David F Mayer, Advanced Computer Consultants, Columbus, OH

Abstract: The thesis of this paper is that the best way to answer the question of how to search for extraterrestrial intelligence is to look at SETI from the perspective of the civilization which is attempting to TRANSMIT to another.

It is concluded that the visible band presents the most viable medium of contact, since it offers both the greatest bandwidth and the most narrow focusing, permitting the most information to be transmitted to potential targets at the lowest cost.

The essential problem of defining the meaning of a message to an unknown civilization is solved by the concept of the SELF-DECODING MESSAGE. The problem of the selection of potential targets is discussed and criteria for optimal choice are given. Finally, the essential question of the PRUDENCE of such a transmission program is presented and discussed.

Full article here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~motustuff/Seti_Transmission/TRANSMIT0.htm

Earth’s biosphere has done a fine job broadcasting our existence for hundreds of millions of years, no problems yet.

Maybe the IM’s being sent by EBE’s are not being transmitted in the format we are expecting to receive. Could it be they have been transmitting messages through the crop circles to communicate with our species?

I also feel that the signals we are sending could be corrupted/destroyed before arrival to the target locations due to space weather or other forms of interstellar distortion – electrical or magnetic etc. Also, the distance the signals could travel in their original form may not be adequate, to highlight this, just use the analogy of sending and receiving packets of data via electronic means.

The only way to circumvent the problem of distance, is not to use any measurable energy whatsoever in the process.

It is absolutely necessary to provide a “Simultaneous Transition” to achieve this inter galactic communication, irrespective of distance.
The proposed transition requires no energy, and whats more is established with no time, ( only the data, is flowing in real time)
There are no losses, no heat and no attenuation.

This wonderful facility has been in existence since tome began
Telepathy is the oldest and most reliable means of communication between the species.
Tragically, the ability to use this function has been beaten out of us over the centuries.

A form of telepathy is enjoyed by plants trees animals birds etc. It is humans that are the most primitive communicators in the Universe.

However, I believe there is another way to operate communications between two persons , irrespective of the distance between them,
and that is to exploit to mechanisms that produce the so called ” Casimir Effect”.
By that I mean, to use this phenomena to interface with the aether, and use the aether as a pathway for modulated energies,
passing from one source to another.

Many thanks for the opportunity to to reply.
Brian Sallur

Perth
Western Australia
4th April 2008

To quote:

In an attempt to save the beleaguered astronomy community
in the UK, astronomers have come up with an intriguing idea.
To rescue the world famous Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, astronomers intend to transmit adverts into space. This is truly
the final frontier for terrestrial advertising, but is it possible that
British scientists have finally lost their marbles? How can we
expect alien races to pay attention to our attempts at selling
them Nacho Cheese Doritos? If they did buy our products, I
wouldn’t want to be in charge of the shipping department…

But there is a very serious reason for this off-beat plan. The UK
is currently undergoing a funding crisis as the main funding body
for UK physics and astronomy struggles to fill a £80 million ($160
million) hole in their finances. No help has been offered by the
British government. This new fund-raising scheme is already
attracting a lot of attention. The snack manufacturer Doritos
has stepped in, donating an undisclosed sum in exchange for
transmitting their ad. Many more companies are expected to
follow suit. The publicity from helping out struggling observatories
seems to be enough for big companies wanting to get involved
(after all, they won’t be expecting extraterrestrial orders for at
least 84 years).

The signal will be sent to the Ursa Major constellation some 42
light years away by the European Incoherent Scatter Radar
System (EISCAT) in Svalbard, located in the High Arctic.
EISCAT is more commonly used to measure emissions from
the aurora and ionospheric dynamics. It can also be used in
conjunction with other EISCAT installations in Sweden and
mainland Norway to track the velocity and composition of the
solar wind. Now, it seems, the powerful radar transmitter will
be used to shoot commercials into space.

Full article here:

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/06/the-ultimate-fund-raising-scheme-transmit-adverts-to-aliens/

The problem is in our mind. We don’t be able to imagine all of our environment, just our little environment, what we can see, we can hear, we can smell, and so one.

Our messages are created in our thinking, our sensors, but an alien race may very very strange for us. It may be some extraterrestial life form similar us, but I’m sure mostly not.

We know our race, what we have done still our home planet. If they are similar us out there, we should shut up every messages, because they will be kill us, or use us, than a slave (like american indians, or african slaves). If they unlike us it may they are more peaceful, than our race, or more dangerous, than us.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/across_universe.html

NEWS RELEASE 2008-019 Jan. 31, 2008

WASHINGTON – For the first time ever, NASA will beam a
song – The Beatles “Across the Universe” — directly into deep
space at 4 p.m. Pacific Time (7 p.m. Eastern Time) on Monday,
Feb. 4.

The transmission over NASA’s Deep Space Network will
commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day The Beatles
recorded the song, as well as the 50th anniversary of NASA’s
founding and the group’s beginnings. Two other anniversaries
also are being honored: The launch 50 years ago this week of
Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, and the founding 45 years
ago of the Deep Space Network, an international network of
antennas that supports missions to explore the universe.

Technicians at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., where the Deep Space Network is managed, will send
the command that will start the transmission.

The transmission is being aimed at the North Star, Polaris,
which is located 431 light years away from Earth. The song
will travel across the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles
per second.

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney expressed excitement that
the tune, which was principally written by fellow Beatle John
Lennon, was being beamed into the cosmos.

“Amazing! Well done, NASA!” McCartney said in a message
to the space agency. “Send my love to the aliens. All the best,
Paul.”

Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, characterized the song’s transmission
as a significant event.

“I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we
will communicate with billions of planets across the universe,”
she said.

It is not the first time Beatles music has been used by NASA;
in November 2005, McCartney performed the song “Good Day
Sunshine” during a concert that was transmitted to the
International Space Station. “Here Comes the Sun,” “Ticket to
Ride” and “A Hard Day’s Night” are among other Beatles’ songs
that have been played to wake astronaut crews in orbit.

Feb. 4 has been declared “Across The Universe Day” by Beatles
fans to commemorate the anniversaries. As part of the celebration,
the public around the world has been invited to participate in the
event by simultaneously playing the song at the same time it is
transmitted by NASA. Many of the senior NASA scientists and
engineers involved in the effort are among the group’s biggest
fans.

“I’ve been a Beatles fan for 45 years – as long as the Deep
Space Network has been around,” said Barry Geldzahler, the
network’s program executive at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

“What a joy, especially considering that ‘Across the Universe’
is my personal favorite Beatles song.”

JPL built the Explorer 1 satellite and is celebrating the 50th
anniversary of its launch. JPL also operates NASA’s Deep
Space Network. For information about the Deep Space
Network, go to:

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov

ET too bored by Earth transmissions to respond

16:35 18 December 2007

NewScientist.com news service

Tom Simonite

Messages sent into space directed at extraterrestrials may have been too boring to earn a reply, say two astrophysicists trying to improve on their previous alien chat lines.

Humans have so far sent four messages into space intended for alien listeners. But they have largely been made up of mathematically coded descriptions of some physics and chemistry, with some basic biology and descriptions of humans thrown in.

Those topics will not prove gripping reading to other civilisations, says Canadian astrophysicist Yvan Dutil. If a civilisation is advanced enough to understand the message, they will already know most of its contents, he says: “After reading it, they will be none the wiser about us humans and our achievements. In some ways, we may have been wasting our telescope time.”

In 1999 and 2003, Dutil and fellow researcher Stephane Dumas beamed messages in a language of their own design into space. Now, they are working to compose more interesting messages.

“The question is, what is interesting to an extraterrestrial?” Dutil told New Scientist. “We think the answer is using some common ground to communicate things about humanity that will be new or different to them – like social features of our society.” Fortunately those subjects are already being described mathematically by economists, physicists and sociologists, he adds.

Vexing problems

One topic the two researchers are already composing messages about is the so-called ‘cake cutting problem’. “How do you share out resources is a classical problem for all civilisations,” he says.

Democracy is also a potentially eye- or antenna- catching subject. “The maths shows that with more than two choices, there is no perfect electoral procedure,” says Dutil. He has started work on encoding this into a message in which “we can explain our methods and ask, ‘What do you use on your planet?’”

Social physics – the application of mathematical techniques to societies – also provides good material potentially interesting to the alien. “We know that every human social network behaves as a gas, what we don’t know is how universal that is beyond Earth.” Aliens may be asking themselves similar questions, he adds.

Another fundamental challenge for very old civilisations is using resources sustainably to avoid dying out, says Dutil. “Any good examples out there could help a lot on Earth.”

Human nature

Dumas has designed software that is like a word processor for composing messages in the pair’s symbolic language. There is also a separate automatic decoder, which should help avoid slip-ups like the missing factor of 10 in the duo’s 1999 message.

Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the search for extraterrestrial intelligence at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, US, agrees that we humans need to make our interstellar chat more compelling. “If we only communicate something the receiver already knows, it is not going to be very interesting.”

Vakoch has recently been holding workshops at sociology and anthropology conferences to try and widen participation in messaging extraterrestrials beyond astrophysicists. “I think perhaps the most important question is: how do we represent what being a human is? And those disciplines can really help,” says Vakoch.

‘We’ll get back to you’

But Vakoch points out that email-like messages may not be the best approach. One alternative is to send software code for an avatar that could answer basic alien questions. That would get around the problem of the delays produced by large distances across space.

“If someone replies to your message saying, ‘I don’t understand. Can you repeat that?’ it will take decades, centuries or millennia to know,” says Vakoch.

“Another approach is to send a lot of stuff and hope there is enough redundancy for them to spot patterns,” he adds. “We could just send the encyclopaedia.”

Dutil agrees other options are worth exploring, but points out that sometimes only a message will do. “It would make sense to have an ‘answer phone’ message ready in case we are contacted,” he explains, “just to say, ‘we’ll get back to you,’ while we figure out what to do.”