5 Ways Our Search For Alien Life Is Evolving.

The Sunset Of Radio Wave SETI

For more than 50 years, SETI has been listening to radio signals from space. In 1974, astronomer Frank Drake sent the first radio wave message, the "Arecibo Message," addressed to aliens in outer space. As far as we know, we have not received a response. Listening to NASA these days, you would think that the search for alien life is their priority. However, Drake complains that NASA is not funding the search. In fact, they can dismantle our two largest radio telescopes, the Arecibo telescope and the Green Bank telescope. If that happens, SETI will effectively turn off on the radio side. China has unveiled a complex radio telescope, though Drake isn't sure they can make the technology work properly. On the other hand, optical SETI, which scans for lasers, is getting stronger from a funding standpoint due to to private gifts. Unlike radio wave messages, optical messages depend on aliens pointing their narrow beams directly at us. "The signals are so strong that we only need a small telescope to receive them," Drake said. "Smaller telescopes can offer more observing time, and that's good because we have to look for a lot of stars to have a chance of success." Drake likes to think that if aliens are willing to attack us, they may be altruistic - not everyone shares his optimism. Experts are in a heated debate about whether we should send messages to outer space. Many scientists believe that we could endanger our safety if we contact aliens before we are advanced enough to protect ourselves. According to SETI's John Elliott, there are members of the SETI community who are already sending messages despite the controversy. For the record, Drake is against actively sending signals to aliens, a project called Active SETI. He prefers to simply listen to their signals.

Talking To Aliens 101

John Elliott of the UK SETI Research Network believes we should go beyond looking for alien signals and instead determine the difference between an alien language and random sounds. By studying more than 60 human languages, he found a common signature of rhythms and structures in each language. For example, we have content words and short function words (such as “if” and “but”) that bond phrases together. Regardless of the language, humans use nine content words at most in one phrase.

Some animal species, like dolphins, have the same language signature. Although we can’t speak dolphin language yet, we recognize about 140 distinct sounds in their speech. They always identify themselves by an individual name or call sign when they begin to communicate, limiting themselves to no more than five words per content chunk. Elliott believes that limit is consistent with their smaller brain size and ability to process information.

He’s developed a series of small computer programs, the Natural Language Learner, to analyze alien signals for the complexity and internal structure of language. However, he probably couldn’t decipher the content yet.

Communicating with intelligent animals on Earth may be a first step toward developing our ability to talk to aliens. We’ve taught dolphins hundreds of our words, the difference between questions and statements, concepts like “none,” and other syntax. As a first attempt to establish two-way, interactive communication between animals and humans, biologist Denise Herzing created a game where dolphins and humans could learn to talk to each other with a primitive, shared language. Female dolphins were more interested in talking than male dolphins. The female dolphins also invited dolphins from other species to join in.

We’ve also learned that wild Campbell’s monkeys add suffixes to certain sounds to warn others about different dangers. For example, “krak” signals that a leopard, their natural predator, is near. But “krak-oo” just generally warns of danger from a branch falling or other monkeys invaccing their territory. Diana monkeys also understand the calls from Campbell’s monkeys.

Another study found that adult chimpanzees from the Netherlands slowly changed their call for apples to match the local chimp language after they moved to a Scotland zoo and became friends with the local animals. However, it’s debatable whether it’s a change in accent or actually a second language that indicates bilingualism.

Party Like It’s AD 1015

The success of SETI depends on intelligent alien life using technology to send signals. While beings who use technology must be intelligent, the reverse isn’t necessarily correct. Again, we come back to dolphin intelligence. Dolphins don’t have the limbs to invent and use complex tools, but they’re intelligent. Other types of alien life may be like that. Is it the use of technology or the ability to communicate and socialize that defines intelligence?

Are we being too arrogant in believing we’re more intelligent than creatures like dolphins? As Carl Sagan pointed out, “While some dolphins are reported to have learned English—up to 50 words used in correct context—no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.” They don’t use technology to kill each other, either.

To prepare for alien contact, Laurance Doyle of SETI also intends to research communication between trees. They use chemicals to tell each other about pests and other threats. “Who knows? Brains might not be necessary,” he said.

In either of those two cases, we’d have to travel to where the aliens live instead of waiting for them to contact us.

But there’s an even simpler reason we may not hear from aliens in our lifetime, even if they’re just like us. When we use telescopes to view outer space, we don’t see things as they are today. We see the past. “We . . . see back in time because light takes time to get from there to here,” explained Jonathan Gardner of NASA. “So, as we look further and further away, it takes longer and longer for the light to get from where it’s emitted to here and we can actually see backward in time. And if we look far enough away, we’re actually looking back to when the universe was much younger than it is today, when the light was emitted from these galaxies.”

If aliens are looking at us through their telescopes, they would see us in the past, too. For example, aliens who live 1,000 light-years from us would see us in AD 1015. With radio amplifiers only invented in 1907, it may take at least another 900 years before aliens can pick up radio signals from Earth (if they’re even using that technolog).

The Social Scientists Weigh In

Usually, we look to the hard sciences—astronomy, computer science, engineering, physics—to lead the way to communicating with aliens in space. But Doug Vakoch, the SETI Institute’s Director of Interstellar Communication, has edited a free book called Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication that tackles the topic from the perspective of social scientists.

Every day, archaeologists and anthropologists try to unravel the secrets of ancient civilizations from mere fragments of information. We can never be sure if their interpretations are correct. Too often, we base our conclusions about past civilizations on the beliefs of our current cultures. But at least we have a common human ancestry. How will we go about deciphering messages from an alien culture about which we know nothing—aliens who may have different sensory organs than we do, causing them to interpret messages differently as well?

We also assume there will be one culture in alien civilizations. But, in fact, this may be the one common thread between humans and aliens. “We must face the fact that we could be dealing with a world fragmented into different cultural frameworks, much as our own is, and consisting of beings who may not respond to contact with us in a uniform way,” says John Traphagan in the book. “Technological advancement on Earth has not always been associated with increased political and social integration (think World Wars I and II) . . .  It seems reasonable to think that we will be dealing with beings shaped by common memories (among themselves) and who will share, but who will also debate and contest, ideas developed within the frameworks of those common memories and experiences about what to do with the fact of having contated humans.”

They’re pretty much saying we have no hope of deciphering an alien communication at this point or of responding in a coherent manner.

Heat Signatures

Using data from 100,000 galaxies observed by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, scientists looked for heat signatures that would suggest the existence of advanced alien civilizations. “Whether an advanced spacefaring civilization uses the large amounts of energy from its galaxy’s stars to power computers, spaceflight, communication, or something we can’t yet imagine, fundamental thermodynamics tells us that this energy must be radiated away as heat in the mid-infrared wavelengths,” said researcher Jason Wright of Pennsylvania State University. “This same basic physics causes your computer to radiate heat while it is turned on.”

Unfortunately, scientists didn’t find irrefutable evidence of an advanced civilization. It was an odd outcome considering that the galaxies have been around for billions of years. In that time, they should have become filled with aliens. The researchers concluded that either the aliens aren’t there or they simply aren’t advanced enough to show a heat signature.

Even so, the team found 50 galaxies with abnormally high mid-infrared radiation levels. They’ll need to do more studies to see if this heat is coming from the natural environment or if it’s an alien heat signature. Saludo