New Plan to Attract Intelligent, Extraterrestrial Life to Earth

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Astronomers Want to Shoot Lasers into Space to Attract Aliens
by Mike Wehner
11/6/18
Science fiction has taught us for decades that when aliens arrive on Earth, it’s going to be a bad day for mankind. Those fictional horror stories haven’t deterred some scientists from thinking up ways that we might attract alien civilizations to Earth and a new feasibility study suggests that we could send a laser beam into the cosmos to act as a beacon for alien life to find.

The work, which was published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggests that existing technology could be used to produce an infrared beam bright enough to be spotted by intelligent alien civilizations. Once discovered, it would be like a breadcrumb trail pointing right back to Earth and extraterrestrials could come calling.

“This would be a challenging project but not an impossible one,” James Clark, author of the study, said in a statement. “The kinds of lasers and telescopes that are being built today can produce a detectable signal so that an astronomer could take one look at our star and immediately see something unusual about its spectrum. I don’t know if intelligent creatures around the sun would be their first guess, but it would certainly attract further attention.”
https://nypost.com/2018/11/06/astronomers-want-to-shoot-lasers-into-space-to-attract-aliens/ https://nypost.com/2018/11/06/astronomers-want-to-shoot-lasers-into-space-to-attract-aliens/

After asked by an interviewer on the National Geographic Channel, if we should continue attempting to contact intelligent extraterrestrial life, Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most brilliant mind of our time, answered: ❝I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low❞

[Pholus]

1. We shouldn't invite aliens in before we're decent.

[Claritie Pixie]

7. Simple and succint...I agree.

[rampartc]

56. +1

[Loki Liesmith]

2. Intelligence implies malevolence

I don’t want advanced alien species to ever know we are here.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. Although neither of us are brilliant astrophysicists, we agree with Hawking

If extraterrestrials noticed human life on Earth, they would covertly observe us. Our decisions and activities would prove we are a danger to our species and others. The next decision intelligent, extraterrestrials would probably make might be good for other species on Earth, we a driving to extinction, but not for humans.

[Loki Liesmith]

15. Lol well I was almost an astrophysicist once

Decided I like neural networks better.

[Blue_true]

21. I am an engineer. Don't know whether I have the brain power to be an astrophysicist.

Plus, I make better chilli.

[Loki Liesmith]

32. Oh you'd be surprised

I’m basically an engineer these days too, I know plenty that are smarter than the astrophysicists I used to hang with.

But either way...my concern is, well we consider life forms like bacteria, fish, pigs to be raw materials. Why wouldn’t an intelligence beyond ours regard us the same way? What morals we have arise out of the fact that we are descended from social apes. An alien species...who knows what they’d consider moral?

[demosincebirth]

36. I took basic training with with a draftee who was a math genius. Didn't know which end of his M-1 to

shoot from - he also had a hard time, when marching, keeping in step. Poor guy, he went through hell.

[bluestarone]

3. RUMP will build a wall around the earth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Blue_true]

22. No.

That idiot would send our fighter jets up to face something 1 million time more advanced and really piss them off.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

44. After ETs observe US troops on the border with orders to use deadly force on refugees...

Maybe, after seeing his influence, they will abduct him as a hostage. Then, we could bargain with them and make the extraterrestrials pay us to allow him back onto Earth.

[Blue_true]

54. No way.

We should pay them to keep him, leave and drop him off at some desolate planet somewhere.

[FarPoint]

4. We must develop Warp Space Speed Technology..

When we can travel at Warp speed ....this will signal others in space ..Then we can have First Contact.

[Blue_true]

23. One reason why I am a deist instead of an agnostic or atheist.

Is the majesty that I see in nature and space. Even the closest planets to us would take technology many year past us for us to reach. That is truly amazing, it is as if we were made to feel that we are the only ones, but also given the power of reason to wonder what is out there and try to reach it.

[MarvinGardens]

33. Greetings fellow deist.

You're the 2nd I've encountered on DU. I was an athiest when younger. Not only the vast universe outside Earth, but also the microscopic world of quantum mechanics and biochemistry, has given me a reverence for reality that I describe as deism.

[Blue_true]

37. Deists appreciate reason. We were given inquisitive minds for a reason.

Deists appreciate that part of our existence. We will never know how we came about, but we have the capacity to keep learning more instead of clapping our minds shut.

[MarvinGardens]

39. Exactly.

Learning is what we are supposed to do, what we were made to do.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

45. As an agnostic, I contemplate Deistic ideas. For example, if we accept the Big Bang theory...

Last edited Thu Nov 22, 2018, 11:48 AM - Edit history (1)

What or who created the first astronomical phenomenon?

[Atticus]

5. How about we first attract intelligent life to the White House? nt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

12. LOL! If I had thought of your approach, I would have it in the OP!

[Blue_true]

24. We have had it, as recently as two plus years ago.

We have an alien from the frog people masquerading as a man.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

46. Please don't post replies that insult frog people by comparing them to Trump...

Are you trying to provoke an invasion - from outer space - of frog people?

[Blue_true]

55. Sorry, frog people are much too intelligent for that fool to figure them out.

My apologies.

[mainer]

6. No. No, no, no.

Think of every other previously uncontacted culture on earth that's been "discovered" by the larger world. Inevitably discovery is followed by disease, destruction, decimation.

This never ends well.

Let's stay our own little hidden part of the galaxy.

[Blue_true]

26. I believe that advanced aliens have visited and observed us.

We just have gotten luck that they simply observed and left.

Plus, how sure are you that supremely intelligent aliens are all malevolent. If they have religion maybe, religion has been used as the justification for most hatred, destruction and violence that has happened throughout history.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

43. I've observed museums in Roswell, NM. If extraterrestrials saw replicas of those alien autopsies...

It would probably alienate them. They might decide on a preemptive attack or just decide there is no intelligent life on Earth and leave.

[Blue_true]

53. Heck, if you want them to think there is no intelligent life here and leave.

Hope that they drop in on a Trump rally.

[MrScorpio]

8. Bad idea

Really bad idea

[roamer65]

57. ...and you are really, really right.

We need to shut up and lay low, IMO.

[ProudLib72]

9. tRump approved ET inviting light sign

Attracting the sleaze from all corners of the universe.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

17. I probably will mispell "Feringe" from Star Trek but they might be attracted to the display

[ProudLib72]

34. I'm quite ok with handing Rump over to the Borg

Though what they might be able to use him for is anyone's guess. Assimilating him would lead to their downfall.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

42. I watch reruns and recently discovered the Borg are too selective to want Trump...

They are only willing to assimilate life-forms with some degree of intelligence. Teflon Don doesn't meet Borg criteria.

[Marrah_Goodman]

10. Idiots think some benevolent travelers will come just to say hi.

If any group that technologically advanced comes here we are doomed as a species.

[Blue_true]

28. I tend to agree.

The probabilities are not good. My guess is we have been visited and got lucky. But luck runs out eventually.

[roamer65]

58. ..or we are under some sort of restricted access or quarantine.

That would explain why we have gone so long without appreciable visitation.

[MicaelS]

13. I think we are already under an interdict.

In other words, the "Zoo Hypothesis".

[Buns_of_Fire]

14. Better still, shoot Rump and his worshippers into space.

Then the intelligent life would know that we're at least TRYING to improve the herd, before they finally make contact and eat us all. With their choice of either Honey Mustard, Ranch, or Barbecue dipping sauces.

[Kaleva]

16. Could be the equivalent of deer firing off flares during hunting season.

[Liberal In Texas]

18. Possibly not a good idea.

Like the Hawking quote in the OP. The lesson of what happened to Native Americans should be clear enough.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

50. Your reply inspires a good OP for Thanksgiving Day, which is today

I'm going to do some research to get tribal names and dates of atrocities correct...

[jcgoldie]

19. What difference does it even make?

At the rate we're going we will have made this planet unlivable for humans before anyone ever gets here anyway. Attract the aliens, don't attract the aliens... we are going to wipe ourselves out regardless.

[Blue_true]

20. Count me out.

Any alien that is intelligent enough to reach us can fuck us up really bad if it choses to. I am a little too set in my ways to go through another Independence Day, the real one this time.

[TheBlackAdder]

25. A laser beam in space would be like a pin dropped in the Pacific Ocean.

[Blue_true]

30. Much, much less than that, but right idea.

Maybe if it was shot toward the closest starts, maybe. But the closes in something like 1.4 parsecs away, not a trivial distance.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

27. Im no Stephan Hawking so

when he spoke I usually deferred to him. Why look? It (ET), knows we're here already. To say otherwise is to deny evidence well documented on youtube alone, (not even starting on books and films) that the clues found on earth are all whimsey.

[Fix The Stupid]

47. Got some of those Youtube links? Thanks n/t

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

48. Not right off the cuff. Just a search away.

Happy Thanksgiving...from OUT THERE.

[klook]

29. Please send Klaatu.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

49. That's a great image from an early and significant Sci-fi movie

[MarvinGardens]

31. I agree with Hawking.

Bad idea to give away our presence here.

[Hoyt]

35. There's a good chance Aliens will stop us from breeding to protect their advanced

society. Or, maybe, they’ll just exterminate us. Worst of all, they might experiment with us.

I think we lay low.

[nycbos]

38. Kill all humans

[SweetieD]

40. It would be like dropping a grain of sand in the ocean and expecting someone to

Detect the wave from it. Just seems ridiculous and it worth the effort.

[hunter]

41. A person could have a lot of fun with a multi-megawatt space laser.

[Bayard]

51. They're not here, they're not coming

Don Henley

[marylandblue]

52. If this is such a good idea, why haven't we seen any alien lasers?