National Science Foundation

What Should We Do if Extraterrestrials Show Up?

May 2, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Avi Loeb April 15, 2021 (scientificamerican.com)

• Earth has been broadcasting radio waves into space for over a century, announcing our presence to any other technological civilizations within a hundred light-years that might monitor their sky with radio telescopes similar to ours. Our saving grace might be that these extraterrestrials may use chemical rockets, similar to our own, which would take them a million years to traverse that hundred light years to our doorstep.

• If extraterrestrials did arrive at our doorstep, how should we respond? There is no United Nations international protocol outlining what to do. Is it premature to contemplate a global policy long before it is required? How much advance warning will we have? Any alien spacecraft would at least reflect sunlight which we could detect from earth-based telescopes such as the Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii.

• The first interstellar visitor discovered by Pan-STARRS observatory was on October 19, 2017. It was named ‘Oumuamua’ or “scout” in the Hawaiian language. The object showed many anomalous properties that made it different from any natural comet or asteroid that we had witnessed before in the solar system, allowing for the possibility that it could be a product of alien technology, as the article’s author, Avi Loeb (pictured above), discusses in his new book, Extraterrestrial. The likelihood that the object was a probe intended to spy on us is small because Oumuamua more than 10,000 years to traverse the solar system to get here. We have only been transmitting radio signals for over a hundred years.

• Even if ‘Oumuamua’ is an artificial craft, it is ancient and likely too old to be functional. But we can learn a great deal from inspecting and photographing such relics, whether tumbling through our galaxy or resting on the surface of the Moon or Mars where such unusual objects may have collected over billions of years. The lack of an atmosphere or geological activity would make the moon’s surface, in particular, like a museum of extraterrestrial equipment.

• We should keep our eyes open and searching through our telescopes for unusual objects, taking precaution about a vessel possibly masquerading as a Trojan Horse. There might be many small, fast-moving objects traveling through the solar system or other anomalies that we fail to recognize given the limited sensitivity of our telescopes. We could search for them in data streams generated by the Large Survey of Space and Time (LSST) on the Vera C. Rubin observatory.

• Gravitational waves were discovered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) only after the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested $1.1 billion into it. Similarly, we should expect to find extraordinary evidence for ETs only after we invest major funds in a search. Taxpayer funding would be appropriate given the major impact that such discoveries would have on society—far exceeding the implication of discovering gravitational waves.

• Putting our hands on a piece of alien technology would change the way we perceive our place in the universe, our aspirations for space and our philosophical and theological beliefs. Or we could choose to stay ignorant about our neighbors until they show up. The possible existence of ETs will not go away if we ignore them, just like the Earth continued to move around the sun after religious authorities refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. The dinosaurs dominated the planet until the giant Chicxulub rock showed up in the sky 66 million years ago. We need to be watchful for the next ‘earth shattering’ encounter.

**Avi Loeb peering through a telescope**

When you’re in an unexplored wilderness, you’d better be quiet, because you never

know whether there might be dangerous predators lurking.

Unfortunately, Earth has not been following this cautionary principle so far: we’ve been broadcasting radio waves into space for more than a century. If there are technological civilizations within a hundred light-years that monitor their sky with radio telescopes similar to ours, then they may already know about our existence. We could hear from them in the future. Our saving grace might be that chemical rockets, similar to those used in the Voyager or New Horizons missions, would take a million

years to traverse that hundred light years. And so, we might be out for prolonged suspense before encountering our cosmic neighbors.
If extraterrestrials eventually arrive at our doorstep, the question is: how should we respond? Clearly, interstellar affairs are not an imminent policy concern for any nation at this moment, so there is no international protocol issued by the United

Nations for what to do. We should keep in mind that within a million years, humans might reside on the moon, Mars or free-floating space platforms, and each community might choose to respond differently. It is premature to contemplate a global policy long before it is required.

How much advance warning will we have? That depends on the size of the vehicle used by the ETs. Even without generating artificial light, any alien spacecraft would reflect sunlight. The Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii can detect reflected sunlight from objects bigger than a few hundred feet, the scale of a football field, that pass within the orbit of the Earth around the sun.The first interstellar visitor of such size was discovered by this telescope on October 19, 2017, and named ‘Oumuamua—“scout” in the Hawaiian language. The object showed many anomalous properties that made it different from any natural comet or asteroid that we had witnessed before in the solar system, allowing for the possibility that it is a product of alien technology, as discussed in my new book, Extraterrestrial.

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Telescope Used to Look for Alien Life Has Completely Collapsed

December 14, 2020
ExoNews Editor

December 1, 2020 (fox2now.com)

• Last month, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico would be permanently closed. An auxiliary cable snapped in August causing a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide dish (pictured above), damaging the receiver platform that hung above it. Then a main cable broke in mid-November.

• The huge radio telescope that played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century (and was used by SETI – the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ as seen in the 1997 movie “Contact”) completely collapsed on December 1st. The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform fell onto the reflector dish more than 400 feet below. (see 1:38 minute video below) It had endured hurricanes, tropical humidity and a recent string of earthquakes in its 57 years of operation.

• “It sounded like a rumble. I knew exactly what it was,” said Jonathan Friedman, who worked for 26 years as a senior research associate at the observatory. “I was screaming. Personally, I was out of control…. I don’t have words to express it. It’s a very deep, terrible feeling.” When Friedman reached the dish, a cloud of dust hung in the air where the structure once stood, dashing hopes held by some scientists that the telescope could somehow be repaired.

• Scientists worldwide had petitioned US officials to reverse the NSF’s decision to close the observatory. The NSF said at the time that it intended to eventually reopen the visitor center and restore operations at the observatory’s remaining assets, including its two LIDAR facilities used for upper atmospheric and ionospheric research, analyzing cloud cover and precipitation data.

• “I am one of those students who visited it when young and got inspired,” said Abel Méndez, a physics and astrobiology professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. “The world without the observatory loses, but Puerto Rico loses even more.” Méndez last used the telescope on August 6th, just days before a socket holding the auxiliary cable snapped in what experts believe could be a manufacturing error.

• About 250 scientists worldwide had been using the observatory when it closed in August, including Méndez, who was studying stars to detect habitable planets. The NSF, which owns the observatory (managed by the University of Central Florida), said crews who evaluated the structure after the first incident determined that the remaining cables could handle the additional weight. But on November 6th, another cable broke.

MYSTERY WIRE (SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico) — A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century completely collapsed on Tuesday.

The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform fell onto the reflector dish more than 400 feet below.

The U.S. National Science Foundation had earlier announced that the Arecibo Observatory would be closed.

An auxiliary cable snapped in August, causing a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung above it. Then a main cable broke in early November.

The collapse stunned many scientists who had relied on what was until recently the largest radio telescope in the world.

“It sounded like a rumble. I knew exactly what it was,” said Jonathan Friedman, who worked for 26 years as a senior research associate at the observatory and still lives near it. “I was screaming. Personally, I was out of control…. I don’t have words to express it. It’s a very deep, terrible feeling.”

Friedman ran up a small hill near his home and confirmed his suspicions: A cloud of dust hung in the air where the structure once stood, demolishing hopes held by some scientists that the telescope could somehow be repaired.

“It’s a huge loss,” said Carmen Pantoja, an astronomer and professor at the University of Puerto Rico who used the telescope for her doctorate. “It was a chapter of my life.”

1:38 minute video of the Aricibo collapse on December 1st (‘ABC News’ YouTube)

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Famed Puerto Rico Telescope to Close

November 30, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by the Associated Press November 20, 2020 (nypost.com)

• On November 19th, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it will close the renowned Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (pictured above), in a blow to astronomers worldwide who depend on it to search for planets, asteroids and extraterrestrial life. The independent, federally funded agency said it’s too dangerous to keep operating the single dish radio telescope after the significant damage it sustained in August when an auxiliary cable broke and tore a 100-foot hole in the reflector dish and damaged the dome above it. Then on November 6th, one of the telescope’s main steel cables snapped, leading officials to warn that the entire structure could collapse.

• Ralph Gaume, director of NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences, said, “The telescope is currently at serious risk of unexpected, uncontrolled collapse. Even attempts at stabilization or testing the cables could result in accelerating the catastrophic failure.” “This decision is not an easy one for NSF to make, but the safety of people is our number one priority,” said Sean Jones, the agency’s assistant director for the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. “We understand how much Arecibo means to this community and to Puerto Rico.” “[But] we have found no path forward to allow us to do so safely.”

• The 1,000-foot-wide Arecibo Observatory telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses. It has endured hurricanes, humidity, and a string of strong earthquakes. The world’s largest radio telescope (until the Chinas’ FAST telescope went operational in 2016), it was featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye.” In recent years, the NSF-owned facility has been managed by the University of Central Florida.

• Officials suspect a manufacturing error is to blame for the auxiliary cable that snapped after a socket failed. But they were surprised when a main cable broke about three months later given that it was supporting only about 60 percent of its capacity. “It was identified as an issue that needed to be addressed, but it wasn’t seen as an immediate threat,” said Ashley Zauderer, program officer for Arecibo Observatory at NSF.

• Scientists worldwide have used the telescope to track asteroids on a path to Earth, and to conduct research into habitable planets that led to a Nobel Prize. Pennsylvania State University astronomer and professor Alex Wolszczan, who worked at the observatory in the ’80s and early ’90s, called this a “sadly emotional moment”.

• More than 250 scientists have used the telescope, but it is also considered one of Puerto Rico’s main tourist attractions, drawing some 90,000 visitors a year. The observatory has long served as a training ground for hundreds of graduate students. Universities Space Research Association scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas, Edgard Rivera-Valentín described the Arecibo telescope as “beyond an icon.” Professor Wolszczan noted that many scientists are still working on projects based on observations and data taken from the observatory. “The process of saying goodbye to Arecibo will certainly take some years.”

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will close the huge telescope at the renowned Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in a blow to scientists worldwide who depend on it to search for planets, asteroids and extraterrestrial life.

The independent, federally funded agency said it’s too dangerous to keep operating the single dish radio telescope — one of the world’s largest — given the significant damage it recently sustained. An auxiliary cable broke in August and tore a 100-foot hole in the reflector dish and damaged the dome above it. Then on Nov. 6, one of the telescope’s main steel cables snapped, leading officials to warn that the entire structure could collapse.
NSF officials noted that even if crews were to repair all the damage, engineers found that

the structure would still be unstable in the long term.

“This decision is not an easy one for NSF to make, but the safety of people is our number one priority,” said Sean Jones, the agency’s assistant director for the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. “We understand how much Arecibo means to this community and to Puerto Rico.”

He said the goal was to preserve the telescope without placing people at risk, but, “we have found no path forward to allow us to do so safely.”

The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses. In its 57 years of operation, it endured hurricanes, endless humidity and a recent string of strong earthquakes.

The telescope boasts a 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye.” Scientists worldwide have used the dish along with the 900-ton platform hanging 450 feet above it to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable.

In recent years, the NSF-owned facility has been managed by the University of Central Florida.

Alex Wolszczan, a Polish-born astronomer and professor at Pennsylvania State University who helped discover the first extrasolar and pulsar planets, told The Associated Press that while the news wasn’t surprising, it was disappointing. He worked at the telescope in the 1980s and early 1990s.

“I was hoping against hope that they would come up with some kind of solution to keep it open,” he said. “For a person who has had a lot of his scientific life associated with that telescope, this is a rather interesting and sadly emotional moment.”

1:38 minute video of the Arecibo Telescope collapse (‘ABC News’ YouTube)

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Yes, I’m Searching for Aliens – And No, I Won’t Be Going to Area 51 to Look For Them

July 31, 2019
ExoNews Editor

Listen to “E47 7-31-19 Yes, I’m Searching for Aliens – And No, I Won’t Be Going to Area 51 to Look For Them” on Spreaker.

Article by Bryan Keogh July 19, 2019 (theconversation.com)

Astronomy professor Jason Wright is a participating scientist with SETI, the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’, and the 2018 winner of the Frank Drake Award that SETI bestows on its researchers who are “dedicated to understanding humanity’s place in the universe”. “Believe me, no one wants to find evidence of extraterrestrial life more than those of us in this field,” says Professor Wright. “We scour the skies for evidence of such extraterrestrial technologies with some of the most advanced equipment in the world for understanding what’s going on in the sky, and we haven’t found anything compelling yet.”
With regard to the recent interest in “Storming Area 51” to emancipate aliens, Wright says, “I don’t know very much about Area 51, but I can say that the intense interest in the goings on there related to aliens reveals a deep public interest in what kinds of life might exist elsewhere in the universe.” Wright finds the most fascinating thing about Area 51 is Project Mogul, where the government floated balloons to detect Soviet nuclear testing in the 1940’s. Says Wright, “When one of those balloons… landed in a farm in Roswell, New Mexico it helped fuel the whole alien craze we’re still living with today.”
SETI’s space telescopes are designed to detect “biosignatures” with signs of microfossils or metabolism in the atmospheres of distant planets. But SETI is a privately funded operation. NASA and the National Science Foundation spend next to nothing looking for intelligent life in the universe, including technological life.
Says Professor Wright, “I see this (Frank Drake) award as validation of my work to help elevate the field of SETI as an academic discipline, and to persuade Congress, NASA and the public that it is worthy of public investment. It is, after all, the scientific approach to answering one of the most profound questions ever asked: Is Earth life unique? Or are there other beings like us out there in the universe?”
[Editor’s Note] Frank Drake was a founding member of SETI and developer of the “Drake Equation” in 1961, which uses a list of subjective variables to determine that the number of planets similar to the Earth that could possibly host an extraterrestrial civilization advanced enough to use radio-wave communication is astonishingly small. This is the basis for SETI’s nearly 60-years of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

As the most recent recipient of the Drake Award, Professor Wright is shilling for the re-establishment of SETI funding from the government which ended in 1993, even though SETI’s research has existed since the early 1960’s and they have found exactly nothing through this process. It seems that the purpose of SETI is to appear to the public to be scientifically searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, while actually finding nothing that might upset the Deep State’s cover-up of a long-standing extraterrestrial presence in our solar system. Wright pretends to know nothing about Area 51 or the Roswell crash, recognizing only Project Mogul which the Deep State used to cover-up the Roswell crash. This, apparently, is the primary criteria for being awarded the Frank Drake Award.

This is further evidence that SETI is nothing more than a Deep State disinformation program to give the public the impression that serious scientists are doing serious work to locate extraterrestrial life, but there simply isn’t any in this universe to find besides humans on planet Earth. The “scientists” at SETI believe that they should be paid handsomely by the US government for doing the Deep State’s bidding.

What started as an internet joke has generated a stern military warning after more than a million people “signed up” to “raid” Area 51 – a secretive military installation in Southern Nevada long fancied by conspiracy theorists to be hiding evidence of a crashed UFO with aliens. The purpose of the planned raid is in order to “see them aliens.” In the following Q&A, astronomy professor Jason Wright discusses the public’s interest in answering the age-old question: Are we alone?

Since you have a longstanding scholarly interest in extraterrestrial life – and even wrote about the possibility of advanced civilizations in the distant past on Mars or Venus – I presume you’ve canceled your classes for Sept. 20 and signed up to go to the “raid” on Area 51?

To be honest, I was completely unaware of this “raid” until you brought it to my attention! I work in SETI, the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and believe me, no one wants to find evidence of extraterrestrial life more than those of us in this field. We scour the skies for evidence of such extraterrestrial technologies with some of the most advanced equipment in the world for understanding what’s going on in the sky, and we haven’t found anything compelling yet. But we’re not paying much attention to what happens in Area 51.

Do you think the public knows enough about Area 51? Or is the widespread interest in this raid a good barometric read on how frustrated people are that the government appears to be hiding something there?

I don’t know very much about Area 51, but I can say that the intense interest in the goings on there related to aliens reveals a deep public interest in what kinds of life might exist elsewhere in the universe.

Have you yourself ever tried to do any real research into the happenings in Area 51?

Not Area 51, exactly. The closest I’ve come was a talk I heard by a physicist describing the fascinating science carried out by the military back in the late 1940s, especially Project Mogul, which launched microphones on balloons to see if they could detect nuclear testing going on in the Soviet Union. It’s an amazing story of physics and engineering ingenuity. When one of those balloons with its disc microphones and radar reflectors landed in a farm in Roswell, New Mexico it helped fuel the whole alien craze we’re still living with today. It’s a shame, because the science-fiction-inspired “aliens” conspiracy theory is – from my standpoint – so much less fascinating than the story of the research that was going on then.

There was a time when the federal government provided researchers with money to search for – and teach about the search for – extraterrestrial life. And you’ve lamented that that is no longer the case. If you had your way, how much money do you think the federal government should give America’s researchers to search for aliens or evidence of aliens?

The search for life in the universe is a major priority for NASA and American science. Many of our missions to Mars and our space telescopes are designed with the detection of biosignatures in mind – “biosignatures” being signs of life like microfossils or evidence of metabolism in the atmospheres of distant planets. But despite the billions of dollars spent on these missions, I think many members of the public would be surprised to learn that NASA and the National Science Foundation spend next to nothing looking for intelligent life in the universe, including technological life that might, after all, be easier to find. I think the level of funding for the field should be determined the way the rest of science is, by competitive peer review of proposals for research. So, I don’t know what the “right” level is, but I know it’s not zero.

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Tag: National Science Foundation

What Should We Do if Extraterrestrials Show Up?

Telescope Used to Look for Alien Life Has Completely Collapsed

Famed Puerto Rico Telescope to Close

Yes, I’m Searching for Aliens – And No, I Won’t Be Going to Area 51 to Look For Them