If we receive a signal from deep space, what do you think it is most likely to be?

[nhnifong]

This is a poll. What type of signal do you think is most likely? If my simplistic categories do not fit your idea, please feel free to share

Edit, poll is ready!

Edited February 22, 2014 by nhnifong

[luisair]

Well, what kind of signal do you mean? There a lot of non-artifical signals, from pulsars, supernovae, etc.

[sal_vager]

If other intelligent life develops anything like our own, I'd expect early radio signals, the alien equivalent of our own earliest broadcasts.

It'd be non-directional so excessively weak, their voices may or may not be distinguishable from their music, there's no way to even guess at that.

Edited February 22, 2014 by sal_vager
Missed a word

[nhnifong]

Well, what kind of signal do you mean? There a lot of non-artifical signals, from pulsars, supernovae, etc.

I mean just signals that appear to be from life forms.

[Mach_XXII]

Like the M82 radio signals.An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

[SargeRho]

Probably laser pulses, not radio waves, as radio waves from anything but giant radiotelescopes become too scattered after only a few lightyears.

And most likely we won't be able to make sense of it.

[ZedNova]

Probably our own signals bouncing off stuff in space.

[AlamoVampire]

Probably be something unintentional. Heck the chances are such signals came and went prior to our ability to look for them. There's every chance alien life is ahead of us evolutionarily speaking

[Rakaydos]

Not EVERY chance they are more advanced. If advanced civilizations need elements heavier than Iron to exist, and cannot form too close to the sterilizing radiation of the core, their suns would be about the same age (in stellar terms) as our own- new enough to form with the debries of the first supernovas, close enough to the core (where stars age faster) to get that material relatively quickly but far enough away for life to not be snuffed out by a nearby supernova.

[grawl]

Sending back a signal you received is a good way to tell "We've got it!" , don't you think?

It can come from the signal reflecting/refracting, but then I guess it would loose a lot of its power and almost disappear.

Or, and maybe the most probable option, we won't be able to tell what it means.

Some calls for help might as well be hidden in the mess of waves we receive when a cataclysmic event occurs in the universe.

Food for thought, isn't it ?

[nhnifong]

I really think the computer virus is the most likely. Sending real life forms across interstellar distances is basically impossible, so I would guess that life forms would attempt to travel in the form of information. They may also send programs that can be simulated and interacted with to act as representatives of their civilizations. Whatever the case, programs will be flying all over the galaxy encoded in light. If any of these programs are duplicators, they will eventually outnumber those that are not. Therefore I think that the vast majority of signals in the universe are viruses.

[Skyler4856]

Entertainment or civilian communication, of course that assumes the alien species communicates using light, and is advanced enough to communicate across interstellar distances

Edited February 22, 2014 by Skyler4856

[Brotoro]

I hope it's not: "Send more I Love Lucy."

I would hope aliens have better taste than that.

[Idobox]

If we ever receive anything, it's because they are trying to contact us, like what we're doing. We can't possibly pick up their radio chatter, it will quickly be masked by thermal noise.

So, if an alien species sends messages across gulfs of time and space, the first objective will be to establish a communication method, a language. There is no point in trying to threaten people, share scientific knowledge or ask philosophical questions if the recipient doesn't understand you.

Prime numbers or some other mathematic entities are good candidates, at least from our point of view, because they are fundamental. Of course, there is always the possibility that what we consider fundamental is gibberish to them, and vice versa, or that they have other opinions on what would be a nice starting step.

[Seret]

Depends if it's a signal intentionally sent to us or not. If it's intended for us the sensible thing to do is make it look as artificial as possible e.g. strong rf pulses in the water hole beating out the Fibonacci sequence. Kind of a knock on the door to tell us to build a big enough receiver to talk properly.

If it was an accidental broadcast it would probably be impossible to decode due to compression and such. You might see a strong signal, but would be unlikely to confirm it as artificial (like the "wow signal", for example).

Edited February 23, 2014 by Seret

[Monkeh]

Not EVERY chance they are more advanced. If advanced civilizations need elements heavier than Iron to exist, and cannot form too close to the sterilizing radiation of the core, their suns would be about the same age (in stellar terms) as our own- new enough to form with the debries of the first supernovas, close enough to the core (where stars age faster) to get that material relatively quickly but far enough away for life to not be snuffed out by a nearby supernova.

Humans have come pretty far in a few thousand years, from caves to the moon. Now think how far we've come in a hundred or so. From 'wireless' radios to wireless internet. Any alien civilisation probably wouldn't need any huge gulfs of time to be vastly superior to us in technology, hell, well be hugely ahead of us now in another hundred years or so, we don't need to consider time scales of main sequence stars to see vast differences in tech level.

Unintelligible nonsense for me, aliens will be...alien. We'll be very confused about each other for generations if we ever meet.

[Seret]

Unintelligible nonsense for me, aliens will be...alien. We'll be very confused about each other for generations if we ever meet.

Beyond a certain point yes. We would have some knowledge in common (such as the mathematics and technology required to build the communications system, the laws of physics are the same for everyone, after all). So it would be easy to establish that we were communicating with another technological civilisation, but it would be baby steps beyond that. Given the comms delay I suspect learning about our new friends would be a multi-generational pursuit.

[Palladium Corp]

It may just be something accidental like a radar beam. Since we started using radar, some of the radio waves have leaked into space, so it is entirely possible that the same would happen elsewhere.

[Nuke]

hitler [/godwin's law]

*note that this is a contact reference

[Seret]

hitler [/godwin's law]

*note that this is a contact reference

I actually think it's pretty unlikely that they'd pick up our radio chatter. It falls off pretty quickly out there, it's more likely IMO that they'd spot us through something like spectroscopy of our atmosphere than our radio transmissions. They probably wouldn't even be looking for it, we emit far less than we use to as it's much more efficient to use low power directional transmissions or cables than massive omnidirectional radio broadcasts. There may well be a very brief window in which civilisations spew radio noise into the cosmos.

[Nuke]

well its a historical fact that the nazis pulled all kinds of propaganda stunts prior to ww2. one of which was a very high power tv broadcast (i believe this was when they hosted the olympics) that was bounced off of the ionosphere so that it would have very long range. the side effect of that transmission was that most of the radiation flew off into space. such powerful broadcasts mostly ceased by the 60s once we started putting up communications satellites and better electronics meant that lower power transmissions could do the same job. the german broadcast was certainly up there with the some highest powered transmissions into space (carl sagan's message on the arecibo radio telescope is probibly also on that list, though that was a more focused beam transmission and more likely to get through provided you were in the beam).

Edited February 23, 2014 by Nuke

[falofonos]

"People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system. And regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you."

[Brotoro]

Assuming things like faster than light travel and communications are outlawed by Physics, I expect that we'd most likely be found by a civilization doing a (very) long-term systematic search of the whole galaxy. Our radio/TV/radar transmissions may not be easily detected from more than a hundred light years away, but if this alien civilization spends a hundred thousand years sending out millions of probes (big ones, capable of receiving our transmissions at 50 light years) or billions of probes (small ones that could detect out signals from a few light years away), then the disk of our Galaxy could be littered with such probes by now.

But if such a probe does pick up our signals, it would have to phone home. And then it would be a long time before we'd get a reply. So I don't expect we'd really get a signal, as young as we are.

Then again, if an alien civilization is going to take the long, slow approach, they may well have located the earth long ago and tagged it as a place with life, and therefore a place to watch closely. And if they spot us soon enough, there could already be a probe in place at very short range to contact as soon as some triggering conditions have been met.

But a civilization that thinks long-term like that is quite possibly a machine intelligence. And the lack of FTL travel means they wouldn't have anything to fear from us, so I doubt they are going to threaten us.

So assuming they aren't just going to simply observe and catalog us to satisfy their own curiosity, and assuming they actually want to contact us and tell us something, I expect we'd get a transmission from very short range. Probably a Primer for Galactic Newbies with helpful hints about banging the rocks together and How Not To Kill Your Civilization in Ten Centuries.

[Lucky90]

If they are anything like us, they will send a message with good intention at first, but will then turn dip **** crazy and invade us for a reason the will rationalize afterward.

[Kilmeister]

"Diese hitler Kerl scheint wie ein echter schwein."

...followed a few years later by "Send more I love Lucy".