If Aliens Ever Discover Us........

[Zacs-Master]

Thought provoking:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/version_printable.pl?story_id=TheyMade.shtml

[jim360]

"Jim care to speculate on how your statement above: "In the first place, it's entirely possible for an alien culture to have discovered us" - may have happened?"

We have been trying to find other planets ourselves, but only in the last five or so years has the field of searching for other planets really taken off. If you accept that there's a possibility that there is an advanced alien culture out there, they might have been doing the same for rather a lot longer. Not to mention having more practice at the various techniques needed to identify signs of "non-natural life". Again, we can ourselves determine some details about the chemical composition of other planets and their atmosphere -- some advanced spectroscopic techniques are involved, I can't say I know the details -- and it would follow, too, that a sufficiently advanced alien could well be able to do the same or better, for longer.

Perhaps they'd never be able to determine beyond doubt that Earth was populated, but they might have a pretty good idea that something funny was going on. Depending on when they were looking, of course, from how far away, and so on.

The main point is though that it is possible for us to know something about planets hundreds of light years away or more, even without being able to go there. Follows that it could work just as well the other way round. Highly speculative, to be sure -- but it is true that "discovery" doesn't have to equate to physically coming here.

[Togo]

Perhaps 'we' were discovered years ago. Maybe 'they' choose to ignore us and block our attempts to communicate, being judged as the noisy neighbours.

[jim360]

Perhaps -- although I'm not sure why we'd be thought of at the noisy neighbours.

[Togo]

OK then jim. Nosey neighbours.

[jim360]

Even that seems odd -- there's not much chance of our signals being detected except by someone who was looking for them. In which case why would they want to hang up having just found that their search for alien life was successful?

[ToraToraTora]

signals have been leaking into space for little more than a century, so any leakage has barely got out of the garden gate in galactic terms.

[Zacs-Master]

Radio and tv signals become attenuated via the inverse square law as they travel I.e. They become weaker. I believe they've reached about 200 light years.

[Togo]

I am now off to bed. Reading anew To Kill A Mockingbird. As I dream I will ponder on the question 'Are We Alone'. I will let my mind stretch to the outer reaches of the cosmos and hopefully back again in time for the morning paper and a nice cup of tea.

[Zacs-Master]

LOL,,good luck and may Morpheus provide the answer Togo.

[ToraToraTora]

I too will retire and ponder, interesting discussion everyone.

[Zacs-Master]

Thanks TTT. Keep an open mind. It's a big universe out there.

[Old_Geezer]

Interesting site. Hadn't realised how long it's been since I last read fiction; let alone SciFi.