Repeating Fast Radio Bursts From Deep Space!!!

[Papahyooie]

Meh , chances are there is no one that can listen to those signals regardless. The way the messages are encoded is not that problematic , every intelligent life that figured out radio wave communication would eventually figure out the fundamental binary aspect of information too. These are the most basic methods of encoding data , not the most complicated ones , one should in fact expect that these are the most common ones. The idea isn't that such messages need to be understood. The main point is to get across something that is of artificial nature.

I agree completely which is why I said I would think that binary would be universal, but perhaps not. Perhaps there is some informational paradigm that either we as humans don't yet know, or perhaps simply never thought of. I wouldn't expect that there is another paradigm, I'm simply acknowledging the fact that there is a possibility. I wouldn't expect the binary nature to be the problem, though. I'd expect that the "key" at the beginning to be the biggest problem, as it's based in our arbitrary numbering system, as well as an 8 bit encoding system (which is again, based on our arbitrary characters.) They have to crack that to make the "picture" view-able, as they need to know the dimensions. And yea, I agree totally that if they were at least as intelligent as us, they would be able to recognize something of artificial nature... that was my point. But the second part of that point is... look at us: We are seeing these radio bursts that are the subject of this thread. They form a pattern, and therefore seem like it's possible they could be artificial. But we can't decode anything from them, so there's no concrete evidence. The people who got our "message" would most likely catch an ordered radio message, attempt to decode it, and dismiss it as an anomaly once they concluded that it's gibberish, much as I expect we would do with these bursts. And that's IF they ever even got it.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't think the issue is binary, I think the issue is that interpreting the Arecibo message is difficult for a human, nevermind anyone else. If an intelligent species did happen to receive it, they'd probably call it a "WOW! signal." If they tried to interpret it more than that, they likely wouldn't understand what any of it means.

The odds of someone pointing a receiver in the right direction at the right time is astronomically low, damn near infinite.

 

[Papahyooie]

I don't think the issue is binary, I think the issue is that interpreting the Arecibo message is difficult for a human, nevermind anyone else. If an intelligent species did happen to receive it, they'd probably call it a "WOW! signal." If they tried to interpret it more than that, they likely wouldn't understand what any of it means.

The odds of someone pointing a receiver in the right direction at the right time is astronomically low, damn near infinite.

That's what I was trying to get at.

 

[Vya Domus]

I don't think the issue is binary, I think the issue is that interpreting the Arecibo message is difficult for a human, nevermind anyone else. If an intelligent species did happen to receive it, they'd probably call it a "WOW! signal." If they tried to interpret it more than that, they likely wouldn't understand what any of it means.

The odds of someone pointing a receiver in the right direction at the right time is astronomically low, damn near infinite.

And realistically speaking the chances of understanding any radio message is nonexistent , no point in focusing on that aspect. They just need to figure out it's something that is encoded in some way , binary for example. The wow signal wasn't that , it was essentially just an abnormal variation in time that cannot carry any meaningful information , at least by itself. I doubt an intelligent life form would send such a signal.

 

[Papahyooie]

I think everyone is misunderstanding my point here... I realize that the chance of understanding the radio message is nonexistent. That was my whole point... It's why I'm saying we should be doing it way more often. Constantly even, to increase the chances.

 

[dorsetknob]

I think everyone is misunderstanding my point here... I realize that the chance of understanding the radio message is nonexistent. That was my whole point... It's why I'm saying we should be doing it way more often. Constantly even, to increase the chances

Sorry but do Turkeys Scream "Thanksgiving is Coming Bring the Stuffing".

Look and listen keep watching But untill we know if there is life out there Don't Advertise that Dinner may be Here ( and by Dinner i mean Resources Available in the solar System).

It / they may not be friendly

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think everyone is misunderstanding my point here... I realize that the chance of understanding the radio message is nonexistent. That was my whole point... It's why I'm saying we should be doing it way more often. Constantly even, to increase the chances.

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” --Arthur C. Clarke

 

[BumbleBee]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” --Arthur C. Clarke

XCOM: Enemy Unknown uses that quote : P

 

[MrGenius]

The wow signal wasn't that , it was essentially just an abnormal variation in time that cannot carry any meaningful information , at least by itself. I doubt an intelligent life form would send such a signal.

That's sort of a closed-minded interpretation though. While it may not have been "encoded with information", that doesn't mean the signal itself isn't meaningful. At bare minimum it means we've detected a radio signal that was potentially sent from an extraterrestrial intelligent life form. The idea that it may not have been intentionally sent by an extraterrestrial intelligent life form, doesn't rule out the possibility that it may have been sent unintentionally.

It's also somewhat narrow-minded to think that it could not have possibly been meant to convey any meaningful information to a recipient. How do we know how aliens communicate? Maybe just receiving the signal gives one of them meaningful information about something. The "information" doesn't have to be "encoded" in the signal if the "information" IS the signal.

 

[Vya Domus]

That's sort of a closed-minded interpretation though. While it may not have been "encoded with information", that doesn't mean the signal itself isn't meaningful. At bare minimum it means we've detected a radio signal that was potentially sent from an extraterrestrial intelligent life form. The idea that it may not have been intentionally sent by an extraterrestrial intelligent life form, doesn't rule out the possibility that it may have been sent unintentionally.

It's also somewhat narrow-minded to think that it could not have possibly been meant to convey any meaningful information to a recipient. How do we know how aliens communicate? Maybe just receiving the signal gives one of them meaningful information about something. The "information" doesn't have to be "encoded" in the signal if the "information" IS the signal.

I do not think it's narrow-minded , it's the most logical way. You are right , I never claimed it wasn't of artificial nature , but it's clear that it dose not carry any meaningful information. You would think that an alien civilization that aspires to communicate with other intelligent life forms wouldn't use such a convoluted way of doing it. And if they are at the technological level to send such signals , why not use fundamental aspects of information such as "1" and "0" or "yes" or "no" , again this has nothing to do with the way they "think" , it's pure mathematics. Think about it , say we develop incredibility advanced communication methods 10 000 years in the future , would we send messages using those methods ? Nope , it would be dumb. We would still use things like binary , you need to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I am not claiming that these ideas are absolute truths , just saying they are the most rational.

 

[MrGenius]

What I'm saying is the Wow! signal:

1. May not have been intentionally sent as a message to anyone. It may have been accidental or coincidental. And was never meant to "mean" anything to anybody.
2. May not have been intentionally sent specifically as a message to another type of intelligent being(or beings) for it(them/us) to interpret.
3. May have been intentionally sent as a message to another intelligent being(or beings) who would know what it meant to receive it.
4. It doesn't have to have "meaningful information" encoded in it to be meaningfully informative to a recipient.

What does 1 dot or 1 dash in Morse code mean? 1 dot means E, 1 dash means T. Is any "meaningful information" carried by the dot or the dash? Not if you don't know what they mean when you see them. Could the Wow! signal be interpreted as a dot or dash? Yes.

What does it mean when I honk my car horn? It can mean any number of things. "Get out of my way" "Hey asshole...you just cut me off" "Pay attention please...that light is green, can we go before it turns red?" etc. etc. Does the sound of the horn carry any "meaningful information"? Not if you don't know what it might mean when you hear it. Could the Wow! signal be interpreted as a horn being honked? Yes.

 

[Vya Domus]

What I'm saying is the Wow! signal:

1. May not have been intentionally sent as a message to anyone. It may have been accidental.
2. May not have been intentionally sent specifically as a message to another type intelligent being(or beings).
3. May have been intentionally sent as a message to another intelligent being(or beings) who would know what it meant to receive it.
4. It doesn't have to have "meaningful information" encoded in it to be meaningfully informative to a recipient.

What does 1 dot or 1 dash in Morse code mean? 1 dot means E, 1 dash means T. Is any "meaningful information" carried by the dot or the dash? Not if you don't know what they mean when you see them.

What does it mean when I honk my car horn? It can mean any number of things. "Get out of my way" "Hey asshole...you just cut me off" "Pay attention please...that light is green, can we go before it turns red?" etc. etc. Does the sound of the horn carry any "meaningful information"? Not if you don't know what it might mean when you hear it.

And I am saying this is unlikely , not impossible. Hell think how unlikely it is to be of actual alien origin , and then think how unlikely it is to be what you said. We are reaching incredibly low probabilities. Would an alien civilization send such a signal in full force for no reason as a mistake or to some other specific civilization light years away to which I would assume they have never communicated with before and after since we never received any more similar signals ? Maybe , but unlikely. Maybe it's the other way around and your right. Who knows.

And the Morse code is not a good example for what you want to prove , because that still encodes information in a binary fashion. Yes would have no idea what the hell it is , but at least you would know for sure it means something. Unlike the wow signal. I just cannot accept any life form would use such convoluted and inefficient ways of sending information , it makes me think they are dumb as hell or on space shrooms.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

And I am saying this is unlikely , not impossible. Hell think how unlikely it is to be of actual alien origin , and then think how unlikely it is to be what you said. We are reaching incredibly low probabilities. Would an alien civilization send such a signal in full force for no reason as a mistake or to some other specific civilization light years away to which I would assume they have never communicated with before and after since we never received any more similar signals ? Maybe , but unlikely. Maybe it's the other way around and your right. Who knows.

And the Morse code is not a good example for what you want to prove , because that still encodes information in a binary fashion. Yes would have no idea what the hell it is , but at least you would know for sure it means something. Unlike the wow signal. I just cannot accept any life form would use such convoluted and inefficient ways of sending information , it makes me think they are dumb as hell or on space shrooms.

Morse code is just an example, it could be any form signal manipulation to use as code to convey a message, binary or not. There have been several attempts to send out a message from earth, a WoW signal, none have been directed at anyone, and yet at everyone who happens to receive(hear, see, etc) it.
As for your acceptance of another life form, you prolly need to smoke some weed to chill, space shrooms are great.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Nevermind the signal, the antenna that received it isn't necessary capable of looking for deeper context to anything it picks up. If memory serves, it is just looking for strength. It can't describe any characteristics of what comes in other than the amplitude. When dealing with digital, you have to be catching it at a frequency with greater resolution than the message is being transmitted. For all we know, the WOW! signal could be over a terahertz in frequency. We have virtually nothing with that kind of resolution. A burst like that could carry a lot of information.

They tried finding it again for a long time and never did. They're doing broad sweeps looking for anything. Once you know where to look for something, then you get more precise instruments set up to capture and try to understand it.


It works visa versa too: if they're not trying to receive the Arecibo message in a smiliar way that we're transmitting it, they might just see a WOW! signal too on their end.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Nevermind the signal, the antenna that received it isn't necessary capable of looking for deeper context to anything it picks up. If memory serves, it is just looking for strength. It can't describe any characteristics of what comes in other than the amplitude. When dealing with digital, you have to be catching it at a frequency with greater resolution than the message is being transmitted. For all we know, the WOW! signal could be over a terahertz in frequency. We have virtually nothing with that kind of resolution. A burst like that could carry a lot of information.

They tried finding it again for a long time and never did. They're doing broad sweeps looking for anything. Once you know where to look for something, then you get more precise instruments set up to capture and try to understand it.


It works visa versa too: if they're not trying to receive the Arecibo message in a smiliar way that we're transmitting it, they might just see a WOW! signal too on their end.

frequency is subject to fading, and we can detect terahertz microwaves. Signal Resolution is a different ball to play with.

 

[MrGenius]

Morse code is just an example...

I just realized my example spelled ET.

 

[Papahyooie]

Sorry but do Turkeys Scream "Thanksgiving is Coming Bring the Stuffing".
Look and listen keep watching But untill we know if there is life out there Don't Advertise that Dinner may be Here ( and by Dinner i mean Resources Available in the solar System).
It / they may not be friendly

By that logic, no civilization should ever reach out and we'll never meet any alien life.

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” --Arthur C. Clarke

I'd rather know the truth than not.

 

[dorsetknob]

By that logic, no civilization should ever reach out and we'll never meet any alien life.

No if life (intelligent ) is found/detected
Before we meet and greet we need to threat assess such potential contact
otherwise it just might end up as Meat and Eat with us/our planet/civilisation as the Menu Item

 

[Vya Domus]

No if life (intelligent ) is found/detected
Before we meet and greet we need to threat assess such potential contact
otherwise it just might end up as Meat and Eat with us/our planet/civilisation as the Menu Item

I always wondered , why would an alien civilization potentially travel dozen of light years just so they can "eat" us , or take some sort of resource from out planet that they wouldn't find anywhere else.

 

[Papahyooie]

No if life (intelligent ) is found/detected
Before we meet and greet we need to threat assess such potential contact
otherwise it just might end up as Meat and Eat with us/our planet/civilisation as the Menu Item

I guess I just see it differently. I mean, we as a species are the most advanced organism we know of, and we would not take a couple thousand lightyear trip just to destroy another organism. We would literally be destroying the most valuable scientific asset the human race has ever known. And we as humans are pretty darn war-like. So why would we expect that an alien species would do that? Too many alien movies is why. If we ever did meet a warmongering alien species, why would we be at any disadvantage on our home planet? Sure, if it's a science fiction movie and they have magic shields then they could beat us, but I'm talking about real life. Bullets are bullets, and we make some pretty damn impressive bombs too.

I simply don't see it as much of a threat, especially considering if anything DID catch our signals, it would be many many years before they could actually make it here. They would obviously attempt to communicate back to us before heading towards us, for the same reasons that we don't instantly assume these radio bursts that are the subject of this thread are from intelligent life. So we would have plenty of time to assess them as a threat or not. Probably hundreds of years.

 

[hat]

You can't really base any kind of intelligent alien life on human life. Who knows what they'd be like? Maybe they'd be weird and alienesque? They are aliens, after all. And if you DO want to base alien life on human life, then well... that's a sad case for the aliens. We humans have been (and still are) pretty terrible as a whole. Who's to say they wouldn't travel here to enslave us, or destroy our planet for resources (you know, worse than we already do), or just blow us up if we're not worth it? If they can make it here, we're probably not worth any sort of "scientific asset", unless they want to put us on alien National Geographic and laugh at us or something. Our best hope is they turn out to be some interstellar good Samaritans.

 

[Papahyooie]

I'm not basing them on humans at all. Simply saying that we wouldn't travel for hundreds or thousands of years simply to destroy a species that was less advanced that we were, and we are indeed, pretty terrible. That's assuming we are more advanced than they are. So turn that around, and it wouldn't make any sense for an alien race more advanced than us, to come all the way here simply to destroy us. It just doesn't make sense.

Resources? There isn't anything on Earth they can't get elsewhere. And they'd probably burn more resources getting here than they could find here.

I just think the possibility of the knowledge to be gained outweighs the risk. A far-advanced alien race could propel humanity into the next era. What if they've conquered creating life and curing death? What if they've unlocked the key to FTL travel?
And if they do come just to fight well... like I said, magic shields aside... let them come. We've got bullets, we've got bombs, we've got nukes. And as of recently, we also have direct laser weapons. I doubt there is much more to be weaponized. Most of the super weapons you see in science fiction are simply out of the realm of possibility. They likely wouldn't have much that could do much more damage than we can with what we have. I could of course be wrong. Then again, such a trial could be a great thing... if aliens come and want to fight, the human race unites. Imagine living in a world where the entirety of the human race is forever united against the threat of possible invasion. Once we know we're not alone, our petty squabbles over borders on earth go away, or at least become non-issues.

 

[Steevo]

Well first we have to think about it like this if there is another intelligent species out there are they more advanced than we are or less if they're less advanced than we are at the time that they sent the signal what's the chances that they may have sent it thinking themselves surely somebody will receive this one kilowatt AM signal.

Maybe the wow signal was an advanced future weapon detonated on a planet by another Intergalactic species bent on eradicating all other life-forms that don't conform to their logic or their religion.

Either way that we look at it we need to spend some more time searching the skies not just for Intergalactic life but also for other threats to humanity and to our own planet and I think that putting a radio receiver and transmitter On the Dark Side of the Moon with a wide range and large enough aperture that it can watch a significant portion of the sky should be one of the first International projects with priority with the low temperature ability to track meteorites and other large objects in space because we currently know almost dick all about everything around us

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I always wondered , why would an alien civilization potentially travel dozen of light years just so they can "eat" us , or take some sort of resource from out planet that they wouldn't find anywhere else.

More like they want Earth for themselves. Imagine a very distinct possibility that virtually every Earth-like planet has evolved sentient life. If your own planet is dying from resource exhaustion, over population, etc., the reason for said sentient species to explore the cosmos is to find a new home. How desperate they are will translate to their approach on contact.

It's better to hold your cards close to your chest. Don't let anyone know where you live. Observe their behavior. Attempt to learn their language. Establish contact. Go from there.

If Earth was on the verge of dying, you bet your ass we'd ruin a lesser species on another planet for our own survival.

 

[dorsetknob]

It's better to hold your cards close to your chest. Don't let anyone know where you live. Observe their behavior. Attempt to learn their language. Establish contact. Go from there.

If Earth was on the verge of dying, you bet your ass we'd ruin a lesser species on another planet for our own survival.

Point you to the Pilgrim fathers/Cortes and other European Colonists as an historical earth example.