the previous post about the new planets found...
> My tinfoil hat is still on ...
Sounds like the SETI team is being very cautious.
Keep in mind that they had to break this story. Had
they not, someone else would have, with incomplete
info, and no effort to frame alternate explanations.
If ET is out there, and transmitting stuff we can grok,
expect numerous false alarms before paydirt.
The problem I have with the whole effort is what I'd
call the "technological window". The typical civilization
may transmit easily comprehensible signals for only a
century or two, a very brief period relative to the
life of that civ. We may be looking for one-shot
flashcubes.
Imagine Marconi intercepting a CDMA cell phone signal
in 1920 (heck, even a simple FM signal) on his primitive
AM gear. It would have been gibberish. Increasingly, the
stuff we send looks more and more like noise.
Now if ET is deliberately trying to reach us, that's
a different ballgame.