SETI - have you found anything interesting yet?

[lorax]

I - being a hopeless believer in extraterrestrial life - support the SETI project and let them use my computer to process their data.

I haven't found ET yet though I've seen a few units that have looked interesting out the 377 completed so far.

And you?

[Nick_W]

Links to those units?

Nick

[lorax]

They've come and gone Nick_W and I don't know if/how to link to them. They send me a data unit that gets processed by their app running on my machine. It's all pretty much automatic.

[balam]

I might have found ET... 3 of the WUs I've processed ended up being top candidates! :)

(SETI@Home participant since Day 1 - May 17, 1999)

[TheWebographer]

Personally I do not think we want to contact ET's and let them know of our existence. Think about it... Chances are intelligent life out there will be thousands if not millions of years ahead of us in Technology (remember what just 100-years has accomplished here on earth). What makes you think they would visit the earth as our friends? Earth would more likely be a re-fueling and food supply stopover where human kind, mere insects compared to them, may be the main course.

Consider this: if mankind were to visit a planet whose inhabitants were behind us in technology - how would we treat them in the long run? Like we did the indians of north and south america? You bet.

[lorax]

>> Earth would more likely be a re-fueling and food supply stopover

You watched that TV mini-series "V" as a kid didn't you... ;)

[Nick_W]

>>V

We're a similar age it seems. That was EXCELLENT as a kid and not bad watching it again about a year ago ;)

Nick

[Sinner_G]

You watched that TV mini-series "V" as a kid didn't you

Could also have been 'Independance Day'...

[rjohara]

Personally I do not think we want to contact ET's and let them know of our existence. Think about it... Chances are intelligent life out there will be thousands if not millions of years ahead of us in Technology

Man, if they have a CSS3-compatible browser I'm all for making contact. Bring 'em on.

(I've been running SETI on several machines for a few years. I've never really checked to see if anything interesting has turned up. I guess I assumed the phone call from the evening news people would be the tip off.) ;-)

[mivox]

Chances are intelligent life out there will be thousands if not millions of years ahead of us in Technology

Why? Seems like they could have found US by now if they were that smart... (Then again, maybe they did find us, and wisely decided to let us alone until we stopped acting like a load of squalling toddlers in a playpen... heheheh)

<added>
Just think of when you see a small child riding a bike with training wheels in little circles somewhere... "Oh look at those cute little earthlings! They still think it's fun to fly in circles around their own planet! LOL"
</added>

[Nick_W]

>squalling toddlers

Yeah, they left the US and headed to England. Unfortunately they just found a bunch of teenagers obsessing over their own bodily noises ;)

Last I heard, they were hanging out with the cows and making pretty pictures for them in the fields. heh!

Nick

[lorax]

>> Man, if they have a CSS3-compatible browser I'm all for making contact.

ROFLMAO! Send this to the M$, NS, Opera, et al immediately!

[TheDoctor]

I did read of a website that was aimed at aliens, on the grounds that, having advanced technology, they were probably connected to the internet. Has anyone seen this / got the address?

Of course, if they're that advanced technologically, aliens won't need browsers. They'll connect up by telepathy. And they could, of course, hide their existence by hacking in to the SETI computers and deliberately corrupting the data.

[bill]

I've processed 1403 since 1999, and I don't think anything significant has shown up. balam how'd you know that your units had top candidates?

[balam]

Personally I do not think we want to contact ET's and let them know of our existence. Think about it...

I am thinking about it, and I'm thinking that every star system around 50 light years away from Earth is just now being introduced to the likes of Alan Freed & Elvis Presley, star systems around 70LY are just starting to pick up Hitler's Nazi television broadcasts and systems 100LY out could be picking up Marconi's first trans-Atlantic beeps... Think about Alpha Centuri, 4LY away, now being bombarded with Britney Spears' videos! :)

>> Earth would more likely be a re-fueling and food supply stopover
You watched that TV mini-series "V" as a kid didn't you... ;)

Damn... Am I dating myself by pointing out the first thing I thought of was "The Twilight Zone"? You know, "To Serve Man"? Ah, forget it...

bill, how do I know?

On the SETI@home homepage, under the "Science" heading on the left-hand side, follow the "Signal candidates (new)" link. Follow the first link on the "Signal candidates" page - "List of SETI@home participants who helped....." - to an alphabetical list of everyone who completed a WU that has turned out to be a top candidate. Like anywhere, your username is unique, so if you're on the list - congratulations!

If you're not on the list, don't worry - I won't forget about the little people who helped me along the way when I'm chillin' with Jodi Foster on the set of "Contact 2."

Mmmmm.... Jodi Foster. :) I tell ya, there's something about her that can drive a man crazy... ;)

Uh, ok... What? Where were we?

Oh ya... The SETI@home folks didn't send out an email to folks that IDed top candidates, so you have to check the list.

[bill]

...like my nick here, I was not too unique over there either ;) Either I found a whole bunch, or none at all :)

[MonkeeSage]

To make things a bit philosophical here...

Is it possible for SETI, using the methods it employs, to either verify or falsify it's premise (that there is intelligent ET life)? That is to say, how is SETI justified in even starting the "search," from a scientific standpoint?

If the search is justified by the modality (i.e., it is justified because it is possible that there is intelligent ET life), then the search, by way of conclusion, must purport to either affirm or deny this modality.

But if SETI's methods cannot ever affirm of deny the modality, then we are back to the question of why even search at all?

So the question becomes; is this "search" actually doing science?

Some brain foods for the peanut gallary...

Jordan

[olwen]

Some pilots who worked for my employer a few years back swore they saw some UFO's. Its quite a famous case. They (the pilots) were flying an Argosy over Kaikoura if you want to search it.

[le_gber]

Damn... Am I dating myself by pointing out the first thing I thought of was "The Twilight Zone"? You know, "To Serve Man"? Ah, forget it...

I must say that I thought of that one first as well. One particular episode where 2 human space explorer guys land on a planet/moon to discover very small inhabitants and one of the explorer gets crazy and want to stay when the small people see him as a god and erect a gigantic (compare to them size) statue of him. and they decide to kill him when he completely lost it and kill a couple of them.

Althougt I also watched 'V' and very much enjoyed it.

Leo