Interpreting and reporting on a SETI discovery

Tarter, Donald E.

doi:10.1016/0265-9646(92)90037-v

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…SETI could do one thing that draws a distinction from the missionaries, resource extractors, conquistadors, explorers, traders, colonizers, slave raiders, and travelers that have been engaged in contact situations before: SETI could express their intentions in making contact while also acknowledging the complex matters of the endeavor. We note that Billingham (1991), D. Tarter (1992), and others have called for Principles to be in place following detection. We agree principles are very much needed at that stage, but we also strongly feel that ethics principles and guidelines are urgently needed at this stage of listening and to provide ethical guidance demonstrating utmost care in your efforts to contact.…”

Section: Our Recommendationmentioning

confidence: 87%

Indigenous Studies Working Group Statement

Atalay¹,

Lempert²,

Shorter³

et al. 2021

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2018, the authors were invited to share their perspectives as Indigenous studies scholars to the work of Breakthrough Listen, an organization affiliated with both the Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This collectively authored statement highlights some of the ethical concerns these authors perceived regarding the history colonialism and the expectations to find “advanced” or “intelligent” extraterrestrial life. A prologue contextualizes the short working group statement and we then provide the unedited original statement in its entirety.

show abstract

Section: Our Recommendationmentioning

confidence: 87%

Indigenous Studies Working Group Statement

Atalay¹,

Lempert²,

Shorter³

et al. 2021

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…SETI had to reinterpret how to do radio signaling, as Tarter described in "Interpreting and Reporting on a SETI Discovery" and "Reply Policy and Signal Type: Assumptions Drawn from Minimal Source Information" showed (Tarter, 1992). Frank Tipler also wrote in "SETIa Waste of Time!"…”

Section: Space Cooperation Into the New Millenniummentioning

confidence: 99%

When E.T. Encounters ‘psychohistory’: C/SETI, Public Policy in Space, and Radio Astronomy

Moore¹

2022

Proceedings of the 5th World Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 1960 Frank Drake began Project Ozma to collect deep-space radio transmissions and ignited decades of advanced research in the years following within a new field, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. This paper's research question addresses a similar topic: what was the origin of the idea of CETI, or "communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence," and what is its relationship to some motifs of the cultural Cold War? The history of CETI and the SETI Institute organization, have been intertwined almost exclusively with the practice of radio astronomy. This thesis delves into both the scientific and social implications of the emergence of the concept of CETI and explores new methodologies of communicating with hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence through international collaboration on issues such as disaster, social law, economics, and predictive modeling. My findings pointed to a Diplomatic Revolution and revealed parallels between the SETI Institute's search for ET and popular science fiction social systems, where depictions of the search for extraterrestrials by late pulp-fiction era writers by the 1990s made communicating with ETs part of global diplomatic goals between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc of nations. It was the carrying forward of the literary theme of "Future History" narratives that influenced the cultural Cold War by popularizing how authors, scientists, and the public could coordinate new diplomatic policies in anticipation of first contact.

show abstract

“…However, this is no reason to dismiss the ETI hypothesis. SETI researchers distinguish many different kinds of signals beyond specifically intentional signals targeted to planet Earth, such as unintentional signals (leakage, spacecraft communication), general scans or omnidirectional beacons (Tarter 1992).…”

Section: Dismissing the Dismissmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulsar positioning system: a quest for evidence of extraterrestrial engineering

Vidal

2017

International Journal of Astrobiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Pulsars have at least two impressive applications. First, they can be used as highly accurate clocks, comparable in stability to atomic clocks; secondly, a small subset of pulsars, millisecond X-ray pulsars, provide all the necessary ingredients for a passive galactic positioning system. This is known in astronautics as X-ray pulsar-based navigation (XNAV). XNAV is comparable to GPS, except that it operates on a galactic scale. I propose a SETI-XNAV research program to test the hypothesis that this pulsar positioning system might be an instance of galactic-scale engineering by extraterrestrial beings (section 4). The paper starts by exposing the basics of pulsar navigation (section 2), continues with a critique of the rejection of the extraterrestrial hypothesis when pulsars were first discovered (section 3). The core section 4 proposes lines of inquiry for SETI-XNAV, related to: the pulsar distribution and power in the galaxy; their population; their evolution; possible pulse synchronizations; pulsar usability when navigating near the speed of light; decoding galactic coordinates; directed panspermia; and information content in pulses. Even if pulsars are natural, they are likely to be used as standards by ETIs in the galaxy (section 5). I discuss possible objections and potential benefits for humanity, whether the research program succeeds or not (section 6).

show abstract

Interpreting and reporting on a SETI discovery

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

Indigenous Studies Working Group Statement

Indigenous Studies Working Group Statement

When E.T. Encounters ‘psychohistory’: C/SETI, Public Policy in Space, and Radio Astronomy

Pulsar positioning system: a quest for evidence of extraterrestrial engineering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About