Tag: Breakthrough Listen project

To Find Intelligent Alien Life, Humans Need to Start Thinking Like an Extraterrestrial

 

Article by Adam Mann                            January 22, 2020                               (livescience.com)

• Claire Webb is an anthropology student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 2017, Webb has worked with Breakthrough Listen to examine how SETI researchers think about aliens and place anthropocentric assumptions into their work. On January 8th at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Webb pointed out the potential flaw in SETI’s $100 million Breakthrough Listen Project, which scours the cosmos for intelligent alien signals, being that scientists tend to bring with them their human biases. Webb’s job is to get SETI researchers to be mindful of their human behavior in order imagine new ways to perform scientific studies.

• At the conference, Webb pointed out how Breakthrough Listen scientists use artificial intelligence (or ‘AI’) to sift through large data sets to uncover potential ‘technosignatures’ to indicate technology or tools use by alien beings. Researchers that employ AI “tend to disavow human handicraft in the machines they build,” said Webb. “I find that somewhat problematic.” AI is trained by human beings. In doing so, they predispose their algorithms to certain biases.”

• Most SETI research assumes that beings on different worlds will be able to communicate in the same way that we do, says Webb. It presumes a technological compatibility in using radio telescopes and understanding the universal language of science and math. “(But) if E.T. was looking at us, what would they see?” Webb asks.

• Biases also come from assuming that other species’ technological development would mirror our own, such as dealing with nuclear weapon proliferation and climate change. We can’t automatically assume that the history of another species will unfold in the same way, says Webb.

• Veteran SETI scientist Jill Tarter suggested that we may be looking for a better version of ourselves, hoping that a message from advanced beings will include blueprints for a free energy device that can alleviate poverty. This assumes that an advanced species will have an equal moral advancement. Says Tarter, “I think that’s something that can be contested.”

• “One thing Jill [Tarter] has said many times is, ‘We are doing what we think makes sense now, but we might one day be doing something totally different… We reserve the right to get smarter.'”

 

HONOLULU — Our hunt for aliens has a potentially fatal flaw — we’re the ones searching for them.

         Claire Webb

That’s a problem because we’re a unique species, and alien-seeking scientists are an even stranger and more specialized bunch. As a result, their all-too human assumptions may get in the way of their alien-listening endeavors. To get around this, the Breakthrough Listen project, a $100-million initiative scouring the cosmos for signals of otherworldly beings as part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), is asking anthropologists to help unmask some of these biases.

“It’s kind of a joke at Breakthrough Listen,” Claire Webb, an anthropology and history of science student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said here on Jan. 8 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu. “They tell me: ‘We’re studying aliens, and you’re studying us.'”

              Jill Tarter

Since 2017, Webb has worked with Breakthrough Listen to examine how SETI researchers think about aliens, produce knowledge, and perhaps inadvertently place anthropocentric assumptions into their work.

She sometimes describes her efforts as “making the familiar strange.”

For instance, your life might seem perfectly ordinary — maybe involving being hunched over at a desk and shuttling electrons around between computers — until examined through an anthropological lens, which points out that this is not exactly a universal state of affairs. At the conference, Webb presented a poster looking at how Breakthrough Listen scientists use artificial intelligence (AI) to sift through large data sets and try to uncover potential technosignatures, or indicators of technology or tool use by alien organisms.

“Researchers who use AI tend to disavow human handicraft in the machines they build,” Webb told Live Science. “They attribute a lot of agency to those machines. I find that somewhat problematic and at the worst untrue.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

What Would We Say to Extraterrestrials?

Listen to “E70 8-19-19 What Would We Say to Extraterrestrials?” on Spreaker.

Article by Gwynne Dyer                    August 6, 2019                     (winnipegfreepress.com)

• In July, London’s Royal Society and the U.K. SETI Research Network launched a survey on the subject of public attitudes toward alien contact. Martin Dominik, an astronomer at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland joined the discussion by advocating a legally binding framework in international law for responding to a signal received from an alien civilization. It would be prudent to make these policy determinations now, rather than sometime in the future in the midst of the inevitable media circus that would erupt with proof of other intelligent life in the universe.

• In 2015, SETI launched its ‘Breakthrough Listen’ project, funded by Russian-Israeli tech billionaire Yuri Milner. The project buys thousands of hours of time on the world’s most powerful radio telescopes over a ten year period to search over a million stars for artificial radio or laser signals. Merely listening for alien signals is known as “passive SETI”. The debate arises when SETI officials contemplate replying to an alien signal. So far, SETI has not found any alien signals.

• So why haven’t we found any alien signals coming from extraterrestrial planets? One reason is that SETI’s eavesdropping range can only go so far into the galaxy. Another possible reason is that other civilizations are maintaining radio silence because there is something big and bad and dangerous lurking out there in the dark, and they do not want to attract its attention. This theory is known as the “Dark Forest Problem”.

• Chinese science-fiction writer Liu Cixin is the author of the popular Three-Body Problem trilogy, which traces the calamitous consequences over 400 years of an alien-contact scenario, initiated by well-meaning human beings, that goes desperately wrong. Some astronomers look to this as a cautionary tale.

• In 2015, the American Association for the Advancement of Science debated whether it was wise for SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) to actively send out signals to other planets. Should we advertise our existence, or is that just asking for trouble? After all, if 1950’s sci fi movies are any indication, they may be bug-eyed monsters intent on abducting half-naked Earth maidens. The scientists supported a declaration that a “worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion must occur before any message is sent.”

• Should we be worried about marauding aliens coming to Earth? The current mainstream scientific consensus is that interstellar travel is virtually impossible because it would take too long to travel such distances to make it worthwhile. But we still have much to learn. We may be unaware of a type of physics and technology that would overcome the long distance obstacle. Therefore, distance alone might not be enough to protect us from any ill-intentioned bug-eyed monsters with a sufficiently high level of technology.

• Yuri Milner and SETI are working on another program called “Breakthrough Message” to craft a message that we could send in response to an alien signal. The program heads had pledged “not to transmit any message until there has been a global debate at high levels of science and politics on the risks and rewards of contacting advanced civilizations.”

• [Editor’s Note]   Once again, the Deep State asset known as SETI is furthering its mission to keep pumping out disinformation. They want the public to think that SETI’s unsuccessful search for alien civilizations means that there are no extraterrestrials in our cosmic vicinity, which is a lie. The universe, our galaxy, and our particular cluster of star systems is teeming with intelligent extraterrestrial life.  They are not only in communication with us but actively influencing our global reality, and not in a good way. The Deep State also wants the public to fear these extraterrestrials, so that when the ET presence is revealed, the public will turn to these compromised institutions to save us. But most of all, they want the public to be complacent in believing that the scientific community is on top of this, assuring us that if they do come across an alien signal, we will be the first to know. Don’t count on it.

 

“There is absolutely no procedure enshrined in international law to respond to a signal from an alien civilization,” said Martin Dominik, an astronomer at the University of St. Andrews. “It makes sense to create a legally binding framework that is properly rooted in international law.”

Well, yes, it would make sense. But if the Bug-Eyed Monsters do send a message, would we really want to reply at all?

Bug-eyed monsters, generally portrayed carrying off half-naked Earth maidens with evil intent, were a standard feature of pulp science fiction in the 1950s. We are all more sophisticated now, of course, but fear of alien contact is not necessarily irrational.

The specific reason for Dominik’s remarks is a survey of public attitudes toward alien contact that was launched last month by London’s Royal Society and the U.K. SETI Research Network, but in broader terms it is a response to two important developments in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that occurred in 2015.

One was a debate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention in 2015 about whether “active SETI” was a good idea. Should we advertise our existence and publish our address to the cosmos, or is that just asking for trouble? Many of the scientists present backed a declaration that a “worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion must occur before any message is sent.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

If Aliens Are Flashing Laser Beams at Us, We Now Have a Way to Detect Them

Listen to “E66 8-13-19 If Aliens Are Flashing Laser Beams” on Spreaker.

Article by Tim Childers                        August 2, 2019                      (livescience.com)

• The $100 million 10-year project funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, called the  “Breakthrough Listen” project, is the most extensive SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program in history. The project, which began in 2015, has surveyed over 1,000 stars within 160 light-years away from Earth for signs of alien radio signals, with no positive results.

• ‘Breakthrough Listen’ announced that its team will begin looking for new signs of alien technology using the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), consisting of four 12-meter optical telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, Arizona. Using VERITAS, astronomers will begin scanning the night sky for nanosecond flashes of light, known as “fast optical pulses”, from nearby stars indicating a new class of alien communication. Said Andrew Siemion, director of Berkeley’s SETI Research Center, “Optical communication has already been used by NASA to transmit high-definition images to Earth from the moon, so there’s a reason to believe that an advanced civilization might use a scaled-up version of this technology for interstellar communication.”

• VERITAS searched for such laser pulses from the mysteriously dimming Tabby’s Star after some speculated there could be an alien megastructure surrounding it. If Tabby’s Star pointed powerful lasers at the Earth, VERITAS could detect them. Less powerful lasers could be detected from closer star systems. David Williams, a member of the VERITAS and professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said, “It is impressive how well-suited the VERITAS telescopes are for this project, since they were built only with the purpose of studying very-high-energy gamma rays…”.

• At the VERITAS initiative’s launch, physicist Stephen Hawking said, “[I]n an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life… [P]erhaps intelligent life might be watching these lights of ours… Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos, unseen beacons announcing that, here on one rock, the universe discovered its existence?”

• SETI’s Russian benefactor, Yuri Milner says, “[O]ur philosophy is to look in as many places, and in as many ways, as we can. VERITAS expands our range of observation even further.”

• [Editor’s Note]    SETI is now using a $100 million telescope array to search for lights and lasers emanating from extraterrestrial sources in the cosmos. So much money is being wasted on this Deep State disinformation program which is only meant to make the public believe that if there were any extraterrestrial beings and civilizations to be found, such equipment could not miss them, when in reality the extraterrestrial presence is all around us. Of course the Breakthrough Listen project will fail because the Deep State’s true agenda is to deny the existence of extraterrestrials. Or will it be used by the Deep State to claim success and control the narrative through a new disinformation campaign when the exposure of the extraterrestrial presence becomes imminent?

 

Are aliens using super powerful flashlights to get our attention? Astronomers think there’s a chance they are.
Since the invention of the radio, humans have been silently listening to the stars, wondering if we are alone in the universe. But if intelligent alien life does exist, the extraterrestrials could be using other forms of technology to communicate. Astronomers are beginning to not only listen to the cosmos but also gaze toward it for other signs of alien tech: laser beams.

              Andrew Siemion
                       Yuri Milner

Breakthrough Listen, the most extensive Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program in history, announced that its team will begin looking for new signs of alien technology using the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, Arizona.

“When it comes to intelligent life beyond Earth, we don’t know where it exists or how it communicates,” Yuri Milner, billionaire particle physicist and founder of Breakthrough Listen, said in a statement. “So our philosophy is to look in as many places, and in as many ways, as we can. VERITAS expands our range of observation even further.”

Using VERITAS, astronomers will begin scanning the night sky for nanosecond flashes of light from nearby stars. Like a lighthouse beacon for the cosmos, these brief pulses of optical light would outshine any nearby stars and could indicate a method of alien communication.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Most Extensive Search Through Space Confirms We Are Alone

by Jessica Dunne                    June 19, 2019                       (10daily.com.au)

• The most comprehensive search for alien life to date has found we’re alone in the universe. For three years, the Breakthrough Listen project has searched 1,327 stars within an area covering 160 light years of Earth for signs of intelligent life. But the University of Berkeley researchers compare it to “searching for a needle in a haystack.” They came up with nothing.

• The Berkeley researchers used the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia and Australia’s Parkes telescope to find ‘technosignatures’ (i.e.: evidence of technologies) from other planets, while sifting through the plethora or signals coming from human technology on Earth.

• Tens of millions of signals were discarded through filtering techniques, and the team was then left with a handful of potential signatures that fit the bill. Researchers said that, “The few remaining technosignature candidates were carefully examined, and determined to be outlying examples of human-generated radio frequency interference that survived the two cuts.”

• But the team isn’t giving up hope of finding life out in the universe, says Breakthrough Listen Project scientist Dr. Danny Price. “We found no evidence of artificial signals from beyond Earth, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t intelligent life out there. We may just not have looked in the right place yet, or peered deep enough to detect faint signals.”

• [Editor’s Note]   Once again, this “scientific” program plays right into the Deep State agenda of letting the public think that science is doing everything it can to find evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Does the fact that they’ve had no success prove that we humans are all alone in the universe? Or does it show that highly advanced extraterrestrials won’t be found so long as they don’t want to be found, and so long as the Deep State maintains its official government cover-up of a widespread extraterrestrial presence on and around our planet.

 

The most comprehensive search for alien life to date has found we’re alone in the universe, but scientists aren’t giving up hope.

Over a three-year period, the Breakthrough Listen project searched an area covering 1,327 stars within 160 light years of Earth for signs of intelligent life.

The University of Berkeley was behind the search for extraterrestrials, using the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia and Australia’s own Parkes telescope.

They said it was like “searching for a needle in a haystack”.

Researchers had to sift through the vast majority of signals coming from human technology to identify ‘technosignatures’.

“[Technosignatures are] evidence of technology (such as transmitters or propulsion devices) built by civilisations beyond Earth,” researchers said.

The first technique used looked for ‘narrow’ signatures that were too well-defined to come from natural sources.

A filter then removed signals that came from fixed points in the sky.

Researchers then compared scans of the area surrounding the star being targeted and removed signals not coming from that direction.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Copyright © 2019 Exopolitics Institute News Service. All Rights Reserved.