Extraterrestrials May Not Be Visible To Us

Extraterrestrials May Not Be Visible To Us
2010 02 26

Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen, said the existence of extraterrestrial life may be beyond human understanding.

He made the remarks shortly after hosting the national science academy’s first conference on the possibility of alien life.

“They could be staring us in the face and we just don’t recognise them. The problem is that we’re looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology,” he said.

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there as aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”

Lord Rees used the conference in January, entitled The Detection of Extra-terrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society, to ask whether the discovery of aliens would cause terror or delight on earth.

He told Prospect magazine that improved telescopes made the chance of finding extra-terrestrial life “better than ever”.

But Dr Frank Drake, the world’s leading “ET hunter”, told the conference that satellite TV and the “digital revolution” was making humanity invisible to aliens by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space.

At present, the Earth is surrounded by a 50 light year-wide "shell" of radiation from analogue TV, radio and radar transmissions. But although the signals have spread far enough to reach many nearby star systems, they are rapidly vanishing in the wake of digital technology, according to Dr Drake.

The scientist, who founded the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence organisation in the United States, said digital TV signals would look like noise to a race of observing aliens.

Article from: NaturalPlane.blogspot.com

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

Deadly Drug Trials: Western Firms Bribed East German Doctors
2013 05 24
It wasn’t just the East German government that benefited from risky patient drug trials commissioned by Western pharmaceutical manufacturers decades ago. These companies also sent liaisons with lavish gifts to bribe and influence doctors to participate. The presents always came in the springtime. When the representatives of Western pharmaceutical companies arrived at the Leipzig Trade Fair, they made sure that East ...

Home Secretary secretly strips two more people of British citizenship
2013 05 24
The Home Secretary has stripped at least two additional individuals of their British citizenship in recent months, the Bureau has learned. In February, an investigation by the Bureau and published with the Independent revealed that Theresa May had signed deprivation of citizenship orders for 16 people between the 2010 election and November 2012, including five British-born individuals. That total has now ...

Mahatma Gandhi’s blood fails to sell at auction
2013 05 24
Famous pacifist Mahatma Gandhi didn’t like to spill any when he was alive so it is quite ironic a sample of his blood was put up for sale in a recent auction. In the end the activist’s body fluid was not sold as no-one was able to meet the £10,000 ($15,155) reserve price. Gandhi’s blood had been available to buy after being ...

Ancient decapitated ball game statue found in Mexico
2013 05 24
Villagers installing a water pipe a few weeks ago in the town of Piedra Labrada in the southwestern Mexico near the Guatemalan border unearthed a granite stele depicting a player of the Mesoamerican ball game. The figure is 5’4″ high including the head which archaeologists believe was deliberately severed from the body during a ball game ritual. He’s a bow-legged ...

Finally! Independent Testing Of Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All
2013 05 24
[...] I haven’t posted about Rossi and his E-Cat since last August simply because there wasn’t much to report other than more of Rossi’s unsupported and infuriating claims that included building large-scale automated factories to churn out millions of E-Cats (the factories still have no sign of actually existing) through to unsubstantiated performance claims that sounded far too good to ...

More News »