How very much more difficult would it be for ET to decode humans? Even if it has been watching episodes of I Love Lucy that have been leaking out into space since that show was first broadcast, it may still not understand them. Wilson and others, we now know a little something about ant communication but are still far from a complete decoding. Using Sesame Street, Khan Academy and YouTube, and even granted its enormous onboard AI capabilities, it would still take time for it to decode Homo sapiens’ languages, science, math and culture. Once a permanently placed probe had detected artificial electromagnetic leakage, indicating that one multicellular species had become technologically intelligent, it would attempt to decode the species. Highly capable probes might be placed permanently in the vicinity of planets that have achieved multicellularity as indicated by their oxygen-rich atmospheres or other biosignatures. Star systems with biogenic planets might be surveilled more often. Relatively simple flyby probes might intermittently surveil nascent solar systems, for example, at 200-million-year intervals. Perhaps the transmitting civilization communicates in color oscillations like a cuttlefish, while the recipient only understands bee-like waggles.īuilding on the work of others, I have hypothesized that aliens would be better served by sending robotic probes.
Added to this is the problem of communicating with a target civilization of which it would know nothing. Further, by announcing its presence to so many stars, it invites disaster should any civilization prove aggressive. The cost of this strategy to ET in time, energy and materials would be immeasurable. Additionally, it would need to maintain a dedicated receiver for each target star to be certain not to miss a return message if and when it arrives. In order for it to succeed, ET would have to target each of potentially millions of promising nearby stars (including ours) continuously, and do so over potentially billions of years. But this communication strategy has severe drawbacks from ET’s point of view.
In the classic SETI paradigm, stars are observed for artificial signals. However, the two camps may be moving closer together. SETI usually requires a graduate degree in astronomy, and its scientists tend to disdain UFOers for requiring nothing more than a camera that takes blurry photos and a butterfly net in case a little green man appears. Though superficially similar, the two fields in practice have had virtually nothing to do with one another. Modern UFO sightings date to the late 1940s. SETI, as a modern astronomical endeavor, dating to 1959 ( first paper) and 1960 ( first observation).
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