UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Akhenaten]

Dr Maccabee merely implies that a 100W (or so) navigation light could easily be seen up to the regulated 1-3 miles.

A 100 Watt navigation light???eleven???


Rroger, go out and check the wattage of your cars headlights.

Report back with your findings.

 

[Akhenaten]

Your deliberate misrepresentation is becoming tiresome Correa Neto.

Nup.

 

[Stray Cat]

So the radar says it is X size in Y direction at Z distance. I look in Y direction and see a light. There are no other lights to be seen. Over a period of many minutes the radar continuously tracks this object as it changes direction and distance, all the while I note that the light can be seen ALL the time, without variation, right where the radar suggests I should look – no matter what direction and distance the radar is reporting. That’s about as conclusive as it gets short of crashing into the damn thing! But of course you cannot even do that – because it takes evasive action, all the while being tracked on radar and seen visually!

Make of that what you will, but THOSE are the FACTS in the case.

Sorry Rramjet, you haven't conclusively shown how anyone can accurately measure by eye a light source against a black sky and black sea to be able to tell how far away it was to be able to confirm it was the same blip that was on the radar.

Until you can do this, you can not say that there was any radar visual tie up.

Dr Maccabee merely implies that a 100W (or so) navigation light could easily be seen up to the regulated 1-3 miles. I don’t see how that is misrepresenting anything. The whole point is that navigation lights would pale into insignificance under the glare of kWs of squid boat light.

It is a legal requirement that the navigation lights must be distinct from any other running lights the boat may have. If they "pale into insignificance" they are not complying with that legal requirement.

Especially when photographed at the distance supposed of (around)12nm. I hardly think that squid boats “beef up” their navigation lights to compete with their fishing lights, that would be a TOTAL (and unnecessary) nonsense!

It is a legal requirement that the navigation lights must be distinct from any other running lights the boat may have. If they "pale into insignificance" they are not complying with that legal requirement.

However, your photo IS misleading! It DOES NOT show “navigation lights”! ALL the lights you see are the fishing lights. The colour is an ARTEFACT. Some lights are angled toward the camera (the outside ones), some away (the inner ones). Perhaps you should learn something about photo-optics at night!

It is a legal requirement that the navigation lights (including the 'active fishing boat' green above white lights) must be distinct from any other running lights the boat may have. If they "pale into insignificance" they are not complying with that legal requirement.

There are two distinct green strip lights running along the lighting arm.
This has nothing to do with photographic artifact. Indeed it is completely contrary to what would be expected. The bright white lights would usually turn the photo orange (as does any non colour balanced bulb). The green of the strip lights is actually lessening this effect on the photo.
My knowledge of photo optics at night is quite obviously a lot more in depth than yours is, thank you.

So you contend a squid boat floats idle for the better part of the night and THEN decides to start fishing? Just after the satellite passes over and just before the plane arrives?

No, I content that sometimes fishing boats try a few different places to see where the best catch is on any particular night. Between these fishing grounds the squid boat would be running under normal lighting.

Besides, it has already been shown that the ministry had NO boats at the time and place. That would mean it was fishing illegally

Mmmmm... and if the navigation lights were not clear and distinct form the big bright white lights is would also be fishing illegally.

– and why would it do that when it could have joined its companions at sea AND WHY would it do that when it WOULD have been seen doing so from shore (not to mention the nightly plane flight)! I don’t think the Japanese would risk NZ not allowing them port facilities or applying some sanction or fine or removing their fishing rights (in other words creating a totally unnecessary international incident) just so ONE boat could fish? When all the others were happy out at sea? Your proposal is simply preposterous Stray Cat.

I'm not even going to try to speculate on the possible motives of a squid boat's captain for doing what ever at a particular time or place. It has been shown that there were several boats that could have been in that area so there is no need to speculate on any underhand motives when a boat could have been there quite legitimately.

 

[RoboTimbo]

UFOs have demonstrated their capacity to operate "...outside the boundaries of what we take to be the limits of the natural world".

Are you now confirming that you subscribe to the "UFOs are gods" hypothesis?

 

[Correa Neto]

Your deliberate misrepresentation is becoming tiresome Correa Neto.

Your deliberate misrepresentation of the scientific method as well as the evidence for UFOs as something from beyond the boundaries of what we take to be the limits of the natural world (whatever that means) is what actually became tiresome- tens of pages ago.

But your misrepresentation of squids as fishes was revealling and entertaining!

UFOs have demonstrated their capacity to operate "...outside the boundaries of what we take to be the limits of the natural world".

Oh, really? I must have missed the reliable evidence presented to back this claim. And I've been expecting and looking for it for quite while...

Obviously you have nothing to say about the subject so you decide to begin deliberately misrepresenting what I stated (many times AND directly to you). This is a typical UFO debunker modus operandi. When they cannot refute the evidence directly, they resort to deliberate distortions and misrepresentation. WHERE are your "scientific" principles now Correa Neto? LOL.

Typical attempt to shift the burden of the onus... Pseudoscience in action.

Would you care to present reliable evidence to back your claims regarding UFOs? To date you have only made wild claims backed by nothing but anecdotal, unconfirmed evidence and guesses which wee later shown wrong.

Would you care to use the scientific methods (which you claim to master) to the UFO lore and present the results in the proper way? To date, I've just seen a complete disregard for proper research, biased conclusions, biased data collecting, several falacious arguments, and the standard vitriol against mainstream science and skeptics- to mention a few issues.

Would you care to show evidence that major holes were not blown in to the material and methods you presented so far? To date, not a single case you presented was not shot down and proven to be improperly researched by UFOlogists.

I have shown evidence that you are a poseur. Show me wrong. Show me evidence you are not a poseur.

 

[Vortigern99]

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, not that it really matters, but if I'm not off my rocker I do believe another name for squid is cuttlefish.

 

[Paulhoff]

Any physical evidence yet? Or is it just a lot of word play?

Paul

 

[wollery]

Have they the power to reach across interstellar space? I don’t think so… so what is SETI looking for…? It is looking for a directed signal from an ETI. What makes you think an ET would send such a signal, let alone direct it at earth?

We want to send signals to nearby candidate stars, so why shouldn't they?

But you didn't answer the second question. Why do we use narrow band frequency modulated radio wavelength EM waves? Because that's the most energy efficient way to do it. Shorter wavelengths take more energy to produce (E=hf), and longer wavelengths have less carrying power. We could use lasers for a directed signal, but pointing a laser at another star with the Sun as a background light would mean that the signal would be swamped by the Sun's light (stars emit most of their radiation in the UV, optical and infrared), and would be much harder to differentiate from the Sunlight.

The best bet to send a signal of reasonable power, maximizing the energy efficiency, that could be received and recognized for what it was, is to use narrow band radio frequencies. It's just that simple.

That’s two VERY large assumption right off the bat. THEN SETI has to search…how many star systems?... There’s a needle in the haystack for you!

You're suggesting that we instead look for signs of life first. I'll come to that later, in response to your answer about how to find life bearing planets.

According to the ratings agencies they can! LOL. But what is the context of this question?

One of Friedman's objections is that the ETs wouldn't know whether or not we'd received their signal.

But the point of sending a signal is in the hope that someone receives it, and if they do they can send a signal back. Yes, it would take a few years for two way communication, but there's no method of interstellar communication (that I'm aware of) that would allow you to know if the target had received the signal until they sent a message back. So that objection is rather silly really.

I am suggesting that given its chances of success, SETI is a massive waste of resources. That’s all. We would be better to follow up the evidence that we are already being visited.

That evidence is what we are discussing in this thread, and so far amounts to nothing more than anecdotes. Not much to follow up really. And it has been followed up, as has also been discussed at length (Condon anyone?). So that objection doesn't really hold much water.

Signs of life is easy. Atmospheric chemistry is the clue there. Intelligent life? Well, if we discover a planet with signs of life then we point a radio telescope at it. Simple really. Why waste all the resources SETI does when there are alternatives that hold much more promise?

Yeah, very simple. In theory.

In practice however, it really isn't all that simple. The question is, how do you see the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet in orbit around a star? Again, in theory it's really simple, and there are two ways to do it.

First you can block out all of the light from the star and collect only the reflected light from the planet. Except that the amount of light reflected from the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet is tiny, so you'd need a very long integration time in order to collect enough photons, plus, you'd have to do it in space, because those signs that you're looking for would be swamped by the Earth's own atmosphere, which contains, yep, you guessed it, exactly the signature molecules that you want to find, and that would make your measurements a lot harder. Add to that the fact that blocking out the light of the parent star when you want to view something that's very very close to it is bloody difficult to start with, and you can see that it really isn't all that simple at all.

The second method is to find a planet that transits its parent star, point a big telescope at it and spend hours collecting enough photons to get a high resolution, high signal to noise spectrum. Except that you can only do that during transit, which for an Earth analogue in orbit around a solar type star at for instance, 20 parsecs would last for a few hours once every year. Oh, but that isn't the end of the problems, because what you're looking for is minute changes in the star's spectrum. And when I say minute, I mean really minuscule. That's why you need a high resolution high signal to noise spectrum, because if you don't have that then you haven't a hope in hell of seeing the differences between the spectra taken during transit and before or after transit, but because you're looking at differences in the spectrum you can do it from ground based telescopes.

Now, why are the changes so small? Because the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet is just a very thin shell, a small fraction of the diameter of the planet, which is itself a small fraction of the size of the star, and that means that there's very little absorption. The change in the star's spectrum is a fraction of a percent. And don't forget, you get one chance a year, for just a few hours. Bummer if it's cloudy, and even light cloud will screw up your results. In fact, even a clear night with a lot of turbulence will screw it up. So, not so simple after all.

And then we come to the real kicker. You complain that SETI is needle in a haystack stuff, but it uses relatively small radio telescopes, and lots of them, and it doesn't need long integration times, and they can automate the search for the signal (SETI@home anyone?). But if you're looking for for a terrestrial planet first then you need to point a very big telescope at individual stars for long times, and at the right time because it needs to be during transit, and only a small fraction of terrestrial planets will transit their parent star from our viewpoint, and you need to find out which ones they are before you can even start!

Or, you need to send up a satellite with a very accurate starlight blocker to take a spectrum of the planet's reflected light. But how many satellites can you send up, and how many stars can you look at at any one time? And the data needs to be handled individually, by highly trained personnel, no farming out the data reduction or analysis to home computers, oh no, and it's a time consuming affair, let me tell you.

And you want us to believe that searching for atmospheric signals first is less labour intensive, and less efficient? Tell me, do you know how SETI selects which stars to look at? I really think you don't, or your statement in the second quote box wouldn't have been made. Let me give you a clue - they're looking at almost exactly the same set of stars that the planet search people are looking at. Funny coincidence, don't you think?

SETI? Open the “channels of communication”? I like optimism – but this is another WILD assumption! Does ET want to communicate with us? For what reason? They have already demonstrated a singular lack of interest in direct communication.

And now you make assumptions. How do you know that they aren't trying to communicate, but that we just haven't found their signal yet?

I don’t “believe” any such thing – but the UFO debunkers sure seem to! Again, SETI is a waste of resources. Alternatives are available.

Yeah, I think I covered those "alternatives" already.

Perhaps they are merely self-interested and they don’t want to risk advanced technology falling into our hands. Perhaps they are ethical beings and realise that (as with our own experience) contact of advanced cultures with primitive ones invariably leads to no good outcome for the less advanced. Perhaps they are doing research and don’t want to “contaminate” the sample. There are many reasons…

It's possible, or maybe they have a similar level of technology to us, and are sitting there with their own version of SETI, and wondering whether we aren't communicating with them because we don't want to share our advanced technology with them. Yes, there are many reasons why they might not want to communicate with us, and just as many reasons why they might want to.

From a “scientific” perspective…? It’s a demonstrated massive waste of resources It’s literally a million(s) to one shot based on a number of unfounded assumptions). There are more promising lines of research available.

From a scientific perspective? You'd prefer to spend just as much money, if not more, by using labour intensive methods that require large individually pointed optical telescopes to identifying likely candidates, and then point a radio telescope at them. And you'd be doing this on the very stars that SETI is already pointing radio telescopes at!

Your "more promising lines of research" make unfounded assumptions, unlike SETI, which uses well founded assumptions. And let's not forget that the money for SETI is entirely private. That's right, not one cent of public money gets paid to SETI.

So in summary you think it's a waste of resources to use private funds to point relatively small radio telescopes at stars in the hope of finding a signal, but you have no problem using public money to make a pointed search to identify candidate stars, from the very same set of stars that SETI are already looking at!!

Now that's a waste of resources!

Oh, and as a final aside, there are research projects being designed to actually look for those atmospheric signals, so again, the objection is worthless, we're working on doing it anyway. But why not look for the radio signals while we're at it? After all, unlike your preferred method, it's not public money that's being spent.

 

[Astrophotographer]

You just come out of the inlet… and turn right. The direction of your fleet is 110 nm Southeast – for the start of your voyage you travel parallel to the coast to get there. Less than a mile offshore is water deeper than any major vessel could ever wish for. Even very close to the shore is water as deep or deeper than the inlet and harbour. No need to go out into the bay – especially 60+km or more (!) as you contend by the positioning of your SB! I really think you SHOULD have a LOOK at a map of the area before you contend such obvious nonsense as above. (Google maps will give you a good view) Oh, and the harbour is Lyttelton if you were wondering and it is positioned about 8km inside the inlet.

Sure, if you say that is the path all squid boats take, it must be true. I consider it gibberish in a desperate effort to state it was impossible for a squid boat to be there.

What the…? Is that the best you can do? Nowhere in ANY of the literature has the pilot’s statements been contradicted or demonstrated to have changed in any way. YOU make the allegation, YOU must provide the evidence. Mere unfounded assertion will remain just that…unfounded! But of course this is an old debunker trick, just sling the mud and hope some of it sticks – who cares that there is no truth to it, just sling it anyway! Someone might believe you!

I am asking you to publish all the pilot's statements to prove he has been consistent.

Ha! “Basic direction” is your code for “drawing inaccuracies to support a preconceived hypothesis”. YOU are the one wanting to “position” the SB. If you cannot do so from the radar data…then you are in a bit of trouble don’t you think. Besides, the radar provides direction AND distance. And those distances STILL do NOT match your “lines”!

It must be nice to live in your well lit room of one idea. How great was the differences when I redrew them for you? Not much. Again, the direction and distance concerning the planes radar are from memory.

Huh! It has already been shown that Ireland and Andrews distorted THEIR diagram to suit their hypothesis (ignoring the pilot’s evidence in the process).

And Maccabee alterred his on a preconceived idea. No big deal there was it?

Dr Maccabee states that his corrections were made because:

“ The first change corrects a mistake on the part of this investigator, the radar did not require 3 minutes to warm up after it was turned on because it was already in a warmed-up standby condition, a fact which I was unaware of until after the publication (…) The second change results from the actual measurements of the radar sweep range. Previously the value had been estimated”​

(2nd letter, Applied Optics)

So he fudged the numbers to suit his plot. Now he creates a scenario that suits his preconceived idea. Go figure.

Thus the second rendering of the diagram is therefore the most accurate, accounting for more recently accurate information. Your implication that Dr Maccabee changed the diagram to suit his own purposes is mere cover for your embarrassment at the fact that YOUR cited sources (Ireland and Andrews) DID exactly that (ignored the data to suit their own purposes)!

They used Maccabee's original data for their plot and the information they had for the turn. Maccabee never plotted the turn in his original article. Obviously they had the information about the turn from somewhere. Possibly from the original statements by the aircrew.

On the Southbound leg:

“The captain reported that the flying weather was excellent and he was able to use the automatic height lock, which would have automatically disengaged had there been turbulence that would change the altitude of the aircraft. The sky condition was "CAVU" (clear and visibility unlimited). The air crew could see the lights along the coast of the South Island, extending southward to Christchurch about 150 miles away. ​

And flying weather has nothing to do with AP.

On the northbound trip it was the plane’s radar that continuously tracked the object.

And nobody has stated this was due to AP but a target that was on the water. There is no indication that this target was airborne. It was not detected by Christchurch radar.

My question to you is did ANY of those “studies” track a single target for an extended period of time, maintaining both radar and visual identification? No, they did not.

These "studies" (apparently you are not interested in what real scientists did after the event otherwise you would not have written it that way) had everything to do with studying AP and the performance of the Wellington radar. They were scientists actually interested in investigating this event. This is something you so strongly desire (Unless you only want/accept UFO proponent scientists to study the event). They were the SAME KIND OF CONTACTS reported on the southbound leg and AFTER the Pegasus bay contact on the northbound leg. They concluded that the Wellington radar was susceptible to all sorts of AP contacts and this was the likely source for most of the contacts reported that night. The only thing you have is your "unidentified floating object" in Pegasus bay.​

 

[Astrophotographer]

There are more promising lines of research available.

Feel free to list them. I assume your present presentation of UFO evidence is one of them. So far it has not changed anyone's opinion. What do you think your chances would be presenting these same old cases to a panel of scientists who are not involved in UFO research? My guess is you would get a similar (maybe not so vocal) response as you are getting here.

 

[Sledge]

Because you apparently missed it:

So aliens have the power to fly a vessel across space, but not to send a detectable signal? Explain.

Moving on...

UFOs have demonstrated their capacity to operate "...outside the boundaries of what we take to be the limits of the natural world".

What does that actually mean? What are you talking about? What, for that matter, is the point you're hoping to prove with this thread?

 

[Belgian thought]

SETI? Open the “channels of communication”? I like optimism – but this is another WILD assumption! Does ET want to communicate with us? For what reason? They have already demonstrated a singular lack of interest in direct communication.

Not according to you. They waved remember at Father Gill, this is communication, and they "knew" that we earthlings waved as a greeting.

So these "aliens" must have spent time researching our non-vocal communications. They collect this valuable information by flying around in remote areas and moving in mysterious fashion, an amazing way to collect data.

Lucky for us though that on that fateful day, they did understand our ways. Imagine the destruction it could have caused if the waving of the arms was deemed as the biggest diplomatic faux-pas on planet Zog, and hand-waving meant "I want to sleep with your grandma, whilst all her offspring’s watch, hung upside down by their tentacles, and then zap you with my "alien anal dildo" gun!".

 

[Cuddles]

How many times do you need to be told Rramjet, that nobody is expecting to detect a signal that is directed at the Earth?

I think I addressed this before. This is one of the few (quite possibly the only) things that Rramjet has actually ever got right. It is incredibly unlikely that we could detect stray transmissions from the daily activity of a human-level civilisation. See here, for example. A massive dedicated antenna array would have a chance of detecting our stray TV transmissions at 50 light years or so. An effort on the scale of SETI could only detect them at a fraction of that.

And it gets worse. With the development of digital, satellite and cable TV, the strength of stray transmissions is greatly reduced. If aliens aren't looking during the few decades between the invention of radio and these later developments, they have a much lower chance of seeing anything. Given that these are fairly obvious improvements, it seems likely we would face a similar problem detecting any alien transmissions.

Where Rramjet goes wrong (Rramjet wrong? Who'd have though it?) is in declaring that since it's unlikely we could detect alien TV signals, SETI must be a complete waste of time. Where he goes really incredibly wrong is that this claim directly contradicts his other claims. As I pointed out earlier, he say that we should spend SETI's resources on investigating aliens actually visiting Earth. But obviously if they're visiting Earth, the arguments about detectable range are utterly irrelevant. SETI is easily capable of detecting even very weak signals that are only a few hundred or thousand kilometres away at most.

So it's really very simple. If aliens are visiting us, as Rramjet claims, SETI would easily be able to detect them and isn't a waste of time. If aliens aren't visiting us, SETI may be very unlikely to detect them, but we don't currently have any alternatives and therefore it probably isn't a waste of time. However you look at it, Rramjet fails miserably.

Willery's bits

Must... resist... joke...

In practice however, it really isn't all that simple. The question is, how do you see the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet in orbit around a star? Again, in theory it's really simple, and there are two ways to do it.

To add to all your very good points here, there's also the problem that looking at atmosphere's doesn't actually tell us anything much about life. The most we'd be able to say is that the planet's atmosphere has a similar composition to Earth's. Without going there to check, we wouldn't know if that was actually anything to do with life. On the other hand, this also assumes that all life must be similar to Earth's life, and would completely ignore any possible life that results in a different atmospheric composition. After all, Mars and Europa are thought to be two of the best candidates for finding traces of life, but neither has an atmosphere anything like ours.

So once again Rramjet fails. Even if everything were as simple as he apparently believes, merely looking at atmospheres won't tell us anything much useful about the presence of advanced alien civilisations. His approach would be rife with false positives and false negatives, and given the difficulty in actually doing it, would likely be far less cost effective than the SETI he so hates.

 

[Correa Neto]

Not according to you. They waved remember at Father Gill, this is communication, and they "knew" that we earthlings waved as a greeting.

So these "aliens" must have spent time research our non-vocal communications. They collect this valuable information by flying around in remote areas and moving in mysterious fashion, an amazing way to collect data.

Lucky for us though that on that fateful day, they did understand our ways. Imagine the destruction it could have caused if the waving of the arms was deemed as the biggest diplomatic faux-pas on planet Zog, and hand-waving meant "I want to sleep with your grandma, whilst all her offspring’s watch, hung upside down by their tentacles, and then zap you with my "alien anal dildo" gun!".

As if UFO lore had no cases of ET speaking with earthlings and passing messages.

Don't forget the short platinum blonde with red armpit and pubic hair whom shagged a Brazilian farmer... Its one of his 'best cases". Conclusion: ET doesn't want to communicate with you - they just want to fornicate with you.

Rramjet's methods to gather data and reach conclusions are really riculous.

 

[Correa Neto]

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, not that it really matters, but if I'm not off my rocker I do believe another name for squid is cuttlefish.

A type of squid. I remember when I saw them underwater for the first time. "WTF?! Fish swimming backwards?" Then I quickly realized they were small squids.

But can cuttlefishes be framed within the paraphyletic group named fishes?

What are the odds of a real scientist saing cuttlefishes are fishes?

 

[EHocking]

...
Dr Maccabee merely implies that a 100W (or so) navigation light could easily be seen up to the regulated 1-3 miles.

You are misquoting Maccabee's misrepresentation of the regulations.

The regulations for running lights are a minimum of 2 to 5 miles[1] and up to 13 nautical miles[2].[/quote] I don’t see how that is misrepresenting anything......[/quote]The following is from The Maritime Rules, Part 22 - Collision Avoidance that the New Zealand Ministry of Transport enacted in 1997 (Before you start, they are a ratification of the international maritime rules that NZ used up until that point - so were in effect in 1978). See below for the particular rules.

Maccabee's representation of the maritime rules is a direct misrepresentation of the facts.

Especially when photographed at the distance supposed of (around)12nm.

12nm is less than 13nm - so the argument is false.

[1]Section 22.22 - Visibility of lights.
Lights must have an intensity as specified in Appendix 1 of this Part[2]. They must be visible at the follwing minimum ranges.
(2) In vessels of 20 metres or more in length but less than 50 metres in length -
a masthead light, 5 miles;
a sidelight, 2 miles;
a towing light, 2 miles;
a white, red, green, or yellow all-round light, 2miles.

[2]Appendix 1.
8. Intensity of lights.
(1) For prescribed lights, the value of K (atmospheric transmissivity) must be 0.8, corresponding to a meteorological visibility of approximately 13 nautical miles.

 

[EHocking]

A type of squid.

Different order, but same class.

I remember when I saw them underwater for the first time. "WTF?! Fish swimming backwards?" Then I quickly realized they were small squids.

But can cuttlefishes be framed within the paraphyletic group named fishes?

I'd phylum under a different name...

What are the odds of a real scientist saing cuttlefishes are fishes?

Approaching zero?

 

[Toke]

100W or so for standard navigational light is not that far off, the ones I have used on merchant ships have read either 35 or 65 cd and been equiped with a 1A fuse at 230V.

A squid fishing boat with bright lights is a different matter.

ETA:

Approaching zero?

Perhaps someone outside biology with a very limited general knowledge?
Slept through high school biology?

 

[GeeMack]

has he posted any evidence for aliens at all yet ?
or are we still proving Gods

Not a lick of evidence to support the claim that aliens exist. Same old arguments from incredulity and ignorance. However, since much evidence has been provided to support the theory that gods made UFOs to get some mentally ill kid all frothed up to make himself look like an idiot on an Internet forum, and since that theory hasn't even been approached by Rramjet, it's safe to assume he has nothing to refute it. And since he's, you know, a scientist and all, that must mean he supports the gods theory!

The "UFOs = aliens" conjecture is getting it's ass seriously kicked here.

 

[Akhenaten]

I think I addressed this before. This is one of the few (quite possibly the only) things that Rramjet has actually ever got right. It is incredibly unlikely that we could detect stray transmissions from the daily activity of a human-level civilisation. See here, for example. A massive dedicated antenna array would have a chance of detecting our stray TV transmissions at 50 light years or so. An effort on the scale of SETI could only detect them at a fraction of that.

And it gets worse. With the development of digital, satellite and cable TV, the strength of stray transmissions is greatly reduced. If aliens aren't looking during the few decades between the invention of radio and these later developments, they have a much lower chance of seeing anything. Given that these are fairly obvious improvements, it seems likely we would face a similar problem detecting any alien transmissions.

Where Rramjet goes wrong (Rramjet wrong? Who'd have though it?) is in declaring that since it's unlikely we could detect alien TV signals, SETI must be a complete waste of time. Where he goes really incredibly wrong is that this claim directly contradicts his other claims. As I pointed out earlier, he say that we should spend SETI's resources on investigating aliens actually visiting Earth. But obviously if they're visiting Earth, the arguments about detectable range are utterly irrelevant. SETI is easily capable of detecting even very weak signals that are only a few hundred or thousand kilometres away at most.

So it's really very simple. If aliens are visiting us, as Rramjet claims, SETI would easily be able to detect them and isn't a waste of time. If aliens aren't visiting us, SETI may be very unlikely to detect them, but we don't currently have any alternatives and therefore it probably isn't a waste of time. However you look at it, Rramjet fails miserably.

Thank you very much for the correction.

It seems that I was over-eager, and was thinking that Rramjet was claiming that SETI is set up only to detect transmissions that the ETs are specifically aiming at the Earth with the intention of contacting us. I see that this is not the case and your link and explanation above have clarified that.

I jumped the gun, and apologise to Rramjet for that part of my post, which was in error.


I should stick to the illustrations.