back to article Russian billionaire: GET me the ALIENS ON THE PHONE. Do it NOW

Humanity's quest to discover intelligent aliens resident in other star systems has received a big boost from well-known Russian biz overlord Yuri Milner, who has splashed $100m on the search with the endorsement of famous boffin Stephen Hawking. A project he calls Breakthrough Listen will give SETI researchers access to the …

  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Alien

    Intelligent alien life?

    I'd settle for some simple bacteria growing in a thermal vent on Io.

    Of course, we'd have to go to them. They're unlikely to have the phone on.

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: Intelligent alien life?

      Either that or we'd just find the phones and no bacteria,

      the telephone sanitisers having got to them first.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: Intelligent alien life?

        I think it's more likely we'll find intelligent phones made of bacteria, laughing at our puny inorganic technology.

        Cell phone?

        Okay. Fine. Never mind.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Intelligent alien life?

      search for intelligent alien life.

      I'd settle for some intelligent Earth life.

    3. Tubz Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Intelligent alien life?

      I'd settle for them finding intelligent life working for a government department !

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: Intelligent alien life?

        I'd settle for them finding intelligent life working for a government department !

        Oi! Public servants ≠ politicians.

  2. Blank-Reg
    Thumb Up

    What are the odds of:

    1 - Having intelligent, self aware life at roughly the same or a higher level technological development as ourselves?

    2 - Having them within the local areas?

    3 - Have the right equipment and be listening or broadcasting on frequencies that we use?

    4 - That they care to communicate?

    5 - That they actually have communicated but we confused their word for "Ahoy! Ahoy!" with a pulsar signal?

    Seems like the odds are vanishingly small. Note: I fully support this search and it's efforts, it just seems like the needle in the proverbial.

    1. knarf

      This is the odds

      http://io9.com/what-a-brand-new-equation-reveals-about-our-odds-of-fin-531575395

      Odds are we won't find any

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Alien

        The odds of finding signal are about on the level of finding intelligent commentary on YouTube.

        But then again, the result of Alien Google, the Self-Driving Ad-Slinging Galacto-AI, or even the Galactic Lads from Lagos might ready to talk, who knows.

        Time to re-read either "His Master's Voice" (Stanislaw Lem), "Missile Gap" (Charles Stross), "Contact" (Carl Sagan), also "Hinterlands" (William Gibson).

        1. Phuq Witt
          Headmaster

          ET Comment Home

          "...The odds of finding signal are about on the level of finding intelligent commentary on YouTube..."

          Oh. Come on. At least there's an infinitesimally small chance of finding a signal.

          1. Elmer Phud

            Re: ET Comment Home

            Million to one chance?

            1. Kane
              Thumb Up

              Re: ET Comment Home@Elmer Phud

              Nine times out of ten!

      2. Martin Budden Silver badge
        FAIL

        @knarf

        You post an equation which estimates we will find two exoplanets with signs of life within the next ten years, and from that you conclude "Odds are we won't find any".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: care to communicate?

      Point 4 is worth some attention. Intelligent life would probably stay quiet and keep hidden, though they may already be monitoring us for the purposes of scientific research and for checking that we do not become a threat to anything they might care about.

      Humankind has already proved itself not to be intelligent:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Message_from_Earth

      1. Blank-Reg

        Re: care to communicate?

        Indeed and I share that sentiment. Secrecy and caution should be preferred as you have no idea what's out there and what they are capable of. In fact, call me paranoid, but I prefer the Vorlon method of dealing with the galaxy - secrecy and being generally hard to pin down though with less of the meddling...

    3. Mark 85

      Let's add to that list.... distance vs. time. If a system is say... 100 light-years from us, and they evolved life and all that along the same time frame as us... we won't know or hear anything for a few more decades. The haystack will get bigger and the needle older.

  3. Originone

    Only one?

    I'm not interested unless they get at least three Stephen Hawkings involved.

    1. knarf

      Re: Only one?

      Not sure the "Third Hawkings Form" would enhance the chances

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Only one?

        "Hawking Trinity: The Radiation"

        1. Fink-Nottle

          Re: Only one?

          ''Hawking III: The Reboot"

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Only one?

            Is this wrt the Miles Mathis theory that Stephen Hawking died and has been replaced, and now the replacement has also died and been replaced?

            http://milesmathis.com/hawk3.pdf

        2. DocJames
          Pint

          Re: Only one? @ AC

          "Hawking Trinity: The Radiation"

          Coffee/keyboard. That's brilliant! Have a pint.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Cosmic vandals

    It would be cosmic vandalism for any civilisation to broadcast on the hydrogen 21cm frequency. But if they were run by accountants...

  5. Rosco

    'Expert' Alien Hunters?

    How can one be called an expert at something one has so far failed to do?

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: 'Expert' Alien Hunters?

      Maybe if you decouple the tasks of hunting and actually finding.

      I'm an expert at hunting for components that have fallen under my desk. Not such an expert at actually finding them again though!*

      *At least not until I start looking for something else, or have already bought a replacement. Maybe the answer to finding extra-terrestrial intelligence is to stop looking for it, and to look for something else instead - then it's sure to turn up.

  6. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    I think

    I rather belong to those not that keen to find "intelligent" life elsewhere, better look for it on this planet first. And if we find it somewhere else and they are like us they will try to kill us. And if they are less intelligent we will kill them. And should they be more intelligent they would probably ignore us, or put us in some zoo or just wipe us out as we are polluting their new planet. Rather look for a same size planet with tasty grass eating animals and a nice climate. The less intelligent life the better.

    1. Douchus McBagg
      Thumb Up

      Re: I think

      I hope those grass eating animals taste nice.

      this "seti thing getting urgent" has the feeling of a pre-teen being denied access to social meedja

      thinking about it, maybe this will hook us into some galactic farceboook.

      oh dear, that hitchhikers guide thing didn't turn out the way I'd hoped.

  7. sjsmoto

    We'll respond to the million-year-old greeting from the Qqq's and by the time it gets back to them they'll say "Stupid! We are the Zzz's, how dare you compare us to cavemen!"

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      I'd estimate we are currently Bbb's?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So... what if their not friendly?

    I've always wondered.. what exactly do you plan to do if they DO get contacted back by aliens or find a signal?

    Is it really so wise to be beaming signals to space knows what is out there? Why do people assume aliens will be friendly? I mean really.. how do you know their not going to say "Hey man, you interfered with my TV and made me miss the last 5 minutes of alien party girls 3! That's it, you're dead!"

    Boom.. we gone.

    I'm going to go get started on some kind of bomb-proof bunker.. assuming they don't blow the whole planet up in which case, we're all dead.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: So... what if their not friendly?

      Simple, they will find you and make you one of the "actors" in a pluck'em, fuck'em and chuck'em tourist package...

      You wake up after being dropped somewhere smelling of cheap booze, with a sore arse, and no one will believe your story!

  9. This is my handle

    I have always subscribed to the theory ...

    ... more advanced => less violent, but of course we have no guarantee of that.

    I'm reminded of the Twilight Zone episode where aliens land and give us puny Earthlings N days to shape up. The Cold War powers that be end the wars, start solving problems like hunger & ignorance, etc. The aliens return and make it clear that they are a warrior species, and we have confirmed their worst fears about us. Bwaaahhaaa (evil laugh).

  10. Chris G

    Corporate Aliens

    " Sir! We have just received a message from a planet that says it is an intelligent species living on an oxygen and water rich, iron cored planet that has abundant resources to provide all that life needs."

    " Thanks for the update SSmmrggglzzplm."

    Picks up phone to secretary; " Get me Pest Control and Resources Development, we have a new project!"

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never going to happen

    Suck it up Princess

  12. razorfishsl

    Getting off this planet will significantly increase the odds of finding Elvis..

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So many problems

    1) What communication method would they use? If we'd listened for them 80 years ago and had a modern highly modulated digital cell phone or TV broadcast from the future intercepted somehow, it would very likely be ignored as "noise". Maybe there's an as yet undiscovered method of communication that's FTL or passes transparently through almost any material that they broadcast in - figuring that until a civilization learns this they're not worth talking to.

    2) Why should they care to talk to us? I guess we try to talk to animals, so maybe they'd want to communicate with some backwards hairless apes, but they might not make the effort unless they knew we're here. Since our communication is traveling at c and weakening as it goes, unless they're close or they have some sort of observation post close, it may be hundreds or thousands of years before they know we're here - and that's if we're in the same galactic zip code!

    3) Maybe broadcasting to 'everyone' is a bad idea. It only takes one berzerker civilization to mean civilizations that shout out to everyone have a short life expectancy after first broadcast, meaning all such civilizations may be long dead by now.

    4) What if we hear them, but TPTB keep it secret? They may want to avoid the type of world unrest, religious and otherwise, that would likely follow the revelation there are other intelligent beings in the universe. I know Sci Fi authors like to pretend it would bring the world together, but I am skeptical. We'd be brought together if they came to exterminate us (not that that's very likely to help, Falling Skies notwithstanding) but I don't think we'd get the same reaction if there was no immediate threat.

  14. mr.K

    Waste of money

    I fail to see how we have the technology to do this. We are barely able to detect the drop in light coming from a star when a planet pass in front of it. It has to be a huge planet and close to the star and the star has to be small for it to be done. Still next to this blazing inferno of jamming across the entire electromagnetic spectrum we expect to pick up incredible weak radiowaves that isn't even directed at us? This is even before we start to consider the likelyhood that they are close by, that they are in that exact period of their technology evolution that they use radiowaves at this strength (we are more or less past it ourself) if they ever went down that path, that their atmosphere doesn't block it regardless etc etc

    There has to be cooler and more promising things to explore in space for that kind of money.

  15. oldfartuk

    "expert alien hunters Geoffrey Marcy and Dan Werthime " They cant be all that expert, since they so far have failed to find any, a success rate no better than most other people.

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