I'm not worried about any extra-terrestrial idiot who comes in a contraption like this with no shoes.
Posted on 01/24/2010 4:40:53 PM PST by Mount Athos
Mr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich warned: "We might like to assume that if there is intelligent life out there it is wise and benevolent, but of course we have no evidence for this.
"Given the consequences of contact may not be what we initially hoped for, then we need governments and the UN to get involved in any discussions," he told The Sunday Times.
This week a two-day conference is being held at the Royal Society in London, titled, 'The detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science and society.'
There is also an astrobiology conference in Texas in April at which new methods of detecting aliens will be discussed.
Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, told the paper: "My personal view is that being more active is a worthy strategy. There is more serious talk of it, though not at the institute level."
Professor Simon Conway Morris, a Cambridge University evolutionary biologist, will be talking at the Royal Society on 'Predicting what extraterrestrial life will be like – and preparing for the worst."
He thought that, given that the principles of Darwinian evolution should be universal, it was "inevitable" that intelligent life would have developed elsewhere in the universe given the right environmental conditions.
"If that is correct – and it applied to manipulative skill – then that suggests there should be alien technologies," he said.
Some scientists are puzzled as to why no messages have been sent back even though humans have been transmitting radio and television signals for the last century.
Prof Conway Morris reasoned that if he were in their shoes "I'm not sure I'd answer the telephone."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It’s a cook book!
They don't. However the farther they go, the less energy per square inch of the wavefront they have. The wavefront is an expanding sphere (assuming an omni antenna.) The larger the sphere's radius gets (all the way to Alpha Centauri, for example) the larger its surface becomes. But the amount of energy you sent is the same; so less energy per unit of surface.
In the same vein, if the receiving antenna is a sphere that completely encloses the transmitter then it doesn't matter how far the wave travels, the antenna will capture *all* the transmitted power.
This holds true for optical frequencies too, that's why astronomers want larger telescopes - to capture more of the energy of the signal, given that the density of incoming energy is not under our control.
If your transmitting antenna is a beam antenna and not an omnidirectional radiator then the situation is exactly the same, just more power goes into a smaller cone of radiation. Since the cone doesn't know if you are radiating in other directions, the density of energy in the cone's wavefront follows the same laws as a sphere. You can find all the details here.
Also note that there is a popular belief that TV stations sent a lot of early TV shows into space. This is not exactly true. Antennas of TV stations are designed to radiate toward the customers (homes on the ground) and not into space. Some antennas have a very narrow beam and are designed to illuminate a very specific spot on the ground. You can see that very little is radiated toward 90 and 270 degrees in either plane. So most of the energy radiated by TV antennas goes into the ground, literally (it heats the soil) and only a tiny part of it is captured by receiving antennas.
Oh, yeah! The UN would be very helpful defending us against unfriendly aliens. NOT. Like they've pacified all those problems in Africa.
If we’re contacted by intelligent extraterrestrials, the LAST thing we need to do is pull out some United Nations contingency plan in response.
Just watched District 9... apart from the swearing it was a tremendous scify film. An amazing achievement given how little money they spent to make it. Engaging story.
If life on Earth is any indication, predators are at the top of the food chain and are generally more intelligent than their vegetarian colleagues.
Take me to your leader.
Right this way boys.
my bookie coulda told me that... 
Not if they are hostile in any way. We're sitting right smack in the bottom of a pretty large gravity well. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress illustrates that pretty well.
There are plenty of asteroids out there that would end all life on this planet if their orbit were to be given the right nudge.
Ah, come on, you’re just trying to scare me! Freaky Fridays do that already! Heh...
I've read this article, although no one claims to have written it, I'm shocked by this comment!
Of course no one has received our message yet, here is why:
Watch the video at Video.Nasa.Gov for a facinating and relatively accurate visual description of what our size is in the universe.
Time pressed? Watch it only from minutes 2:22 to 2:40 (18 seconds) and you'll see how far our transmissions have gone out in the very, very, short time we've been sending them: hardly anywhere.
The transmission had not even put a BLIP on our own galaxy.
Please people you must get a grip on space/time to begin to understand the truth.
"Royal Society" indeed!
Agreed, a very good and under-rated film (compared to hi-dollar/low-plotline movies like Avatar).
UFO PING LIST LEVEL “A”
PLEASE FORGIVE . . . may be an old copy. The only one I’m finding after a computer overhaul and the latest copy scrolling off my latest files used on Word.
IF ANYONE ON THIS LIST HAS ASKED TO BE OFF, PLEASE LET ME KNOW so I can clean up this copy.
Blessings,
Even "respected scientists are capable of profoundly dumb speculation. I have always had a problem with their circular reasoning and extremely limited imagination as evidenced by their thinking inside a very tiny box.
Imagine no other life forms on earth that humans are aware of. What sense does it make to imagine any other potential living creature would be exclusively mammalian, biped and terrestrial? It follows from this that speculation is limited to assuming "life bearing" planets must only exist in planets exactly like ours in terms of distance from their suns, etc. Taint necessarily so.
As for the radio signals not being "answered," give me a break. Radio signals powerful enough to contain meaningful information have only existed for barely a hundred years. For a round trip, not enough time has elapsed to receive a response from even a handful of the nearest stars, which represent an tiny, infinitessimal, almost insignificant percentage of the total stars in 0.001% of the visible universe.
I would not expect a response, if ever, for another millenium, at least.
He has a Polish name: Marek Kukuła...
This translates into English as "Mark Cuckoo".
Cuckoo as in the family of Cuculidae, of near passerine birds.
FWIW. (Don't believe me? Look it up! http://www.TranslatePolish.com ) There is a slash through the "l" which might skew the lookup, so try from English to Polish to see the Polish font result.
Neither do we when it comes to whoever is flying these contraptions.
According to the very military officers in charge of these nukes, the operators of these UFOs were very interested in our nuclear capabilities and have developed a means of disabling our nukes both on the ground and while in flight.
Crazy? Don't believe me?
Of course it sounds crazy. I wouldn't believe it either - except that there is now recorded testimony from DOZENS of top military brass that exactly this has happened. People such as the astronaut Gordon Cooper, and the entire brass that was in charge of our nuclear base in the UK at Bentwaters.
These are the very guys who have their fingers on the button. If they are hallucinating, we have a big problem! Not to mention the British Minister of Defence himself!
This is convincing testimonial that "something is up". Nick Pope was the Minister of Defense... the British equivalent to Colin Powell during the Bush Administration.
He is not some gullible housewife looking out the window while baking brownies and seeing some swamp gas.
The Fox News talking head is sort of giggling at him, as we have all been conditioned to ridicule anyone who claims that there is anything real about UFOs. Even Nick Pope is cowed by this as he is unwilling to come right out and say it, "THESE THINGS ARE REAL YOU NITWIT! I'm the Minister of Defense you twit Talking Head!"
The conditioning in our society is incredibly strong, but eventually, as these people get old and come out of retirement, they start talking. Highly credible people like Nick Pope; Astronauts like Gordon Cooper, Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell (6th man on the moon), Dr. Musgrave...
...not to mention Cosmonauts: Popovich, Manarov.
Don't forget the world's highest quality witnesses who all saw UFOs investigating a US nuclear missile site. More than 80 witnesses saw this at Rendlesham Forest. These things have been very interested in the ability to disable our nuclear weapons and have done so on numerous occasions.
We trust these guys with our nuclear arsenal and if they are prone to hallucinations, we are all in trouble. The British MOD has released documents which support these events.
Larry King has a show on this:
UFOs shut down missile sites
Watch the above videos and then come back and tell me that all of these decorated pilots, officers, astronauts, nuclear weapons officers and NATO Defense Ministers are crazy or hallucinating.
We have just made a quantum leap in our capabilities for interplanetary travel thereby reducing the time required to travel to mars from some 2 years to less than 40 days now (Plasma Rocket)... this we have done in about 100 years after man's first winged flight. Imagine what could be done in 1000 years or more.
Nikola Tesla said he picked up intelligent signals but nobody knows how he did it. All records have disappeared.
Perhaps Neutrino Communications is the way to go?
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