I see there’s now a Wikipedia page for BLC-1, the intriguing SETI detection made by Breakthrough Listen at the Parkes Observatory in Australia. The dataset in which the signal, found at 982 MHz, turned up comes from observations made in April and May of 2019, and it’s good to know that Breakthrough is working up two papers on the signal and subsequent analysis, given that the public face of the detection was originally in the form of a story leaked to the British newspaper The Guardian before the backup research was available.
Image: CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. Credit: Shaun Amy.
The first thing to say about BLC-1 is that the acronym stands for Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, marking the first time a signal has made it through to actual ‘candidate’ status after five years of observations, which is itself noteworthy given the intensity of the effort.
The second thing is that this is a transient, meaning it’s short-lived, and it hasn’t repeated. That gets us into tricky territory, for the SETI effort has detected numerous transients over the years, and the lack of repetition has made confirmation of their origin difficult if not impossible. The most famous is the Wow! signal detected at Ohio State in 1977, a signal that continues to inspire research, as we’re about to see in a new paper that considers some of its more unusual aspects. But more on that within a few weeks.
The BLC-1 transient may or may not be from Proxima Centauri, which is the reason for the question mark in the title. I say that because we can’t yet rule out terrestrial interference of some kind. But there are transients and there are transients, and this one does raise the eyebrows. Back in April of last year, Breakthrough was working with the Parkes instrument to study the flare activity at Proxima Centauri, a significant issue as we consider questions of habitability on planets around red dwarf stars because flares can compromise a planetary atmosphere.
The detection of BLC-1 within the Proxima data is credited to Shane Smith, an undergraduate at Hillsdale College (Michigan) working as an intern within the Breakthrough Listen project. Smith’s claim to fame should be air-tight if BLC-1 turns out to be the real deal.
We do know that the signal is narrow in bandwidth and vanished when the instrument looked away from Proxima Centauri. It contains no sign of modulation. The signal also showed some drift in frequency, which would be consistent with a source in motion; i.e., a planet orbiting a star. The intriguing habitable zone planet Proxima b has commanded attention as being an Earth-mass planet around the nearest star, and is often mentioned as a possible target for Breakthrough Starshot probes. But even the matter of drift is unusual, as Lee Billings and Jonathan O’Callaghan point out in an article in which they interviewed Breakthrough’s Sofia Sheikh (Penn State):
…the signal “drifts,” meaning that it appears to be changing very slightly in frequency—an effect that could be due to the motion of our planet, or of a moving extraterrestrial source such as a transmitter on the surface of one of Proxima Centauri’s worlds. But the drift is the reverse of what one would naively expect for a signal originating from a world twirling around our sun’s nearest neighboring star. “We would expect the signal to be going down in frequency like a trombone,” Sheikh says. “What we see instead is like a slide whistle—the frequency goes up.”
We’ve come a long way since November of 1967, when Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered PSR B1919+21, the first radio pulsar, which was jokingly named LGM-1 (Little Green Men 1) by its discoverers. And why not? The signal seemed tight and remarkably regular.
While SETI has become far more visible since those days, we’ve seen how nature can mimic technology, but we’ve also learned that RFI – radio frequency interference – ranging from nearby transmitters to malfunctioning electronics, can get into the mix. Parkes had its ‘peryton’ bursts not so long ago, but they were traced back to problems with a nearby microwave oven.
A note on Y Combinator Hacker News last night (thanks for the tip, Steven Ward) points out that 982.000 MHz, for example, is also the wavelength of the Intel Stratix 10 FPGA, a field programmable gate array used for prototyping application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Several other hardware components listed there are also operating at this wavelength, a fact that Breakthrough’s analysts will doubtless be taking into account as they go through all the options for pinning this detection to terrestrial sources of RFI.
So we come back to the issue of transients and repetition. Thus far Breakthrough has subjected the BLC-1 signal to exhaustive analysis and no RFI has yet been identified. The work continues, valuable in and of itself because if this signal does turn out to be RFI, it will provide a way to fine-tune the existing Breakthrough algorithms to filter out such signals in the future.
And if we can’t find a plausible source of RFI? That would be interesting, to say the least, and we may be left with something like the Wow! signal, an intriguing but non-repeating source. I think we can say this: If it actually turns out that BLC-1 is the signature of an alien civilization, then we’ll be tempted to throw out the Fermi paradox (‘where are they?’), but also re-calibrate all our thinking about civilizations in the galaxy. After all, wouldn’t finding one around the star closest to the Sun imply we’re going to find them in great numbers almost wherever we look?
Maybe not. Who is it who said ‘the thing about aliens is that they’re alien?’ Meanwhile, we keep an eye on Proxima Centauri to see if this thing repeats.
How convenient.
A seemingly artificial signal JUST HAPPENS to be coming from the direction of the nearest star to Earth. Its this particular signal characteristic that suggests to me this is a hoax. An honest mistake, misidentification, or even a real ET signal could have originated anywhere on the celestial sphere. Having it come from this precise spot is just stretching coincidence too much. And having it happened just when Proxima was being scrutinized only clinches it for me.
Of course, it might be that this is the most reasonable place for the Galactic Empire’s monitoring station that keeps tabs on us to be placed, and the radio signal was an accidental burst that we just happened to pick up because we were listening that day but….
No, its just asking too much. I really hope I’m wrong, but for the time being, I’ll call ‘bogus’ on this one. I’ll go back and study some of the links referenced in the article and see if they have addressed any of these issue. But for the time being, I don’t believe a word of it.
Henry, I too doth smelleth some serious funkatatiousness…drumroll please…
And the award for confirmation bias goes to BLC-1!
Not to mention BLC1 happened just in time to help raising funds for an Arecibo replacement…
The data on which the detection is based were taken well before Arecibo’s cable problems started.
Convenient timing to bring it to publics attention though
Do take into consideration that confirmation bias is a two-way street. The best way to combat confirmation bias is to pointedly try to find evidence which disconfirms the hypothesis. They are engaged in doing that. You will hopefully also do so.
I don’t think this site is the place for this kind of conspiracy nonsense.
Arecibo couldn’t help with this observation because, although it’s at the right latitude it is a fixed dish and thus it’s observation “track” doesn’t cross the path of the Alpha Centauri system.
You mean telefunkenatiousness, no?
That’s not the best logic. A signal can come from any place on the celestial sphere, but it is more likely to come from a place where there is a known, nearby object capable of emitting one. It would be like someone looking at Jupiter and your being incredulous that they detected some radiation emitting from Jupiter, rather than Pluto or some place where there is no planet at all.
That said, this emission as described does not seem to be so spectacular that we should be going all E.T. over it. There is a star and a planet there and anything can happen naturally.
I would think, give the inverse square law, that nearby sources should be more plentiful and identifiable than distant ones. Thus, to me, it makes sense to prioritize nearby stars.
Maybe not more plentiful due to the cubic relation of distance to volume, but certainly easier to detect. It could be that this emission is sometimes found in all stars of that class but Proxima is the only one we are ever going to see, in which case we will never know if it is unique or exceptional, or routine and completely natural.
It seems to me that all observations require that scrutiny and the arrival of observable data coincide. The probability we saw something when we were looking is 1.
I am not sure if my argument is an example of degrees of freedom — you had to be looking in the right place to have an observation at all — or an illustration of quantum mechanics observer effect, neither, or both.
When Mt St Helens erupted, there was a very low probability that I was going to hear a volcanic eruption that day. The same is true for the millions of other people who ended up hearing it. I don’t think the probability that any, or all of us, might have observed it affected our observations.
Whereas I completely accept your argument that this is an improbable occurrence overall, the inclusion of the observational probability rubs me the wrong way. I would appreciate any insights from any observers.
Why would you assume nefarious intent or a hoax first, as opposed to RFI? In all likelihood this is an RFI. If it turns out to be alien, I’d wager it’s a communication network in our region of the galaxy we accidentally picked up. Wouldn’t necessarily (or even not likely) be directed at us, the owners of this communication beacon, if you will, would be further away than proxima.
Well of course it happened when we were scrutinizing Proxima Centauri, if it had happened at someother time we would have missed it. It could be that hundres of these signals reach Earth every day, but we miss them because we aren’t looking in the right direction, at the right time, with instruments sensitive enough to receive them. It also possible (likely even) that we constantly miss such signals from more distant stars because even if we are looking in the right direction at the right time, they are coming from so far away that we don’t have equipment sensitive enough to detect them.
I’m not sayin this comes from ‘aliens’, I’m just saying that (assuming it does originate from Proxima Centauri) the fact that something rare happened during one of the millions of times we were looking at the stars doesn’t automatically make it a hoax.
By your logic we all must be a giant hoax. I mean, what are the chances that humans would evolve on our little planet while we just happened to be around to witness it?
I don’t know how much precision is really on that 982.000MHz number, but if it is as indicated, isn’t this highly likely to be a human generated signal? There’s no reason for a natural or alien source to use a integer number of MHz.
The coincidence is even worse than that. ET won’t be using SI and the unit for frequency is seconds^-1 (per second). However I have to note that the signal is reportedly not a constant frequency so the coincidence may not be so strong. Need…more…data.
Yeah, this is a US military frequency – end of story.
I got that only partially right, though I did think of aviation.
It is one aeronautical mobile channel for radionavigation.
In related news: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.06090
Maybe aliens want to let us know, we know where you are, we know how you measure time and we know you have 10 fingers?
I really like this comment, a great thought
You’re right that it’s almost certainly RFI and that the near integer frequency of it is another clue of that. But for what it’s worth I believe the signal was actually at 982.002MHz (with some drift) – a difference of 2000Hz (in other words, not the kind of error you’d likely see in chip manufacturing or the like … But it could still be shifted by reflection/refraction or additional interference).
I don’t know that actual accuracy of the measurement, but there is nothing amazing about 3 zeros in a row or any other set of three numbers. I don’t see a reason to assume the “integer” nature of it is anything but human pattern finding.
Even if we know of a human source of 982MHz , is it likely to think we would measure it to that level of accuracy from both the measurement device and the source on a consistent basis without noise? I wouldn’t assume that out of the gate.
While I subscribe to the RFI theory, the 982.000 MHz frequency is likely a human measurement artifact. The spectrum was likely calculated using a variant of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm. The 928.000 MHz, is just the frequency bin that the peak of the signal happened to fall into.
What are the odds that quartz crystals of this very specific frequency do exist and are commercially available on the cheap from eBay?
QUARTZ CRISTAL
Frequency Range 982.000MHZ MBM
RoHS Compliant : nc
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1pcs-QUARTZ-CRISTAL-982-000MHZ-MBM-/373085743565
It’s 2020, not 1920. You can buy DDS chips for pennies that operate well into the GHz range.
As someone said of this signal – what are the odds of an extant civilization at the star next door? This would certainly imply that there must be a lot more in the galaxy, and if so, wouldn’t we be seeing such transients frequently?
I’ll wager a modest sum for charity this will prove an RFI event.
I think RFI is the general consensus at this point – but where would you stand if RFI was ruled out? Would you then favour an as-yet unexplained natural source (e.g. CME interacting with planetary ionosphere) or an ETI?
How do you propose to rule out RFI? That can only be done by actually identifying the source!
I would call it an UNIDENTIFIED RADIO EVENT (URE).
Let me explain why.
1. In this particular case one cannot rule out an RFI. There are far too many possible sources. The cause can easily be missed.
2. I agree with others that this is unlikely a natural emission as the signal is very narrowband, which tends not to be what one sees in nature.
3. I loathe the logic of “if it isn’t A, it must be B” mentality. It reminds me of the Creationists who think they have invalidated evolution, and then assume that the only possible explanation must be The Bible’s explanation in Genesis.
I remind myself of Sagan’s “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. I’ll add Feynman’s “You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”.
To make any sort of claim about an ETI signal requires more than just trying to rule out other explanations. It requires positive evidence. This is going to be difficult, but it must be done. I will have more to say about Wright’s blogpost in another comment.
In the meantime, I will stay with URE.
Could just be the closest stargate or teleport thingy
Radio signals are an excessive poor method of communicating between stars. It’s entirely possible that many, or even most, stars systems have inteligent civilizations are we are just late to the party. Perhaps all of the other civilizations have discovered a better way to comunicate that we simply haven’t discovered yet.
We can’t rule out other inteligent life just because it doesn’t happen to comunicate using the (relatively) short range communication method that we prefer.
The closeness would be a big win if it turned out to actually be alien. Proxima is close enough that we could “ping” it with a radio signal, and maybe get a response back inside of a decade (if they respond).
Brett the ‘Ping’ signal I recon will turn out to be another MDS, microwave done signal.
(I agree with previous comments, but if it’s not RFI…)
In some meaning, it would be the opposite, because it means that space is crowded and we have nowhere to go…
It sounds like a very interesting candidate. Any idea when the two papers will be published? (I’d love to read the discoverers’ detailed analysis on it.)
I have to say that the frequency (since it’s a close match to some known microprocessors) does cast doubt on this detection as the real deal. However, that doesn’t seem a satisfying explanation for the signal’s apparent drift, or the fact that it’s amplitude drops when the dish was moved off-target. I feel like we’re missing some key info to draw any definitive conclusions at this point though — the ultimate of which, would be a second detection from a separate receiver. Oh well, until then it’s certainly fun to speculate — and to see how much info we can eek out of the data that we currently have.
BTW (mostly) unrelated — I might be out of the loop here, Paul, but I don’t think I’ve seen an article on your site yet regarding this recent/interesting paper: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149 I would love to hear your analysis on it — because it also speaks to the prevalence of ETI in the universe, which would make an authentic signal originating from Proxima seem all the more amazing.
This is the first mention I’ve seen of the Snyder-Beattie paper, so thanks for the pointer, Scott. As to the two upcoming papers, I believe Breakthrough is talking about publication in January.
Here is another recent paper (Cai, Jiang, Fahy & Yung) on a related topic. This paper puts no specific estimate on the number of ETIs in our galaxy but instead provides some statistical constraints on its location in time and space. The authors suggest ETIs will be most abundant at 4 kpc from the galactic centre and at time 8 Gyr.
At our current point in time, most ETIs will be younger than 0.5 Gyr.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.07902.pdf
I read the article you linked. I would really love to see how other professionals in the field, or even philosophers/logicians, respond to arguments like this, which I find totally baffling: since there are so many more planets around red dwarf stars than around G-type stars, and since they keep stable orbits for much longer, the fact that we find ourselves on a planet around a G-type star instead of around a red dwarf lets us conclude that there is some factor reducing the habitability of planets around red dwarfs by a factor of at least 10,000 compared to the habitability of planets around G-type stars. (It’s in Section 6.2.)
I understand Bayes, and I understand the anthropic principle, but this still seems like an impossible argument to make.
Thank you very much for the link ScottG, I have a hunch that will be considered a seminal paper.
When I studied the “WOW!” signal, one of the possibilities I investigated was that it might be a hoax. In my thought experiment, I considered the possibilities and the evidence. In the 1970s, the ability to generate a 21 cm signal (the frequency detected) was not available to the average electronics hobbyist or student prankster. It would also require some knowledge of astronomy and the Ohio State facility to know the cosmic significance of that wavelength, and that the radio telescope was tuned to it that day.
The somewhat ambiguous coordinates of the apparent source of the signal were located in the southern milky way, an area crowded with many faint stars, but no particularly interesting SETI candidates or otherwise notable deep sky objects. A busy field, to be sure, but no different from any other part of the milky way. A close look at star charts, catalogues and POSS plates for the region showed no potential suspects. By itself this means nothing, but if some anomalous or interesting stellar or non-stellar object appeared there it would have certainly raised an eyebrow.
I rejected the possibility of a hoax because if I had been the prankster, I would have waited till the telescope was pointing in some interesting direction. I also eliminated the observatory staff as possible culprits, who would risk their career and reputation by pulling off a fraud like that? If it was a hoax, my guess was it would have to be some anonymous astronomy or EE student with the necessary knowledge of the astronomy, the telescope and its observing program, capability and schedule., as well as access to equipment capable of operating at those frequencies.
The Australian paraboloid is capable of pointing very precisely, and the fact this signal was received from Proxima strikes me as particularly suspicious, as I indicated in my earlier post. To generate this faux observation it would have only been necessary to transmit the signal while the dish was pointed in the right direction. The fake transmission, however, would not have to come from Far Centaurus. These telescopes are so sensitive it could easily have originated from the trunk of a car in the parking lot. The observed frequency, as the article indicates, was one in common use today in some other applications.
Most likely, this observation is probably totally accidental, not a first contact scenario, but the fact it was detected precisely when the telescope was pointed at Proxima strikes me as highly suspicious.
I also speculated about the hoax scenario, Henry, but dismissed it because a prankster would be unlikely to let the stunt just languish in the data for over a year without goosing it up with another spurious signal to try to get attention. RFI seems far more likely than a hoax, but I think it’s wise to consider all these alternatives.
A signal from Alpha Centauri doesn’t predict space faring people are common. It predicts they have reach, not that they’ve colonized the galaxy or emerge frequently. If space faring people were common, we would expect to see similar signals from many systems. If this is an artificial signal then it is most likely intended for us.
I remember back in the late 80’s when starting to follow astronomy . . . many astronomers did not even believe in exoplanets . . it was just a theory . . . they were supposed to be quite rare. Then nearly 30 years later we have literally thousands of them confirmed . . even around very old stars and in between stars. . . in all different types of orbits and no moons even discussed yet. My thinking is the Galaxy is teeming with intelligent life and we are being watched. This could possibly be a beacon to see if we are aware or it could be just another RFI . . . who knows. If there is intelligent life they have been watching our solar system for a very long time. We may not be ready for a meet and greet just yet but are getting closer. They have to know we can see planets now if they are out there. It has only been about 30 years. Maybe this is the right time to say hello? So much fun to speculate
Yes, they most probably look at us as a filthy apes to deadly to make direct contact – Covid-19 and all the other contagious diseases..
What has me intrigued is the frequency is on a air NAVAID frequency, just what you would expect if they have already visited us.
Never mind Proxima Centauri. What about the Sun-like stars Alpha Centauri A and B? To me, these two stars despite their proximity to each other, would make a far more likely candidate for Earth-like planets. Proxima-B will reveal the signal’s ability from artificial origins or not eventually. Far more research should be done on Alpha A and B.
I do believe there is a distinct possibility this could be the real deal, although I think RFI is just as likely. However, many of the features of this signal at least make me curious and make it fun to speculate. The drift of the signal combined with the strange almost integer multiple of Mhz are particularly strange. I agree that if this is the real deal, it’s a beacon aimed directly at us.
Many of these comments point to the proximity of the apparent signal as ‘too far fetched’ I.e the improbability of 2 technological civilizations living next to or another- especially in the context of the Fermi paradox. 1) there could be a distributed network of relatively low powered transmitters 2) if life is truly rare, then it’s more likely a relic or outpost from a previous technological civilisation which arose within our own system.
As a hint, the part with the trombone and the slide whistle is a bit frustrating. Do they mean that Proxima b is expected to be moving one way and this source is moving the other? If there were another undetected planet in the system on the other side of the star I assume the direction would be correct. If we saw the frequencies, we could start talking about planets, moons, and starships accelerating in our direction.
The coincidence of a source near Proxima wouldn’t be a coincidence if it is in some way a response to us from a widespread organization – a burglar alarm to announce our presence, a fire alarm to call their people home from danger, a landing beacon, a modem carrier tone, a foghorn, a laser gunsight, a knock on the door, an arming signal to be followed by the code that sets off the bomb.
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” — Mark Twain
When I first read the part about the signal going up (opposite of what would be expected) the idea of a moon popped into my head. But without having any data, that’s as pure conjecture as I can get.
If this actually is originating from the Proxima region, I’m inclined to think this is a natural occurrence due to this happening during heavy flare activity. Certainly weird due to the very narrowband quality of 892.002 MHz but who knows? We don’t get solar flares like this, we don’t have planets like Proxima B (i.e. so close to the sun) so this could be a common occurance that we only are seeing becuase it happened on a red dwarf so close to us and we’re missing ’em all from Barnard’s, etc. But again, conjecture because there’s no data on the strength, etc. Damn you Guardian for leaving us wondering while we wait for the papers to be published!
As a trombonist, that comparison drove me crazy. It said ““We would expect the signal to be going down in frequency like a trombone,” Sheikh says. “What we see instead is like a slide whistle—the frequency goes up.”” Do they honestly think that trombone music goes down in frequency more than it goes up? That slide travels both ways! And the same goes for a slide whistle, of course.
This is great! We already have a resident jazz saxophonist (though he hasn’t checked in in a while), so it’s good to know we can add a trombonist. The combination makes me think of Wilton Felder (sax) and Wayne Henderson, the wonderful trombonist of the Jazz Crusaders (excuse the jazz reverie, but it was irresistible!)
Now we need only recruit Dr Brian May, PhD astrophysicist and lead guitarist for supergroup Queen, and we’ll have a band!
Hey, kids! Why don’t we put on a show?
Ha! Brian May would be ideal, wouldn’t he? Really knows his stuff, and what nimble fingers!
I am a trombonist and Queen fan, so wholeheartedly endorse this idea.
In that case, the idea has critical mass!
Let me guess…”Mark Twain never actually said that”
As exciting as this may be… it’s almost certainly RFI.
Parkes (or their breakroom microwave oven…) was the source of the mysterious Peryton signals, so extra skepticism is warranted/required.
First of all, the telescope might be pointing in the direction of P-Centauri but the telescope is sensitive to 100s of thousands of background stars in the main beam (see our recent paper in MNRAS about how this can be used, together with Gaia to put better constraints on SETI stats.). What this observation shows is that for one-off transients, you desperately need to use interferometers with long baselines – these would pinpoint the location on mas scales.
Yes, at that frequency the beam is about 1/3 of a degree which covers a lot of stars since Prox Cen is in the galactic plane.
Another advantage of interferometers is that interference becomes much less of an issue. Interferometers combines the signals from the antennas, so interference near one antenna may well not be an issue with another miles away. That means the interference won’t show up when the two signals are combined in the process called correlation.
Has there been any mention of whether the signal is polarized ?
Radio waves can become polarized if they get reflected by metal so any polarization would hint at interference that came from one direction and reflected onto the antenna dish. The legs on the Parkes dish which supports the structure where the radio waves come into focus was known doing this.
Astrophysicist, professor Jason Wright of Penn State university and supervisor to one of the doctoral candidates working on the BLC-1, disagrees with the argument that it’s far-fetched to find ETI on the closest star to us. For example; given the age of the galaxy and with even current chemical rocket velocities it should be possible for an ETI to have visited every star in the galaxy. It could also be a signal relay of some sort etc.
Anyway, he’s written a brilliant summary of his thoughts on BLC-1 here:
https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/12/20/blc1-a-candidate-signal-around-proxima/
TL;DR A galactic civilization has a “cell tower” on Proxima that pinged at (or past us). I found Wright’s logic somewhat tortuous in order to come up with a logical reason why we should expect any signaling to come from the Alpha Centauri system. At least he recognizes that the most likely source is RFI.
What do you find tortuous? I’m not looking for an argument favoring an ETI source over RFI or other natural source. RFI is the most likely source.
Wright’s premise has fewer moving parts than an explanation that relies on colonization or abiogenesis to put an actively transmitting civilization at P-Centauri. An intentional signal wouldn’t pose the question of where are all the other similar signals. His premise has steps and assumptions but far fewer than the premise many are immediately jumping to, that a close signal predicts a galaxy crowded with civilizations like our own.
With a nearby beacon, the transmitting people won’t reveal any sensitive locations. They would display the power imbalance without having to threaten. One of the most important and difficult messages they would need to tell is that the galaxy is not ours. Make the signal challenging to detect and you have removed any ethical dilemma over the consent of the young people.
I don’t believe Jason Wright is advocating for an ETI on P Cenauri, he is just providing some balance to the knee-jerk argument that it’s highly implausible simply because it’s the closest star. To be clear, he has stated from the outset that he believes RFI is the most likely source of the signal.
I have to say, I am a self-confessed Professor Wright fan, he is one of the most interesting scientists working today and has worked hard to remove the stigma historically associated with SETI research and transform it into a mainstream academic discipline.
Here’s another interesting interview with him on the BLC-1 signal: https://youtu.be/-OO7JZ14sZM
I was hoping my post said the same thing. Wright clearly isn’t advocating for an ETI source.
What he offers is important. No offense intended to anyone jumping to the most implausible scenario, but using the most implausible scenario as counter evidence is a logical fallacy for a reason. Interestingly, I think some of the issues we see in SETI and METI arise from the effort to make either more scientific. The idea that a signal could come from anywhere, while true, also treats people like natural phenomenon bound by hard rules, as the product of hard science. SETI and METI are soft sciences.
A signal could come from anywhere. However, if we assume distinct motivations for signaling, it is impossible for every location to be optimal for any motivation. Given time we should expect optimally placed beacons. We shouldn’t be surprised to find beacons close to us.
I find Wright’s post rather disingenuous. It is like the politician’s: “I’m just asking a question”, and “Just sayin'”. I am not sure I had even heard of Jason Wright before the Tabby’s Star Affair. He seemed to me to push quite hard that natural explanations for the anomalous dimming couldn’t account for the observations and therefore the techno-signature of perhaps a Dyson swarm was [perhaps] a better explanation. This clearly fails Sagan’s ECREE. Wright must live in a small ivory tower if he really believes that there are knee-jerk explanations of how ETI should be situation in the galaxy and that these need some pushback. He needs to get out more.
Wright is hardly unique in this regard. His forerunner was Fred Hoyle in his later years, and continued with his collaborator Chandra Wickramasinghe who continues to put forward unsubstantiated claims of “life from space”. The current exemplar is Avi Loeb at Harvard. He continues to push the idea that ‘Oumuamua is possibly an alien sailcraft probe, as the “best” explanation of the observations.
It is fun to speculate (as we all tend to do) about aliens, but there comes a point when that speculation becomes attention-seeking. While I have a lot of admiration for Carl Sagan, especially his public-facing work, I do understand why he was somewhat resented by his peers. I don’t believe is was about envy (at least in most cases), but rather that he was straying well outside how science should be done. I think Arthur C Clarke managed to keep hard science and fiction well separated when he wrote his books. It was only in his last years that he succumbed to crossing that separation [I was at the NASA sponsored event when he claimed that features on Mars were fossil trees.]
To return to your specific point:
I disagree. There are more steps in his logic than the simplest – that there are many galactic civilizations and they all may be transmitting, rather than using a single network with a local transmission point that may, or may not, be transmitting to us. The corollary, if he is correct, then SETI should abandon its premises and assumptions and turn their receivers to Proxima and leave them pointing there.
Is there some reason you are trying to tie yourself in knots just in an effort to discredit his reputation. As it says more about you than him.
This is a rare form for you Alex. Thankfully.
Your approach to the difference in complexity makes little sense if we use complexity to mean “many parts”. Your premise needs more civilizations, more people, more ships, more of everything.
This comment does you no favors. Wright shot down an argument against an ETI source based on location and you seem to be taking it personally. The premise he shot down is based on the paradox caused by complexity, that a nearby location implies too many alien parts!
The idea that his or my premise is wrong because it changes the stale SETI paradox is certainly an approach.
Wright is criticizing Lewis Dartnell (an astrobiologist and professor of science communication at the University of Westminster.). He says that Dartnell is assuming that there are few other civilizations that do not spread out very much.
:
Wright:
Wright sets up his argument which is accepting of Dartnell’s premise as logic step 1:
But even if it’s true that interstellar travel of creatures is rare and Parnell is right that it’s therefore unlikely that Proxima is inhabited, there is still a good argument to be made that Proxima is the most likely star to send us signals—perhaps even the only such star!
Wright then adds more logical steps as he now adds that these civilizations instead of being independent have set up a “galactic club”:
Wright then assumes that the network must be like our internet:
Wright finally assumes that these civilizations want to talk to Earth, so that the closest star becomes the “last mile” of the network:
But it gets worse. Now Wright has a theory of alien mind:
This looks like a lot more logical steps than just assuming that the Drake equation allows for extant civilizations, that they must be rare enough to not obviously violate the Fermi Paradox which is far simpler than Wright’s explanation that requires a lot more assumptions than Dartnell’s.
Here is why I find Wright disingenuous:
(emphasis mine).
He just demolishes his whole argument as playing with logic blocks. So why raise this argument at all? Just to discredit Dartnell’s opinion quoted in The Guardian?
He could have written his blog as a quick examination of the leaked BLC-1 information. There was no need to try to create a story that supports a signal emanating from Proxima (which, BTW, makes no sense if the signal was really aimed elsewhere as the “last mile” would be starting from a star close to the receiving civilization or router node). But instead, he constructed a logic chain that is far more complex than Dartnell’s despite his claim of simplicity and uses it to justify a signal from Proxima (even though he then says that this argument is child’s play.)
In summary, I find Dartnell’s argument simpler and therefore his argument stronger, whether he is correct or not.
We are loosely using Occam’s Razor and in general it isn’t as sharp as popular culture would assume. Comparing complexity is useful but doesn’t deliver hard evidence.
I don’t agree with your choice of components. I would even go further and claim your claim depends on ignoring components.
Our first component for each premise would be the decision to build a beacon.
The rest of our components include every part of each beacon. This blog is filled with articles describing how ineffective home world beacon searches can be compared to remote beacons or probes.
Your recent article where you claim all technological people converge on machine embodied intelligence challenges the premise that home world beacons are the simplest or most probable more than Wright’s blog. It would easy to find comments from you describing how remote probes are more cost effective, simpler even.
To back up your argument, concretize it by constructing a version where the complexity of Wright’s argument is lower than Dartnell’s. Or perhaps a version that is more complex, but the probability of the result is clearly much higher than Dartnell’s.
That way we have something specific to discuss rather than generalities.
I just did. Dartnell’s approach looks less complex because it uses less words but just as many parts. It reduces a hugely complex project, getting another people’s attention across vast expanses of time and space.
Premise word count isn’t a measure of complexity.
Paul Gilster, please forgive the multiple posts.
Alex Tolley, Wright’s proposition doesn’t require the intent to make contact. The structure he proposes could be motivated by general exploration. It would be built to serve a wide range of the builder’s needs.
Even if the material complexity of a home world beacon and a network of probes is similar, the network is still more likely to be built. It does everything the home world beacon can and more.
Or we could be hearing something that’s not even aimed at us or anyone but rather just part of its function.
Hi Paul, you don’t need to post this, and I’m not picking at fleas, but Wow! was 1977. I don’t want to be that guy ;-}
No, glad you caught that typo! I fixed it in the post. Thanks, Tom.
This might be the season for pranks. This signal and the appearance of a metal monument (akin to the 2001 object?) in the US desert and then I think another one (or the same one?) in Romania is suggestive but only that.
I’m fairly certain a hoaxer who was bright enough to generate a spurious signal would get the drift correct.
That being said, the drift is an extremely interesting feature of BLC1. If this is real signal perhaps the drift IS the message, i.e. “Hey, look over here, I’ll bet that caught your attention…”…and in a science fiction novel we would broadcast back at the same frequency, with the same drift, and receive wondrous communications in return.
We should wait till the two papers come out, but you may want to read my comments in the SGL article just before this. 982 MHz is used by the FAA, military and worldwide as a NAVAID for DME (Distant Measuring Equipment) signal sent from the ground to aircraft from VORTACs and VOR/DME.
Let’s not jump the gun and arrive at any a conclusion before all naturally known phenomenon are ruled out. That said, if I’m forced to come up with a possible explanation for it, I’ll put it down to an origin possibly related to exoplanetary or stellar (to do Proxima Centauri’s motion or flaring).
Could stellar focal lensing from P-Centauri of a transient cause penny whistle frequency shifts?
Aside from Proxima Centauri b or RFI, is there not still the possibility that this is magnetospheric noise from another Proxima planet? There is a case for a Proxima c at about 1.5 AU based on observations not as “substantiated” as b. But I do remember when that object was simply a bias in Bayesian statistics. If c should turn out to be a Neptune or jovian object, then it could have a magnetosphere large enough for radio emissions. Or maybe it’s evidence for a “d”…
Whilst it would be great to discover a nearby technical civilisation, I have to agree with other comments that the chances are extremely unlikely and the fact that there are questions over the habitability of Proxima B and C then it sort of rules it out for me, for the time being at least.
982MHz is not an unusual frequency, WiFi signals can easily masquerade at this if you have WiFi on a train or other moving object, and would explain the transient nature of the signal, but I suspect that the researchers have already ruled out very obvious sources, such as cell towers etc where GSM signals can be bounced around and produce such transients, as can many electronic and electrical switching operations – seen many myself.
However, we are missing something here, the elephant in the room that we have all forgotten.
Several years ago there was a report of a possible planet around Rigel Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri) itself, along with similar claims for Alpha Cen B, the latter have been largely ruled out by later observations as I understand it, but the planet(s) around Alpha Cen A have not been ruled in or out. Of the stars in that system, the fact that Alpha Cen A is almost a twin of the Sun, and a planet in an orbit similar to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars would be stable over the life of the solar system does open the intriguing idea that perhaps we are looking at the wrong candidate.
Perhaps the signal “disappeared” because the planet it originated on moved in relation to the detector in a manner not expected, as there is clear separation between the targets. If the transmitter was moving toward us due to the planet’s orbit, that could explain the frequency increasing rather than decreasing. Pointing away from Proxima may have given the planet enough time to move out of detection range so the signal disappeared.
Pure speculation and as unlikely as Proxima hosting Klingons, but they are out there, and not reason to not think a Sun like star of similar age to the Sun could not host planets capable of supporting life..
There’s actual a rather large apparent (angular) distance between A and B. I’m almost certain A wouldn’t be view for the telescope at the same time as B.
Is the frequency drift consistent with any non-planetary origin? (like a space based platform).
A satellite orbiting the Earth would be moving towards us and create the atypical frequency drift direction. I haven’t seen any conclusive comments on whether a satellite was in view.
You probably meant a space based platform at P-Centauri and yes that has been offered as an explanation for the frequency drift.
Hi Paul
I was looking forward to reading your post on this one, and the comments are great too, I’m with Henry Cordova wiht my bet.
Please post up the links to the papers when they are online :)
Thanks Edwin
Yes, no problem. I will indeed link to the papers as soon as they are available.
When decoded the transient will probably just be trying to get us to extend our car’s warranty
A Proxima prince has a gazillion credits in gold-pressed latinum that has been impounded and needs your help to secure it…
I want to clarify a point about “drift” since some appear to have a misunderstanding about it. Motion alone does not cause a signal to change frequency. For constant relative motion the Doppler shift is constant, and therefore the signal frequency is constant.
For the signal frequency to change there must be acceleration in the relative motion. For example, a transmitter (natural or artificial) on a planet will have a varying Doppler shift due to the planet’s rotation causing acceleration in the relative (to us) radial velocity. Of course the receiver on a rotating Earth has the identical effect, but that would be (should be!) adjusted for since it is precisely known.
A signal from the star itself would show no drift since the relative radial velocity is effectively constant over long periods of time. It would take decades or longer for the proper motion of Proxima to change enough for a fixed frequency signal to show a discernible change in radial velocity (very tiny acceleration). The same is true of a signal from a non-rotating body orbiting the star, though with a detectable threshold shortened to hours, days or weeks, depending on the signal duration, measurement accuracy and the orbital radius and velocity.
While I know little about the parameters of the detected signal the relatively rapid drift is inconsistent with any of the above. It is more likely to be an instability in the signal itself, and that gives more credence to a source that is terrestrial or in Earth orbit.
On the related RFI topic: it is possible for Parkes to differentiate cosmic and local signal sources. This was discussed in the comment thread of a long ago CD article about perytons and the malfunctioning oven at Parkes.
Doubtless either here:
Perytons: A Microwave Solution
https://centauri-dreams.org/2015/04/15/perytons-a-microwave-solution/
or here:
Puzzling Out the Perytons
https://centauri-dreams.org/2015/04/06/puzzling-out-the-perytons/
Thanks, Paul. I was being lazy not doing the search myself. Here’s the relevant comment by Justin Bray:
https://centauri-dreams.org/2015/04/06/puzzling-out-the-perytons/#comment-128047
“Ron, to answer your question, perytons (most or all of them?) have been detected on multiple beams of the receiver. The one used as an example in Burke-Spolaor’s thesis was detected on all 13 beams, with similar intensity (within a factor of 3).
This is strong evidence that they don’t originate from within the primary beam(s) of the telescope, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t originate from the sky.”
Now solar flares might not be so bad for life elsewhere, plus they may make it easier for us to find alien worlds…
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-robust-stellar-flares-life-exoplanets.html
This one will be up for discussion tomorrow. Just finishing up my article on it.
This isn’t the microwave oven in the break room again is it? :)
Then there is the TYC 1220-91-1 signal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ox0u9DQDo&lc=Ugga7PFT95hRjHgCoAEC
9.81m/s is the earths strength of gravity
Just wondering if that is the final notice from the Vogons !
Anyone checked the local planning boards lately. Just be on the look out for impossibly large yellow vessels entering the solar system if you know what I mean.
If it is Vogons Michael, we should expect some very bad poetry to be broadcast to the Earth very soon now! :)
Does reassure my faith in the integrity of science that pretty much everyone on this thread, some more diplomatic or circumspect than others, recognize that any ETI element to this alleged one-shot signal from a plainly uninhabitable source is either RFI or some other random data: I dislike to consider the hoax scenario
It wasn’t that long ago that transient FRBs were being questioned as to whether they were real or RFI. I think it took repeating bursts from single locations to nail their true cosmic nature. SETI would need those [repeating] signals from an undeniable cosmic source and detected by receivers in different places to rule out RFI and confirm that the signal was coming from a distant point either well outside our solar system, or within it but not accountable from any of our space probes.
Well, something in the Milky Way is producing these signals…WOW, TYC 1220-91-1, this one, the eleven mentioned in Sagan’s book…almost certainly a novel natural phenomenon that I would like to know what it is.
Call me a dirty hippie if you will, but I say assuming the premise of beacons means accepting some ideas like everyone involved having a theory of mind and unique motivations. Beaconers would have to accept that the beacon exists on a discoverable field with its own rules. We can separate the debate over any signal from the discussion of the importance of signal location. For certain, the location of this signal can’t be used against the premise that it is ETI.
A being at the closest system would send a strong reliable message. The same beacon at the 10 closest would send an even stronger message. The risk posed by placing a first contact beacon at population centers is too great not to mitigate. Given knowledge, ability and time, the first player would place a beacon to optimize their position according to motivation. There are many advantages to placing a beacon closer to the youngest people. How close would likely be a signal of competition within the older peoples.
An older people couldn’t hide forever. If they value our perspective they want our perspective on them!
It is very easy for me to accept the premise that space faring people are rare. It can’t be easy to predict exactly when to stop just watching a new, essentially atypical phenomenon. Perhaps it is after they technologically transform themselves. If such is way of space faring people, it would be like waiting for the ice to melt instead of breaking it. A beacon designed to put minds into space is what I hope we find.
A lot of people here commenting it can’t be a civilization at proxima. It need not be. If this turns out to be the real deal (big if), it could be one part of a communication network in our part of the galaxy. No one need be living in the star system. It could also be a signal from an alien probe. Lastly, it has been mentioned that the signal could be coming from a region beyond proxima but within its region of the sky, it isn’t necessarily coming from the system directly.
Looking at many of these comments reminds me again the damage that can be done by leaks and the danger of speculation with incomplete data to hand. Also I am not sure why some comments are made as if the people working on this don’t know their jobs.
A beacon could appear “anywhere” because beacons are objects that need to be build and can be built “anywhere”. They can appear anywhere because there’s always a motivation behind beacons.
We have no reason to believe that beacon location maps preferentially to population centers or where a civilization emerges. At best, that assumption is an erroneous short cut for building models.
Consider: Which has a higher probability? We build a beacon on Earth (or nearby, e.g. the Moon), or a one at least a star system and several light years away?
Obviously, the former case as it does not just require technological civilization, but technological civilization plus the ability to construct a beacon light years away. It doesn’t matter if there is also motivation to build that beacon in a distant location to protect our system or some other reason.
IOW:
1. P(build beacon) depends on a technological civilization with the capability.
2. P(beacon in an uninhabited star system) depends on a technological civilization that has star flight.
3. P(build beacon AND beacon in an uninhabited star system) = P(build beacon) x P(beacon in an uninhabited star system)
That last must have a lower probability than the first, and it is irrelevant what the assumptions and priors for making the probability assessments are.
If we use a model like the Drake equation, we would add a term for the civilization having star flight capability. Note that the Drake equation does not have a separate term for civilizations that want to communicate. It is assumed, or just added into the f _sub _c term. SETI assumed that this term implied sending out radio signals for us to detect (beacon or directed). This has morphed into laser signals (directed or for some other purpose like beamed light sail propulsion), and morphed again into any techno-signature like the dimming effects of a Dyson swarm.
That we have METI opponents at least indicates that a civilization might want to keep quiet. [This is the underlying assumption of Cixin Liu’s “Three Body Problem” trilogy.] We cannot assume there is a galactic club communicating between themselves just because that is our (subset of population) psychological preference and desire to communicate with “others” (despite the historical propensity to kill others instead).
“That last must have a lower probability than the first”
Sorry, Alex, this is not an appropriate application of probability chaining. Reasoning beings can prefer the third option over the others and jump straight to it, making it the highest probability. I have no idea what the probabilities of any of these options might be, but I question your assumption about how an ET would proceed should they choose to build beacons.
As per Harold, please provide a specific concrete model so that we have something to discuss. If my thinking is really wrong, I would like to understand exactly where it is wrong so that I can reassess my thoughts on this, although I fear that like many philosophers, we may all be building logical castles on sand.
Not relevant. I was only commenting on your method of analysis. You are treating dependent variables as independent variables. Simple chain multiplication only applies to the latter. It’s your model so you demonstrate that the variables are independent.
Fair enough that the 2 probabilities are not truly independent.
However, unless you are saying that P(3) > P(1), then P(3) < P(1) is more correct, supporting my overall argument concerning Wright's logic chain.
Alex, to be clear, I am saying neither. Neither have I read what Wright said. My comment was only regarding what you wrote. I have nothing to say about the relative probabilities P(1) and P(3) since I don’t have a model for the question being discussed, despite it being an interesting question.
I don’t agree with your probability model. It is such an oversimplification that it can’t handle your last paragraph. Are you claiming Cixin Liu’s premise doesn’t impact the probability of home world beacons?
If we parse and compare the returns on investment for home world beacons and probes, we discover that beacon RoI and motivation predict location. The decision to build a beacon is crucial but alone, can not predict where one is built. My decision to keep honey bees doesn’t predict my hives are inside my house. I will never experiment with them in my house. The living room’s accessibility is irrelevant.
I understand the need to simplify ETI people into something we can model. However, assuming the possibility of beacons demands we consider a topic that resists simplification, motivations.
To be clear, I am not using the location of this signal as evidence supporting an ETI source. I am arguing against the hard link proposed between population centers and beacon location.
Cixin Liu’s premise predicts Player 1 and only Player 1. Move away from that oversimplified model and Player 2 can exist. We are either Player 1 or Player n+1. I don’t know how to integrate into SETI the implication that we are being watched. We have to though. For Player n+1 the odds are too high.
His argument is based on game theory that applies to all players. If you understand the concept of “not yelling ‘Yahoo’ in a forest” (a David Brin argument against METI) you can appreciate why the 2nd book in the trilogy was called “The Dark Forest”.
Contrary to your assertion that I am simplifying ETI civilizations, quite the reverse. I have long agreed with those that say that these civilizations are different. Don’t misunderstand that my use of Liu’s novel argument as an agreement of its premise. There might be super predators out there, but that is no more based on evidence than we are the only technological civilization in the galaxy in the current time period.
I wasn’t assuming you agreed, I don’t either. Saying something is very different is a type of simplification. To build models, we have to do some simplification but we always risk taking it to far. We are talking about potential thinking people, not astronomical objects. The hard probability link turns these potential people into astronomical objects.
I wasn’t assuming you did. I don’t, it is just too simple. Unless the rate of new people is extremely high, the hard case for the Dark Forest principle predicts only Player 1. If the rate is low, Player 1 has the time needed to secure their dominance.
Even a very weak case of the Dark Forest principle reduces the probability of home world beacons. Any level for the potential galactic conflict reduces the probability.
Great article.
I found this analysis very interesting too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQbILRtEfTU
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone who comes on here. It’s been another wonderful year of exploring ideas and for me anyway learning a lot of things I new nothing about. All the best to you Paul and long may Centauri Dreams continue. Keep up the great work!
Very kind of you, Gary. And all best for the season to you and yours, and all Centauri Dreams readers!
I found reading these comments fascinating. I was curious to read some comments in the media arguing about the improbability of a genuine ET signal originating from Proxima. To me (as others clearly) it’s proximity is possibly the strongest thing suggesting it might be real.
Imagine a civization (or automated beacon/outpost ala 2001/Contact) located 500 light years or more away. Minus FLT or some such “magical” technologies there would be no way they would know we were here since our EM transmissions would not reach them for another four centuries or more.
BUT any such receiver located in Proxima Centauri would know all (possibly “ALL”) about us. They would know our frequencies and might have sent a message to us on a nice round 982.002 MHz to get our attention (similiar to the long theorised use of prime numbers). On the other hand we might just have picked up some more generic transmission they made in reaction to us but without communicating directly with us in mind.
Regardless, the fact it’s coming from (or the direction of) Proxima is both instructive AND a wonderful opportunity. IF we can’t definatively establish RFI as the primary cause (which based on the “Wow Signal” experience seems likely to me), then it might be well worth sending a specific message to the system saying “Hello, we heard you. Don’t try hiding we know you are there. Talk to us”.
I look forward to further developments…..
Dismantling the link between home worlds and beacons doesn’t increase the odds of this signal being ETI. Dismantling the link hardens the premise that beacons could be anywhere to the point where location can’t be used against an ETI source. To be clear, the hard link does not predict beacons could appear anywhere because people won’t emerge anywhere in the galaxy. When we look at how complex beacon location considerations are, it becomes obvious the hard link is just a modeling short cut.
Before pinging a potential nearby beacon, we should search other nearby systems. Beacon location transmits information about motives. Many nearby beacons would deliver a very different message than one.
I don’t understand your argument at all. Civilizations will appear randomly in the galaxy, both in space and time. You appear to be arguing that is not the case.
Indeed people could first appear anywhere, well most anywhere. Some portions of a galaxy would be inhospitable. The assumption that this “signal” creates a location dilemma takes that assumption a step further by welding emergence with location of a beacon. That link exists but isn’t hard enough to create a dilemma.
I get it, it’s RFI until it isn’t, which may take awhile to discern. But, could it be… a starship headed here using radar for debris detection at 982Mhz? Is that a reasonable question?
If so, why would it stop being used?
It is a reasonable question but beyond our ability to produce a meaningful answer using competitive speculation except “we need more evidence.” We have an unlimited supply of ETI themed explanations for anything we see. If we assume the possibility of other people, our best models predict we are people n+1. I think the first genuine signal will be designed for first contact.
This comment was meant for Sara.
It hit something !
So much for the advanced technology of ETI. Is this like the Boeing 737 Max crashing twice due to a faulty MCAS system? I trust they have the equivalent of an NTSB and FAA to investigate and order design changes before certifying models of interstellar craft!
Whether they’re there or not must have no effect on our expansion into space.
And, fortunately, our activity is largely steered by factors inside ourselves and our societies.
Any hypothesis suggesting the signal is deliberate and directed at us must also explain why it was transient. If I were trying to get someone’s attention, I would keep yelling until they replied. A transient would most likely be a chance interception of a signal generated for some other purpose, perhaps even an accidental one.
This signal almost certainly comes from some RFI terrestrial source. It is possibly, but not necessarily, a hoax.
I am also puzzled by the objections to my speculation that a signal from Proxima is a probable hoax. Of course there is no a priori reason why an alien civilization couldn’t be transmitting from Proxima, it violates no physical law. But if we are looking for signals from all over the galaxy, or even all over the universe, isn’t it stretching coincidence a bit to expect we just happen to pick up one from our nearest neighbor, precisely during the short period that one telescope was pointed in that direction? And that it is never heard again? It stretches credulity.
Its as absurd as the idea that Hollywood aliens speak excellent English because they’ve “been monitoring our TV broadcasts to learn our language”.
Or perhaps the question is akin to that posed by fundamentalist religious creationists that fossils of extinct creatures were placed in the ground by God in order to test our faith. Is it possible? Yes.
Is it likely? Hardly.
Would you use persistent yelling to engage with an infant, a love interest, or a customer? Is persistent yelling the only tactic we see used by non human Earthlings? In nature we see just how effective remote beacons can be. I can research how remote beacons work by walking my dog. The focus on volume is a modeling short cut that reduces communication complexity until it becomes absurd.
An essential criteria for the conceptual or prototypical definition of a beacon is that it is deliberately built. A hard link between home world and beacon location replaces deliberation with spontaneity. Beacon location becomes a short cut for the emergence rate and pattern of space faring people. Breaking the link means we can never use location as evidence of source. However, once a signal source is confirmed to be ETI, we can use location to speculate on motivation. Break the link and a beacon located at a home system speaks volumes.
I think one of the best ways to demonstrate that SETI and METI are a soft science is an implication of the Fermi Paradox. Strategically, as a rational galactic player we could never believe a message that states “we are not watching you.” No galactic player could believe that message. Though possibly true, it isn’t rational to play as though it were. There has been too much time.
even tho its a high freq, it bounces….just like vhr146mhz off the ISS. THIS SIGNAL SHIFTED DUE TO ORIGINATION DISTANCE. OR THE RUSSIANS BOMBARDED THE DISH JUST LIKE THE ANTENNA ARRAY IN PUERTO RICO GETS TOYED WITH.
I really hope that when the full report on BLC-1 is published that we get some answer concerning notification of other radiotelescopes around the world to check on the signal. Confirmation of direction would rule out local/nearby RFI. Lack of confirmation would likely confirm RFI. If no other telescope was either notified or used, then what happened? Was the story a signal detection long after the event that precluded using another telescope to check?
After thinking on it, I agree with you that the location of this signal increases the likelihood of a hoax. Because “beacon” location is mapped directly to motivation, the hoaxer optimizes location according to motivation. Our general confidence in this prediction maps directly to our familiarity with the motivation.
With ETI, we can’t make confident predictions of motivation, so we can’t use location as evidence of source. Breaking the link to home world means location and intermittency are equivalents. Both would map directly to intent and aren’t worth discussing until the source is confirmed. Unless the conversation is about the philosophy behind our model making, of course.
Proxima continues flaring can cause serious interference with radio frequencies. This would cause problems with transmissions of a beacon source and may only allow limited time when the ionosphere will let it pass thru.
What if a civilization is using the planets Proxima Centauri b or c as a “Atmospheric Lens” as in Prof. David Kipping “Terrascope”? This would give them the ability to observe earth closely and send and receive signals.
The “Terrascope”: On the Possibility of Using the Earth as an Atmospheric Lens.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.00490
Planetary Lensing: Enter the ‘Terrascope’.
https://centauri-dreams.org/2019/08/12/planetary-lensing-enter-the-terrascope/
So smile the next time you look towards Proxima Centauri for you may be on the biggest reality show in the Universe…….
The “Terrascope” only works for visible light, but not the radio waves at the frequency received. So yes, they could be observing us with optical telescopes, possibly even sending light beams to us, but not sending radio emissions as signals.
Not so quick Mr. Tolley;
“Kipping also points out you could equip a terrascope with a radio transmitter rather than a mirror. By bouncing signals off the Earth’s atmosphere, you could potentially improve communication with other planets in the solar system. Some of them have atmospheres, so you could bounce the signal onward creating an “Internet across the solar system.”
https://medium.com/extremetech-access/astronomer-earths-atmosphere-could-become-the-lens-of-a-massive-telescope-eed2cfa2a90a
There may be a much better way also, you know the earths ionosphere can reflect radio waves. I remember back in 1981 picking up Canadian TV stations at our home near Lebanon, Oregon. This was when solar max was blasting earth so both Proxima b and c would most probably be able to focus UHF frequencies at a distance from both those planets when conditions were right. Think shortwave at sunset and sunrise…
You will recall how iffy and unreliable the ionosphere was for bouncing signals further than the line of sight. If there are issues with the homogeneity of the atmosphere for optical work, imagine how much worse it is for radio. Admittedly, the radio signal strength just needs to be boosted rather than create a 2D image, but even so. How would one even ensure a parallel radio beam from the planet from the transmitter position? [But here I will say that I am talking well outside my postage stamp sized knowledge of such things.]
Hey, well these are aliens, they are much smarter then you or I… ;-}
Michael Fidler’s idea of an “Atmospheric Lens” is interesting.
Okay, if the signal appears to be from Proxima, then – as Jason Wright correctly reminds us – it was emitted 4 years ago; and it lasted for 3 hours.
Now, it is always fun to do some numerology and some very Wild Wild West speculation. By now, one should know that not Pi (3.14) but Tau (6.28) is what an intelligent lifeform will use to demonstrate their intelligence. 982 screams a little bit for 628. 982-628 = 354; interesting (dimensional wise).
Thus, we put this “982 628 354” in Google to solve the differential equation (sic) and we get this: https://www.lens.org/lens/patent/158-982-354-628-774 which is like a Jodie Foster system and method for coordinated data transmission.
I admit, it’s New Year’s Eve, wine on top of 2020 may cause quite som blur in my vision.
Alex Tolley’s recent essay proposed all technological people converge on machine embodied minds. I would modify the premise, we are machine embodied minds. The distinction isn’t important when considering the effect this would have on beacon location in a probability space where location is mapped to motivation. If true, the premise would have a significant impact on motivation.
Modern economic theory shows the effect of hard science envy and exaggerated generalization. Economic theory can and is rebuilding its identity. SETI and METI can do the same.
The convergence premise predicts a Deep Time economy for cognitive assets. Given time Player 1’s beacon would be positioned to optimize Humanity’s ability to produce unique cognitive assets. A demand monopoly would be extremely difficult to achieve. However, there could still be a market wide commons that includes trade law. A competitive trade floor is predicted to calculate market value. The highest bidder decides when trade occurs.
Assuming we have value doesn’t eliminate risk. Human culture, equivalent to art, would become a different kind of valuable when the maker no longer exists. Denying an enemy a strategic resource becomes a tactic.
A Deep Time economy for cognitive assets would optimize comparative value across agents.
In the spirit of competitive speculation! I predict something similar to a fire hydrant in a system close to us. In probability space, we would find the hydrant after turning onto the self actualized, machine embodiment path. We would have to send a brain and nose. To smell it. I guess we may need to send pee as well. The intent would be to commit us to setting a form before engagement. It is an asset protection strategy. The market, including Earthling stock, benefits long term. I like the odds on a pictogram. In my model, the beacon is bespoke. It puts the beacon physically close but beyond a simple but high threshold.
A plinko board demonstrates the link between path complexity and the distribution of path length. The bell curve maps directly to path complexity. More plinko pieces fall along the less complex paths. Give the plinko pieces agency and we lose the bell curve. Path complexity will no longer predict distribution. If it did, we would not have civilization because everyone would keep taking the easiest path.
A home world beacon may be easier to build and maintain than probes. Personally, I am not convinced of this. No one has to respond to a home world beacon, making any reduced cost irrelevant. Even if true, the reduced cost doesn’t predict demand. More expensive, complex options are everywhere in the human market, especially for super projects and one-off assets.
How big does the parabolic antenna have to be to receive this signal?
It can only be received in the southern hemisphere (?).
Are there amateurs, radio amateurs etc. who receive it?
In theory, this cheap USB sticks for digital terrestric TV (for example with rtl2832u chip) could receive 982.002Mhz.
These sticks are used as a cheap SDR, for receiving plane transponders etc.
Couldn’t it be streamed on the internet?
Yes, you need to be south of 20 degrees north latitude to be able to receive any signal from Proxima Centauri because it location is 62.5 degrees south latitude. The first picture you see in this article is the Parkes radio telescope in Australia and it is 33 degrees south latitude. It is also a parabolic dish antenna 64 meters in diameter or 213 feet. This is what received the signal. There are many smaller radio telescope dish antennas in the southern hemisphere but have not heard of any trying to monitor Proxima. Read up on the Breakthrough Listen material on line to find out more on the subject.
Do we have the Internet to blame for why people keep peddling the frankly ludicrous claim that it’s a hoax. I’ve seen no one of sober reputation suggesting it could be a hoax, yes RFI interference but never a mention of a hoax.
Scott Tilley has been looking at so called zombie satellites in Molniya orbits to possibly explain this signal.
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343376749598425088
[quote]The suspected zombie Molniya activity is growing more interesting as the data rolls in:
– Three suspected spacecraft,
– Doppler rate is not following natural expectation,
– The s/c seem to be switching on/off their beacons before and after apogee much like modern Meridian. 1/2[/quote]
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343376751687204864
[quote] I’m resorting to identify the s/c from their timings and this may take a few days to gather enough data to narrow this down to something definitive. Thus far a wide range of Molniya 1-xx are suspects. Shortlisted are [7780, 1975-036A], [9880, 1977-021A] & [18946, 1988-018A]. 2/2[/quote]
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343383383733202944
[quote] All of these emitters are bound to the sidereal rate.[/quote]
Ok, I read this also but what frequencies are they transmitting on? Like I have said before this 982 MHz is used for Military and FAA air NAVAIDs and is not allowed to be used for ANY other purpose by international agreement. Please read up on the subject instead of polluting the subject with all sorts of BS. You guys need to put your thinking caps on and use some logic for a change!
The gentleman I posted knows his stuff and wouldn’t have said it unless he was certain on a basic aspect like that. And it is therefore why I posted it here. So maybe check first before shooting your mouth off in future.
Well said, excuse me for being so rude, but see below for reasons this may not be the Proxima signal. I see Scott Tilley does do serious work on the subject but he does live at 50 degrees north latitude. This is a map of the Molniya orbit shows the two points to the far north that these satellites reach, over Russia and over Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit#/media/File:Molniya.jpg
You’ll notice the ground track south of Australia where the Parks radio telescope would receive a signal from these spacecraft would also be when they are closet to earth and travelling at a much higher speed. This would negate the signal being observed for 3 hours at the same location.
Related Tweet:
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343382320527462400
[quote] Something that really strikes me is the spacing of these emissions. If this was a random zombie satellite activity from old missions the chances of it being this symmetrical is just too much to accept…[/quote]
He also makes a very good point here in this thread that we are literally swimming in an ocean of our own RF pollution.
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343039796222967808
[quote] It’s clear to me that until humankind quantifies what it is emitting by radio and other means that SETI is a folly. We as a species need to focus on understanding our own emissions as the first true step in interpreting anything we may feel we detect from elsewhere… 1/3[/quote]
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343039797036679169
[quote] As many of the SETI suspect emissions could come from satellites or other human space borne emissions than amateurs could have a significant role to play here. Sensors spread around the Earth listening and reporting in real time are what’s needed. 2/3[/quote]
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1343039797938409472
[quote] Until we reach that goal, brief emission detections will always be meaningless and suspect. Our goal should be to understanding how the international (universal) park of the radio spectrum is used. Then we will potentially notice things that truly warrant study… 3/3[/quote]
Found it myself and see it is in the 982 UHF band.
Since many of the Molniya 1- and 3- series have been monitored, the table below shows the operational status of each of the recent satellites:
Satellite Name Status Frequency band
Molniya 3-53 OK C-band
Molniya 3-51 No signals –
Molniya 3-50 TBA –
Molniya 1-89 No signals –
Molniya 1-90 OK UHF (possible local scatter from 1-92)
Molniya 1-91 OK UHF (Strong DSSS 990.6MHz
Molniya 1-92 TBA –
Molniya 1-93 OK UHF (1000.45 and 992.45)
The last list of active frequencies found is as follows:
Molniya 1-91, 1-90, 1-89
Freq MHz Modulation Comment
991.083 DSSS 490KHz wide
992.443 Mux / Multi carrier tt&c?
992.454 Mux / Multi carrier tt&c? Molniya 1-92
994.306 PSK (New 19/09/2006 Molniya 1-91 possibly)
996.013 framed PSK
996.037 2PSK
996.133 PSK
996.193 PSK
996.313 PSK
996.373 2PSK
996.413 PSK
996.533 PSK
996.593 PSK
996.653 2PSK
996.785 PSK
997.033 2PSK
999.775 Framed PSK (New 19/09/2006 Molniya 1-91 possibly)
1000.444 Mux / Multi carrier tt&c?
1000.450 Mux / Multi carrier tt&c? Molniya 1-92
UHF Satcom
https://uhf-satcom.com/satellite-reception/uhf
But these satellites are setup for coverage over Russia and have a 12 hour orbit with it’s perigee (closet to earth) at 63.4 degrees south and its fastest movement, not the slow distant part of its orbit that could be mistaken for Proxima.
Molniya orbit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
Semi-major axis.
The exact height of a satellite in a Molniya orbit varies between missions, but a typical orbit will have a perigee of approximately 600 kilometres (370 mi) and an apogee of 39,700 kilometres (24,700 mi), for a semi-major axis of 26,600 kilometres (16,500 mi)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit#/media/File:NASA_molniya_oblique.png
I think the comment about the Stratix 10 FPGA is misleading. FPGAs can have clocks at any frequency. The hacker news post links to an Intel sales catalog that includes “982 MHz remote radio head” in a list of very general things FPGAs could implement, like “High-end broadcast studio “.
I’m not sure why such a specific frequency is listed in the catalog, but I don’t think there’s anything about the Stratix 10 that is specific to that frequency.
Maybe there are specific “Remote Radio Head” products that operate at that frequency.
I don’t see a problem with the closest star to us as having a life harbouring planet.It maybe statistically improbable but perhaps we live in a particularly habitable part of the galaxy that escaped gamma-ray bursts or were both seeded in the same panspermia event.Some very interesting comments below which I think would be invaluable to the Breakthrough Listen team.
Thank you Paul for your work at Centauri Dreams and have a great New Year!
Thank you, Dale. All best wishes for the New Year to you as well!
Orbiting Rainbows around Proxima Centauri c ?
FUTURE SPACE TELESCOPES MAY USE GIANT GLITTER CLOUDS INSTEAD OF MIRRORS.
https://txchnologist.com/post/117619385705/future-space-telescopes-may-use-giant-glitter
Orbiting Rainbows: Optical Construction.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2012_phasei_quadrelli_orbitingrainbows_tagged.pdf
Astronomers might have imaged a ringed planet around Proxima Centauri.
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-astronomers-imaged-planet-proxima-centauri.html
Searching for the near infrared counterpart of Proxima c using
multi-epoch high contrast SPHERE data at VLT.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.06685.pdf
Light Matters Extra: Orbiting Rainbows.
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Light_Matters_Extra_Orbiting_Rainbows/a57154
The Curious Case of Proxima C.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-curious-case-of-proxima-c/
Could Saturn’s icy rings be used as a telescope? Looking from the north rotational pole of Saturn to the south the rings would be aligned just 20 degrees south of Proxima Centauri. This may still give a highly detailed image of these planets.
Re: Orbiting Rainbows.
Until I can see the experimental setup and understand the algorithms needed to reconstruct the image, I am not buying the story in its entirety. The experiment image of the glittered mirror relies on the particles being shepherded togather to form a concave mirror. Easy to place them on a concave surface than do this in orbit with free-flying particles. It is not clear is the experimental mirror was rotated to simulate moving particles, rather than fixed orientation to reconstruct the image.
So call me skeptical that this approach really can be used as an effective, wide aperture mirror for a space telescope.
Well it did make to Phase II of the NIAC studies with a much more in depth report.
NIAC Phase II Orbiting Rainbows: Future Space Imaging
with Granular Systems.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20170004834
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20170004834/downloads/20170004834.pdf
What I’m interested in is if a ring system like Saturn’s might be able to be used for the same purpose? The rings of Saturn are not flat but have ridges and troughs of icy particles. This may act like a giant Fresnel lens or Fresnel reflector with focal points further north or south of the ring plane. Something similar to the Seeliger effect, through a telescope, its rings also “surge” in brightness for a couple of days around opposition. The rings’ temporary brightening is one of the most visually fascinating occurrences around Saturn. Unless you observe this planet regularly, though, you can easily overlook it.
The Seeliger effect
Generally, when you observe Saturn through a telescope before or after opposition, the rings appear about as bright as the planet’s globe. For days around the time of opposition, however, the rings suddenly intensify in apparent brightness, outshining the globe before dimming back to their normal appearance.
Thank you. I will read the NIAC II report.
Way over my head. However, as the particle cloud must be shaped by forces to form a mirror, I do not see how this can be done with Saturn’s ring system.
While this seems like a very complex way to image objects, I wonder if the idea could be used to create concentrator mirrors to collimate the sun’s light to provide beamed power. But I would not that an early table seems to indicate that inflatable mirrors have a lower mass than particle mirrors. I wonder if a Fresnel lens might not be the better solution. It is flat and can be rotated so that centripetal forces can maintain its shape. There are a number of ways to make the lens, possibly including holography to create light path manipulation.
Well, the rings of Saturn are not flat but form ridges and troughs. Look at this close up image; https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10566.jpg
Now this would reflect like a Fresnel reflector at many different angles, but you only need to align with the object you want to observe because of the size and number of ridges reflecting. The big problem is the Sun’s reflection on the rings would wipe the image out. Now, if you look at this image which can take a lot of magnification, you will see the inky blackness of the rings from Saturn’s shadow on them;
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA08388.jpg
This would only give you a partial mirror but it may give good contrast on the details of exoplanets. Just a thought, but the rings of Saturn are made up mostly of ice and would reflect similar to the particles in the orbiting rainbows. This is why the particles do not need to be formed into concave reflectors because the numerous ridges act just like a curved surface but only flat.