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How
did the Phoenix Project continue the SETI search for extra
terrestrial life?
"It
observed in the order of a thousand stars similar to our sun
within about a 150 light years of our own sun - so stars where
there is a reasonable chance there could be planets which
have life on them.
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| Ian
Morison, co-ordinator of the Jodrell Bank SETI observations |
"The
programme used two telescopes and for the final years it used
the Arecibo Telescope in conjunction with our 76m - 250ft
- Lovell Radio Telescope here at Jodrell Bank Observatory
in Cheshire. Not only can you immediately verify if a signal
is there or not, but you can actually tell whether it's come
from the earth, from a satellite or actually beyond the solar
system itself - that's obviously what we're looking for, so
it's a very good way of eliminating false alarms.
"We
did have a test signal from beyond the solar system that we
could observe, from the Pioneer Ten Spacecraft, which was
launched way back in 1972 and was still transmitting a weak
- perhaps a five watt signal from about seven billion miles
away - way beyond the distance of Pluto - and everyday we
looked at that just to check that the whole system was working.
"That
programme finished at the end of last year - sadly, again,
we discovered no signals.
"Perhaps
we should be disappointed but to be honest I think the chance
was not that high.
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| Radio
telescope at Jodrell Bank. |
"As
time has gone by it appears that our earth might be a bit
special - a number of factors have allowed the temperature
on the earth to remain very stable for a few billion years
and that has allowed our advanced civilisation to evolve -
this may not happen very often and the estimates of the number
of intelligent civilisation now in our galaxy has dropped
quite dramatically. Optimists might think there might be between
ten and a hundred or so."
"Some
people think that we might well be the only one and so to
have realistic chance of making contact we've got to probe
the whole of our galaxy, not just the little bit nearby -
although I must say we are in a nice bit of the galaxy - it's
a very good bit of galactic real estate and it's just the
sort of place we would expect to find other civilisations.
So
just what is 'intelligent life'?
It's
probably something that's capable of thinking, of rational
thought and also of observing - capable of learning about
the universe in which we live as well as having the ability
to build equipment to view it both visually and perhaps using
radio waves and obviously you've got to have the ability to
send messages across great distances from powerful transmitters.
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| Fictional
alien life form |
"They
probably won't look like us very much, although one would
suspect they might have at least two eyes because that gives
you three dimensional vision - that's must be a great help,
and they're probably not totally dissimilar if their planet
is more massive than ours, they probably would be rather smaller
and use four legs not two; if the planet was a little bit
lighter - less massive than the earth - they might be more
willowy.
"But
in fact you can't have a planet that is to much different
from the earth because then life couldn't evolve anyway. So
it is hard to tell but probably nothing like we ever think
of and almost totally unlike we see on these Sci Fi films!"
And
are they looking for us?
"Well
one hopes so. There are two aspects to this. In about 15 years
time with some arrays of telescopes in space - one called
Darwin, one called Planet Finder - developed by ESA and one
by NASA - we could actually image planets not too far away
from us and even have the ability to analyse the gasses in
their atmospheres. If we found the presence of ozone - which
you can detect - we'd know in fact it would have the oxygen,
which would be a very good indicator of life because the only
the way we think you can have free oxygen in the atmosphere
is if there's life there which is causing it.
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| Alien
from 'Invasion Earth' |
"Assuming
we could build such things in the near future then it seems
possible that other civilisations out there would have as
well, and therefore they might even know that there could
be life forms here on planet Earth.
"My
own gut feeling is that the only way we could ever detect
that they were there was if they deliberately beamed a message
to us.
"Some
people talk about the fact that radio waves have been leaving
the earth for many, many tens of years now and they're gradually
on their way out to the galaxy - the problem is that those
waves are relatively weak - they're not beamed and that makes
it very difficult for them to be detected - I don't actually
believe that people would tell that we were hear simply because
of what we've been doing just with our own television and
radio.
"I
think you have to make an active effort to do it and you've
got to hope that somebody out there has the willingness to
try."
Do
you think we've been visited by ETs?
"My
gut feeling is that we have not been visited by any alien
race because of the effort of doing it is so great. I do not
say that aliens couldn't come here in space craft but I think
because of the effort involved we would certainly know about
it.
"I
feel somewhat hurt that if they have come they've never tried
to communicate in any way with any astronomers or people like
that around the world and that seems a pity; I'd love to talk
to an alien and it's a great pity they don't come and land
outside our telescope because they must know about it and
come and have a chat with us.
What
difference would it make if we made contact?
"Sometime
in the future we might actually come in contact with another
civilisation and that would be one of the most exciting things
to ever happen - but I would hope be destroyed in such a contact
- some people suspect that we shouldn't really let anybody
know of our presence because that's letting somebody else
know that you're here.
"If
their own planet was getting to the point where it couldn't
sustain their life much longer, they might be quite keen to
come and take us over, but assuming that that is not going
to happen then it would really be absolutely wonderful and
we could learn so much. I'd love to know whether had really
managed to link together some of our fundamental theories
- we haven't a theory of everything, we have quantum mechanics,
we have gravity - the two somehow must be linked but nobody
at the moment knows how to do it - I'd love to know of they
could.
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| Crop
formation: first contact? |
"I'd
love to know if they thought there was a god or not; our universe
appears to be just right to allow humans to live here - I
mean obviously it is because we're talking about it. But there
are no fundamental reasons why the universe shouldn't have
various parameters that make it possible for life to exist
- there
are two possibilities why that could have arisen.
"One
is something - somebody - designed it to be so, and that I
suppose we say was a god.
"The
other possibility is that there is myriads and myriads and
myriads of universes all with different properties and it's
only the ones of course that could support life that anybody
ever gets to worry about, so it could be pure chance - it
could that someone has made our universe rather special; well
we just don't know the answer to that.
"There's
another possibility: [if] we don't come into contact with
any other civilisations, then think that's also quite an important
message for us; I think it would indicate that perhaps life
like ours, and maybe planets like our planet earth, really
are rather rare and perhaps rather special.
"It
may not be very often that simple life forms can develop into
an advanced civilisations like ours, so it could be that we
really are a bit special - a bit rare - and I hope that might
be something that mankind thinks seriously about."
Why
is Wiltshire - and Warminster in particular such a significant
place for UFOs and ET phenomena?
"Yes
- well, why Warminster? Well, I mean one thing of course it's
been a lovely area for things called crop circles and that
I suspect is because lots of land in that area is used for
growing wheat and other arable crops in which you could make
very nice crop circles.
"While
most people thought they might actually be real alien effects,
a lot of people have come out of the wood work to explain
how they actually did them but I do still hear that some people
still believe that some of them are of extra terrestrial origin.
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| Cley
Hill, near Warminster |
"If
somewhere gets a bit of a reputation lots of people go there
to look and so by definition you can see a lot more!
"I
have spoken to people who have kept notes on all of the sightings
in the UK and they say maybe 90-95 percent can be explained
- there are all sorts of things one can see that have interesting
and surprising origins.
"I
once saw a beautiful glowing orb crossing the night sky of
Manchester and it was in all the papers the next day. I'd
been coming back from astronomy class, I had binoculars with
me I looked at - it was a hot air balloon - now who would
fly a hot air balloon over Manchester at ten o' clock at night?
It was a mad thing to do!
"
I certainly have an open mind - it would be lovely if we were
visited from creatures from out of space - as long as their
intent wasn't harmful - one worries about that a bit - but
you never know, you can't explain everything and it may be
that there are some things that cannot be explained by earthbound
reasons but so far I have yet to come across one and so far
none of my colleagues in astronomy across the world ever has
- I just hope that some day we might!"
Add
your comment to this story
montague
well my theory consists of the universe its so big n well so many galaxies we cant be the only ones in
this place that live. So these aliens we call are just "normal" in their home planet which are just explorers
of the universe serching for other life forms in which they have found us. although they are WAY move advanced in technology
we are very "amusing" creatures to watch kind of like ants to a 4-year-old. so they visit us often and sometimes show themsevs
or take people from the colonys and "experiment" us to see the way we are inside kind of like what we do when we disect a frog or any other living organism
which brings me to my point
THERE IS LIFE IN OTHER PLANETS IN THE DISTANT GALAXIES NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!!
Marlon
I think that the possibility of alien life, however evolved it may be whaether its far more advanced that we are, or if its just premitive animal life, perhaps even micro-scopic, it is certian that it exsits.
I mean just think of all the endless amounts of planets in the universe, some with the right conditions for life.
I Also have a thought that you can think of any creature. Say 4 arms, 1 leg and three toes with tenticals. Although it seems like a strange sounding creature it has to exist somewhere in this whole dimension of space and time.
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