Constant Vigilance

Do you remember the beginning of Independence Day when that R.E.M. song is playing, and then you see the guy not paying attention to the feedback from those huge satellite dishes? That guy works for a research group known as SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, which has been scanning the stars for communications from aliens for the past fifty years. If you have never heard of them or any of their accomplishments, it’s because their search has only produced results in movies like the aforementioned. While some might call for the plug to be pulled, the author of an editorial* in Nature says that any funding the project receives will be worth it considering what will happen if it succeeds. The impact of actually discovering an alien transmission, proof of other intelligent life in the universe, would be monumental enough to change science and life as we know it. It would be like Dan Brown’s Deception Pointexcept the evidence isn’t fabricated by some obscure government agency, or at least not as obscure.The author also points out that SETI has an advantage because their study cannot generate truly negative results. When scanning an infinite expanse such as space, not finding anything is far from unexpected, and there are always more places to look.

While SETI is not receiving a substantial amount of government funding at this point, a small group of private donors are allowing it to upgrade its technology in order to better conduct its research. One example of the generosity of SETI’s private benefactors is the Allen Telescope Array, which is named for Microsoft’s Paul Allen, a considerable donor to the cause. The Allen array can monitor hundreds of millions of radio channels at once, and considering SETI started out with one dish in 1960, this shows just how far the project has come. Advances like the ATA are helping researchers to solve immense computing challenges associated with large, multi-dish arrays. This will benefit all of radio astronomy as innovations in technology call for the building of larger arrays in the future. With the advent of advances like the ATA, the amount of space SETI is capable of searching, and thus its chances for success, are increasing exponentially.

Despite what the author from Nature may think, SETI’s failure to generate conclusive results has some people skeptical about its continuing operation, including those who believe their search is not in vain. R.R. Stark of Strange Reports of Zones Unknown believes that SETI is part of a cover up by the government to mislead people into thinking that Extra-Terrestrials are beyond our vision and reach, when in reality ETs have already made contact with Earth and are simply concealing themselves from us. Stark believes that the government purposefully funnels factual stories of alien sightings and abductions into media such as tabloids and movies while SETI conducts what is meant to be seen as legitimate research into matters of ETI. According to Stark, it is possible that SETI is not even listening for signals at all, or that they have been cut off from actual top-secret research about the alien presence observing our planet.

Considering SETI has barely any connection to the government at this point and that Stark does not provide any factual evidence to support his argument other than the testimony of an unheard of author, who is probably just as crazy as he is, I am going to side with the author from Nature. Any chance that SETI has of succeeding is worth any contribution to the cause, and while I will not be the one to make that contribution, I have faith that there are plenty of xenophiles out there who are willing to chip in for me. Besides, the government is supposed to be too busy with health care reform and fixing the economy to worry about alien cover-ups these days. Stark would probably say that’s what they want us to think.

*Only available via subscription.