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Not made by humans? | Part 1

Dawn at Big Ear, Ohio State University, http://bigear.org

At a quarter past ten in the evening on the 15th of August 1977
a once-in-a-lifetime event took place in Delaware:

a very strong signal arrived at the “Big Ear” radio telescope. It had all the characteristics of having come from an extraterrestrial intelligent source.

The OSU Big Ear radio observatory was aligned in North/South direction. The parabolic reflector is in the South.

No-one was at the telescope at the time. The receiver and telescope computer were doing their jobs all by themselves. Therefore the signal was actually first detected by a machine, a twelve year old computer.

BITS OF INFORMATION
The IBM 1130 had first been built in 1965. it looked and felt like an old battleship. It had only 1 megabyte of memory. For that reason the only record of the radio signal is a 6 digit printout on endless paper. There’s no audio recording of the signal. Today we would have a complete audio recording of it, measuring mega- if not gigabytes. But in those days, just six characters on paper had to suffice as a record.

After a few days the stack of computer printouts was bundled by Big Ear technician Gene Mikesell and brought to Jerry Ehman’s home.

THE ANALYSIS
Jerry Ehman was a SETI volunteer with the Ohio State University. Together with Bob Dixon he had written the software for the Big Ear computer in FORTRAN and assembler.

Around the 19th of August Jerry began analyzing the printouts from the radio telescope at his home, looking for unusual radio signatures.

A few pages into the pile of paper he saw a peculiar sequence of numbers and characters.

He was astonished. After highlighting in red pen the six characters “6EQUJ5” Jerry wrote the notation “Wow!” in the left margin of the computer printout opposite them.

The Wow! signal printout

The characters and numbers denoted a very strong narrow-band transmission. Apparently it had come from outer space. Narrow-band transmissions usually don’t occur naturally and are a sign of artificial origin.

Conventionally speaking, all artificial things are made by humans. That’s because human language and the Cambridge Dictionary defines “artificial” as “made by humans”. That definition may have to be revised.

OPTIMUM CHANNEL
The Wow! transmission had all the hallmarks of a radio signal from a non-human extraterrestrial civilization. In the 1959 article “Searching for Interstellar Communications” Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison explained that using the 21 cm hydrogen frequency was a logical choice for SETI.

And that was precisely the frequency of the Wow! signal. It had come from the direction in the sky were the constellation Sagittarius is found. 

The Big Ear radio and computer shack.

If we transfer the number codes from the Wow! printout to plotting paper we can see the waxing and waning strength of the 1420 mHz radio beam that reached the radio telescope. Each of the letters and numbers corresponds to a certain signal intensity, as the next graph illustrates.

The signal may have been transmitting for centuries and was never detected because no one looked for it before. The signal source did not move in the sky. The only thing that moved over for 72 seconds was the Earth, rotating majestically from East to West as the radio receiver moved in and out of the signal beam.

And then the signal vanished. Gone. The signal would have been picked up again by the second horn antenna of Big Ear. But it was no longer there.

The rise and fall of the signal we see in the graph above was due to the antenna pattern, the signal itself remained at constant strength.

The graph below shows a similar signal pattern in “OV-221”, the radio source to the right of the Wow! signal. (OV-221 is also known as MSH 19–203 (Mills Slee Hill Radio Sources)).

In this broadband continuum record the Wow! signal does not show up because it is too narrow-band.

Today I’m waiting to hear if OV-221 corresponds to the center of the Milky Way galaxy , Sagittarius A*, but no-one seems to know the old radio source designations anymore.

After Jerry Ehman showed the computer printout of the Wow! signal to John Kraus and Bob Dixon, they immediately talked about it, speculating and making hypotheses. Quickly, John and Bob began to investigate the various possibilities.

Dr. John Kraus was a physicist and the designer of the Big Ear radio telescope. He actually invented several types of radio antennas.

Bob Dixon was the director of SETI at Ohio State University radio telescope.

Together they excluded the possibility of the signal having been a plane, planet, asteroid, comet, satellite, space craft, ground based transmitter, or any other known natural source.

Now, since the Wow! signal appeared to be unnatural and no known human cause for it could be found, it was suspected that it could have come from a technological alien civilisation.

It was decided to go back to the region in space were the signal had come to see if it could be found again. The scientific method calls for reproducibility of any experiment or result.

Weeks turned to months, and years into decades as astronomers from all over the world searched the region in space were the Wow! signal had been detected.

The Wow! signal was never found again.

Calculations on the space region of the Wow! signal

Image by The Planetary Society, license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

The Wow! signal was observed for 72 seconds. In this time a region of space equivalent to 18 arcminutes was scanned, according to the following calculations:

24h x 60 min = 1440 mins/day = 86400 sec
360° / 86400 = 0.0041° per second
72 seconds = 0.3°

An arcminute (denoted by the symbol ‘), is an angular measurement equal to 1/60 of a degree or 60 arcseconds. To convert a degree measurement to a minute of arc measurement, we multiply the angle by the conversion ratio.

The angle in minutes of arc is equal to the degrees multiplied by 60:
0.3 x 60 = 18 arcminutes.

As seen from the Earth, the Sun and Moon both have angular diameters of about 30 arcminutes. The full moon’s average apparent size is about 31 arcminutes (or 0.52°).

In other words, the Wow! signal spanned an area of about half the size of the Sun or the Moon, as seen from Earth in the sky. That is a rather large area in astronomy.

On the basis of this simple calculation I cannot readily agree that the Wow! signal came from a pointlike source. That may or may not be a problem. It can be resolved by agreeing that the resolution of the Big Ear radio telescope was not any better!

The frequency and speed of the Wow! signal source

It’s assumed that aliens that use the hydrogen frequency do so in a manner to compensate for the motion of their planet with respect to the motion of Earth. Otherwise the precise frequency of the hydrogen becomes higher or lower.

That’s why it’s important to look at the precise frequency of the signal.

John Kraus, the director of the observatory, gave a frequency value of 1420.3556 MHz in his 1994 summary written for Carl Sagan.

Jerry Ehman in 1998 gave a value of 1420.4556±0.005 MHz. 

This is (50±5 kHz) above the hydrogen line value of 1420.4058 MHz.

Only one of those frequencies could be the correct one. The explanation of the difference between Ehman’s and Kraus’s values was that a new oscillator had been ordered for the frequency of 1450.4056 MHz.

The university’s purchasing department then made a typographical error in the order and wrote 1450.5056 MHz instead of 1450.4056 MHz. The software used in the experiment was then written to adjust for this error. When Ehman computed the frequency of the Wow! signal, he took this error into account.


After all errors are accounted for, the Doppler shift of 1420.4556 MHz indicates that the Wow! signal source moved at a speed of 37 893 km/h towards Earth. The following calculations show how I arrived at that speed:

Calculations on the Doppler shift of the Wow! signal

The Wow! signal was detected at 1420.4556 MHz. First we need to convert the frequency to the wavelength. The wavelength is given by the frequency and the speed of light, how far one wave crest travels in a given time span.

Frequency to wavelength calculator:
https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/frequency-to-wavelength

The frequency of the Wow! signal 1420.4556 MHz is equal to a wavelength of (Δλ) 21.105373 cm. That’s the distance between each wave crest.

The presumed origin signal of hydrogen has a precise frequency of 1420405751.768 Hz, equivalent to the wavelength of (λ) 21.106114054160 cm. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line

The doppler shift speed from delta lambda and lambda = 299 781 932.02409 m/sec. https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/sspickle/speed+from+delta+lambda+and+lambda

Now we subtract
299 781 932.02409 m/sec
[Doppler shifted Wow! signal speed from v = (Δλ/λ) * c]
-299 792 458 m/sec [ speed of light (c)]
______________________

10 526 m/sec = 37 893 km/h or 10.526 km/sec.

Ref. 1: The source of the Wow! signal approached Earth at a speed of 37 893 km/h or 23 545 mph, if the transmission frequency was from hydrogen.

The average speed of asteroids is 18 – 20 km/s vs the 10.52 km/s from the Wow! signal. Comets that impact Earth usually are also faster, at 30 km/s.

End of part 1.

Follow this story and more on

https://contactproject.org
A proposal to make radio contact with UAPs/UFOs

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Can We Have Artificial Gravity In Spacecraft?

Why has nobody built rotating spacecraft to simulate gravity?

Pictured: a fairground ride from the 1950’s, I call it a GRAVITY DRUM.

A whole spacecraft is expensive to rotate, but small spaces on space stations or ships could easily be rotated.

Can those small spaces be big enough to provide meaningful and healthy artificial gravity?

From my physics knowledge I recall that gravity and acceleration are the same.

If I remember correctly, 1 g is equal to an acceleration of 9.81m/sec per second. In other words, a wheel with a circumference of 10 meters would have to be spun about once per second to simulate 1 g in Zero gravity? Not quite.

Alas, it’s a bit more complicated than that, and thankfully we don’t have to spin the wheel quite so fast. That’s a bonus!

Here are a few handy calculators to work out wheel sizes and rotation rates to simulate Earth gravity:

SpinCalc, solves for gravity, radius and rotation rate,

Circle Calculator, solves for diameter, radius and circumference.

A wheel with a circumference of 10 meters would have a diameter of 3.18 meters. This would be a handy size for artificial gravity experiments, even on Earth.

Would it be comfortable to spend any time in this? The wheel should rotate at about 24 RPM to simulate 1 g. It could be compartmentalized in to 1 x 2 meter beds, holding ten crew.

So at least during their rest period spacefarers would have the benefit of normal gravity. The astronauts are lying on the inside of the wheel, a bit like in the fairground ride illustration but with more privacy.

Is it feasible to built such small Drum Gravity units?
How would the human body react? (Artificial Gravity by Centrifuge).

We know that the negative effects of zero gravity are really serious and numerous. Even 2.5 hours of daily treadmill exercise are insufficient to prevent these effects:

  1. fluid redistribution: Bodily fluids shift from the lower extremities toward the head. This precipitates many of the problems described below .
  2. fluid loss: The brain interprets the increase of fluid in the cephalic area as an increase in total fluid volume. In response, it activates excretory mechanisms.
  3. electrolyte imbalances: Changes in fluid distribution lead to imbalances in potassium and sodium and disturb the autonomic regulatory system .
  4. cardiovascular changes: An increase of fluid in the thoracic area leads initially to increases in left ventricular volume and cardiac output. As the body seeks a new equilibrium, fluid is excreted, the left ventricle shrinks and cardiac output decreases.
  5. red blood cell loss: Blood samples taken before and after American and Soviet flights have indicated a loss of as much as 0.5 liters of red blood cells.
  6. muscle damage: Muscles atrophy from lack of use. Contractile proteins are lost and tissue shrinks. Muscle loss may be accompanied by a change in muscle type.
  7. bone damage: Because the mechanical demands on bones are greatly reduced in micro gravity, bones essentially dissolve.
  8. hypercalcemia: Fluid loss and bone demineralization conspire to increase the concentration of calcium in the blood.
  9. immune system changes: Loss of T-cell function may hamper the body’s resistance to cancer — a danger exacerbated by the high-radiation environment of space .
  10. interference with medical procedures: Bacterial cell membranes become thicker and less permeable, reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics.
  11. vertigo and spatial disorientation: Without a stable gravitational reference, crew members experience arbitrary and unexpected changes in their sense of verticality.
  12. space adaptation syndrome: About half of all astronauts and cosmonauts are afflicted. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, anorexia, headache, malaise, drowsiness, lethargy, pallor and sweating.
  13. loss of exercise capacity: This may be due to decreased motivation as well as physiological changes.
  14. degraded sense of smell and taste: The increase of fluids in the head causes stuffiness similar to a head cold.
  15. weight loss: Fluid loss, lack of exercise and diminished appetite result in weight loss. Space travelers tend not to eat enough.
  16. flatulence: Digestive gas cannot “rise” toward the mouth and is more likely to pass through the other end of the digestive tract “very effectively with great volume and frequency” .
  17. facial distortion: The face becomes puffy and expressions become difficult to read, especially when viewed sideways or upside down.
  18. changes in posture and stature: The neutral body posture approaches the fetal position. The spine tends to lengthen.
  19. changes in coordination: Earth-normal coordination unconsciously compensates for self-weight. In weightlessness there is a tendency to reach too “high” .

Compared to these adverse effects of zero gravity, here are some studies by a psychologist named Graybiel from 1977 on the effects of rotating a human on his own axis here on Earth, like on a spit (from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1980-22567-001).

GRAYBIEL ROTATION COMFORT ZONES

Graybiel concluded that 
1.0 RPM: even highly susceptible subjects were symptom-free, or nearly so
3.0 RPM: subjects experienced symptoms 
5.4 RPM, only subjects with low susceptibility performed well
10 RPM, adaptation presented a challenging but interesting problem. Even pilots without a history of air sickness did not fully adapt in a period of twelve days.

The “adaption” that Graybiel is talking about is the getting used to the absence of the rotation, after the body had been spun.

What that feels like we all remember from childhood.:

Pirouette

I must say that spit rotating a human on his own axis in the horizontal under the influence of Earth gravity is most likely to be very far removed from what a human may experience in an artificial gravity drum in weightless space.

I’d go as far as to say that Graybiel’s rotation comfort zones have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with artificial gravity by centripetal force. All he proved in his paper “Somatosensory motion after-effect following earth-horizontal rotation about the Z-axis” is that the after effect of spinning someone rapidly is disorientation of the vestibular system of the ear, leading to dizziness, aka vertigo.

But let’s see if these Graybiel’s comfort zone figures can be applied.
The SpaceX Mars rocket is going to have a diameter of 9 meters. Would it be possible to create a comfortable habitat for sleeping or resting spacefarers within the confines of this rocket?

A 9 meter drum would need to rotate at 14 RPM to simulate 1 g, or at 8 RPM to achieve 1/3 of Earth gravity. Graybiel’s findings would indicate that the space available on the SpaceX Mars rocket would be too small.

However, I believe that the gravity (centripetal force) acting on the body as it lies down, not spinning about itself and on one level , will be more comfortable than twirling rapidly around one’s own axis.

In Drum Gravity Bed Units there would be no head-to-foot acceleration gradient.

DRUM GRAVITY BED UNITS
The drum gravity bed units are conceived of as an add-on module to a spacecraft or space station, be it in transit, orbit or on the Moon, Mars or asteroids to provide more natural gravity.

Have prototypes of this concept been built?

In a certain way: Yes! The first picture in this post is a fairground attraction from the 1950’s.

Did humanity really forget from the ’50s how easy and fun it is to enjoy artificial gravity? Apparently the fairground visitors subjected themselves to the experience voluntarily and enjoyed it.

“Rotor Ride”

Simple gravity devices like this could help spacefarers to maintain their health, after the device is tweaked.

A BIGGER MODEL

Rotating wheel space station — Wikipedia

Here are the calculations on the von Braun wheel from 1952 used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey:

They envisioned a rotating wheel with a diameter of 76 meters (250 feet). The 3-deck wheel would revolve at 3 RPM to provide artificial one-third gravity. It was envisaged as having a crew of 80.

Fast forward 70 years (not much has happened since the 1950’s):

SAHC HUMAN CENTRIFUGE
The SAHC human centrifuge began testing and operations in about 2020. It’s to investigate the tolerability and use of artificial gravity on astronauts and their health, to counter the effects of weightlessness. What’s taken so long?

The machine measures 5.6 meters in diameter. 
It would be small enough to put in the SpaceX Mars rocket. But it needs a few more seats.

https://www.dlr.de/me/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1961/2779_read-14523/

Centrifuge with lying test person

–

With the Short-Arm Human Centrifuge (SAHC) in Cologne — provided by the ESA — artificial gravity will be created to afford fundamental research in medicine and human physiology. The main focus is on the possibility to extend e.g. bed-rest studies to test methods of artificial gravity based counter-measures for medical risks due to weightlessness.

Technical data:

Max. radius at outer perimeter: 2,8 m
Max. overall payload: 550 kg

Max. centrifugal acceleration
(foot level, test subject height 185 cm): 4.5 g
Max. revolution of centrifuge rotor
(software limit): 39 rpm

Scientific applications

  • Development of effective countermeasures for neuromuscular and skeletal degeneration of astronauts using Artificial Gravity, etc…

This is an article by Erich Habich-Traut for the Contact Project,
https://contactproject.org

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You’re warped onto the home world of friendly aliens in some unknown part of the Galaxy. How would you describe Earth’s location in the universe to them?

Pulsar Map Tattoo

I would show them my pulsar map. Astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake designed the map, working with fellow astronomer Carl Sagan and artist and writer Linda Salzman Sagan. The pulsar map shows the location of our sun relative to known pulsars. This map was placed on the interstellar space probes Voyager 1 & 2 in 1977.

The map is slightly inaccurate because of a rounding error on one pulsar, but its better than nothing.

Whether or not to have a tattoo of it is debatable. A dog tag may be easier to carry.

The Magic About Pulsars
Discovered in 1967 by Northern Irish astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, pulsars were described by Antony Hewish to be the remains of collapsed suns.

For reasons not entirely understood they emit pulses of radio waves (and like lighthouses sometimes visible light) with the accuracy of atomic clocks, staying active for billions of years. It has something to do with magnetic fields.

Frank Drake drew the pulsar map using 14 pulsars that were known in the early 1970’s. Today we know of many more pulsars but they are not as powerful and bright. Frank Drake’s original pencil-drawn pulsar map today lives in an old tomato box at home.

Frank Drake hand drawn original pulsar map that went to Outer Space.

Each pulsar is connected to the sun by a solid line. The length of the line represents the pulsar’s approximate relative distance from the sun.
Etched along each of the pulsar lines are vertical and horizontal dashes that represent a binary number that can be converted into a decimal.
When multiplied by a known measure of time, that number reveals the frequency of the pulsar—how fast it spins and flashes.

Successfully decoding the map would unambiguously pinpoint the sun’s position and the time frame of the spacecraft’s launch.

This is an article by the “Contact Project”.

We can be found on https://contactproject.org.

The Contact Project is also on reddit: https://reddit.com/r/contactproject

Reference:
How to Read a Pulsar Map
https://www.pbs.org/the-farthest/science/pulsar-map/

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Statement of the Contact Project regarding METI

Text revised and updated: 11. January 2022

Don’t Be Afraid of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence | Douglas Vakoch

Dr. Vakoch is President of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI).

“As astronomers launch ambitious projects for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, alarmists worry that transmitting intentional radio and laser signals into space may provoke an alien invasion. These critics overlook one fundamental fact: it’s too late to hide.”

Dr. Vakoch, Feb 3, 2020


Dr. Vakoch is currently not associated with the ‘Contact Project & Initiative’. His statement was directed at the fact that humanity has been announcing it’s presence via radio signals to our cosmic neighborhood for the last 100 years. He did not mean to imply that Alien presences are already here.

This is what the Contact Project & Initiative is about:
The Mission of ‘The Contact Project & Initiative’ is to investigate UAPs/UFOs on every frequency, using real-time tracking, radio receivers and transmitters, HD video, HD images, optical and radio telescopes and passive & active radar, so that the question of the nature and origin of UAP can be answered without doubts.

The engine of this initiative will be an app custom designed to coordinate real-time reporting, alerting, documenting and contacting efforts.

Anyone can take part, there’ll be a public as well as a science data channel. The goal of the ‘Contact Initiative’ is to gather high quality evidence.

To do this every frequency will be scanned, including the 1420 Mhz hydrogen waterhole, which is legal as long as it’s done passively. If transmissions are found, the next step is to discover if UAPs react to radio transmissions. Broadcasting at a frequency of 1420 MHz is illegal under international law, however.

Should the UAP respond to transmissions on HAM or CB radio amateur frequencies, great! But what if it doesn’t?

To have any chance to stay legal under current law and to be able to broadcast at 1420 Mhz the UAP position data must be forwarded in real time to SETI for further investigation.

Actually, a memorandum should be drafted to provide for an exception to broadcast on 1420 Mhz for METI purposes. The relevant article of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is recommendation RA.769 : Protection criteria used for radio astronomical measurements

What does the Contact Project want to do?
We want to do METI (messaging ETi) with a target that’s already here, UAPs. We don’t have to worry about attracting the attention of “hostile” aliens by messaging them as they already know of us, if that’s what UAPs/UFOs are.

As things go, this possibility wasn’t seriously considered by the METI organization in 2015, because the subject of UAPs was still considered too crackpot then.

So, the statement issued by the METI organization regarding messaging extraterrestrial intelligence only covers targets outside of Earth’s atmosphere (statement here).

Since then, in 2021, this outlook has changed somewhat by the release of a preliminary assessment of the American Director of National Intelligence on UAPs (assessment here).

The METI statement called for a worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion about the implications of messaging ET, before anything should be initiated. Arguably, since UAPs first made headlines in 1947 there’s been a worldwide discussion about “them” for over 75 years.

A lot of that time much of humanity reacted like an ostrich, sticking it’s head in the sand when hearing UFO reports. Or like three monkeys. Which comparison do we prefer?

Wisdom?

Did it never occur to anyone that these phenomena may be more than swamp gas or the result of delusions? Sadly, as a result of the swamp gas hypothesis, the METI statement covers only METI targets outside of Earth.

METI might wish to reconsider their statement. Because currently there seems to be no position on contacting UAPs, to the best of my knowledge.

METI says:
ETI’s reaction to a message from Earth cannot presently be known.

If extraterrestrial civilizations have a presence on Earth in the form of UAPs/UFOs or drone-like von Neumann probes they will certainly be able to monitor our news and events. We already know that there was no reaction from UAPs/UFOs to the Voyager space probes and the Golden Records.

METI says:
We know nothing of ETI’s intentions and capabilities, and it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile.

Experience shows that when UAP are pursued by military jet fighters they don’t react hostile. Civilian planes are not attacked either. It’s reasonable to assume that the intelligence behind UAPs is mostly benign.

“The threat to humanity from each other is magnitudes greater than from ETi. That hasn’t and shouldn’t stop us from talking to each other and that includes ETi.”

The Contact Project

GALACTIC FEDERATION?
All sorts of explanations about UFOs and their prospective occupants have been given, from the no-contact rule of a Galactic Federation to higher dimensional frequencies that mortals can join only after exhaustive preparation.

I didn’t make up the Galactic Federation link to UAPs, this claim comes from highly decorated former Israeli Space Security Chief Haim Eshed.

Healthy skepticism is of course in order as most sightings have a prosaic explanation, ranging from misidentifications to pranks and hoaxes. But they don’t account for every sighting.

To admit in 2021 that some UAP cannot be explained was a major step forward by the US government.

The Contact Initiative wants to find out if there is just one UAP that will respond to radio transmissions. And that is easy.

And to prepare for the possibility of a positive response from an UAP?
Not so easy.

Monolith © Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY – THE PROLOGUE INTERVIEWS

The Contact Project can be found on https://contactproject.org.

Contact Project on reddit: https://reddit.com/r/contactproject

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“The Implications of the discovery of extra-terrestrial life for religion.” Royal Society presentation and article

Ted F. Peters 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | Summary by Erich Habich-Traut for the Contact Project, 2021

Three crosses on a hill at sunset. Free Church of Scotland, Reverend Sandy Sutherland, used with permission

The implications of the discovery of extra-terrestrial life for religion. Theologian Ted Peters wrote about the future of religion. He asked the following questions:

(i) Will confirmation of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI) cause terrestrial religion to collapse?

A few years ago, Ted Peters decided to put conventional wisdom to a test. Along with his Berkeley research assistant, Julie Louise Froehlig, he devised a survey: the Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey:

Would the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization cause a crisis in religious beliefs? Peters surveyed evangelical, protestant, catholic and orthodox Christians, and also Mormons, Jews, Buddhists and Atheists:

‘No’ is the answer based upon a summary of the ‘Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey’. The discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization would not cause a crisis in religious beliefs.

When we turn away from one’s own personal beliefs and ask respondents to forecast what will happen to the world’s religions, including beliefs other than one’s own, something startling was revealed:

What the survey question above shows is the conventional wisdom of non-religious persons. They make a prediction about what will happen to religious persons: Atheists believe that religions will face a crisis.

Contrary, the Peters survey shows evidence that religious believers themselves do not fear that contact with ETI will undercut their beliefs or precipitate a religious crisis.

Then the paper examines four specific challenges to traditional doctrinal belief likely to be raised at the detection of ETI:

(ii) What is the scope of God’s creation?
This entire universe can be viewed as the product of God’s creative power and loving grace.

(iii) What will be the moral character of the alien intelligences we meet?
Will our extra-terrestrial neighbours be subject to sin? Will they have fallen, so to speak? Or, might the aliens have escaped the scourges that plague us here on Earth?

(iv) Is one earthly incarnation in Jesus Christ enough for the entire cosmos, or should we expect multiple incarnations on multiple planets?
What theologians agree on is that the incarnation we have witnessed within our own planetary history is that of the divine Logos, the divine mind through which everything in physical reality has come into being. They presume continuity between this incarnation and whatever exists despite its distance from us. 

(v) Will contact with more advanced ETI diminish human dignity?
Suppose we Earthlings begin to recognize that we are outclassed by our superior space neighbours.  Might we lose our dignity?

“Hand Of God”, NASA

The existence of a more advanced extrasolar civilization does not preclude our being an object of divine concern. Contact with alien intelligence will not disenfranchise us from being created in God’s image.

The belief that God has revealed himself in a supreme way, frees one to look for that which is of God outside that particular revelation. Christians should expect to learn new things about God from an encounter with aliens.

Conclusion
Despite the conventional wisdom, it is not reasonable to forecast that any of Earth’s major religious traditions will confront a crisis let alone a collapse should we confirm an encounter with extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Ted Peters believes that contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence will expand the existing religious vision that all of creation—including the 13.7 billion year history of the universe replete with all of God’s creatures—is the gift of a loving and gracious God.

Reference:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: https://www.academia.edu/14721074/_The_Implications_of_the_discovery_of_extra_terrestrial_life_for_religion_Royal_Society_presentation_and_article

Ted Peters biography:
http://mttaborslc.org/ted-peters

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SETI on the cheap

“There was a specific electronic signature (frequency) emanating from them (UFOs/UAPs) when they were going into or coming out of the water, so they were easy to track. “

wrote Bob Fish in an Email to John Podesta,
published on Wikileaks by Julian Assange.

Robert Fish, USS Hornet

Can we send “welcome” radio messages during a sighting at UFOs and listen back for a response? Of course we can. That has not been done yet. At least not by civilians. Someone asked on a forum what the frequency is that the Navy listened to…

The frequency is easy to find out.
When an UFO is near we use a multi frequency receiver that scans the entire (electromagnetic) radio spectrum in an instant. The “Uniden Close Call” feature is incorporated into many HAM radios. “Whistler Spectrum Sweeper” is another option.

Both are ways to find frequencies that are close to you with a very strong signal.

Uniden Close Call vs Whistler Spectrum Sweeper

The “AOR AR-7400” is another receiver that scans a predetermined spectrum in one second.

Licensed radio amateurs (HAM operators) near a sighting could try to find the correct UAP frequency and then try to make contact.

To do this there’s no need for highly sensitive multi billion dollar radio telescopes. SETI pointed their dishes at very narrow points in the sky, searching distant star systems for alien messages.

That is not necessary when the potential alien transmitters are close by.

With the open source smartphone app “UFO Alert!” any search partner will be informed immediately of interesting nearby UAPs.

If UAPs emit radio frequencies their signal will be close by and strong enough to be picked up by conventional antenna.

Avi Loeb
The question of “what are UAPs? is also being investigated by Avi Loeb with the “Galileo Project”: this consists of hundreds of stationary optical telescopes that hope to photograph UAPs in high resolution.

I don’t think pictures alone will be sufficient to explain UAPs, no matter how high the resolution. I wrote to Avi suggesting we pool our ideas.

Science has a tendency not to publish results until 100% certain about them. That could mean a delay.

Public channel
On the public channel of the “UFO Alert!” app there will be no such delay. Public participation and discussion about possible results is the apps main feature. It will be totally transparent.

Science channel
The “UFO Alert!’ may have search partners that take a more cautious approach in publishing their findings.

That’s possible due to the open architecture of the app. The results of one search partner or group may disagree with that of another.

Conclusive evidence
But the app of the Contact Project has one main goal: radio contact with UAP. The analysis of those transmissions, if they exist, should leave no doubt about the result.

Join the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/contactproject

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HANDSHAKE PROTOCOLS

The hand ✋Manus Dexter Palmar

So, we’re transmitting voice or data by radio to an UAP. They respond. What now?

Before we can have a meaningful communication with ETI (by radio), we need to agree on some form of handshake protocol. This is not just a friendly formality.

Communication, either analogue or digital, is dialogic. Dialogic processes refer to words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. We must make sure that the speaker is understood by the listener and that the listener can respond. It takes two to tango.

A handshake protocol can agree on the speed and language cypher to be used.

Language is seen as a cypher for thought, different groups of individuals employing unique sounds.

Language sets people apart, it seperates people into nations and regions. This gives them identity.

Digital V90 handshake

Computers or civilized states on common ground have developed handshake protocols for meeting strangers.

An example of a digital handshake are the modem sounds from dial up internet of the 1990’s. What we hear is the V90 handshake protocol of TCP-IP, the internet protocol.

In the movie end sequence in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, when the 5 note sequence is played and the mothership responds, we hear a demonstration of a tone-frequency handshake protocol that’s played by a musician.

Star Trek “First Contact”: ETI communication is initiated by handshake.

In the example from the Star Trek movie “First Contact”, a human literally shakes the hand of a Vulcan before communication is initiated. This is a dialogic handshake.

Not every human is comfortable shaking hands because of fear of viruses. Especially alien ones.

What kind of handshake protocol we’ll be using when we make First Contact with ETI we don’t know precisely.

But when it comes to the transmission of data then it will be a digital handshake. Therefore it’s pointless to expect to hear a single word from ET without ACK.

ACK SYN

ACK! SYN? Mars Attacks movie poster

Known as the “SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK handshake,” computer A transmits a SYNchronize packet to computer B, which sends back a SYNchronize-ACKnowledge packet to A. Computer A then transmits an ACKnowledge packet to B, and the connection is established.

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Why I am coming forward now

During April 2020 I had a lot of time on my hands. It was the first Corona lockdown in Germany. I decided to sort through old 35 mm negatives in an old drawer in our basement. The drawer serves as a storage box.

As I was pulling the film strips through the scanner, I came across negatives from England, where I had lived in 1995. Between those negatives were two frames of particular interest.

Ilford XP2 35 mm film, 1995

Ilford XP2 film frames 7 and 8 showed an UAP. I was not prepared to find these pictures. I had completely forgotten this UFO sighting for 25 years. The only other two people who knew about it were my girlfriend and her father who were with me when the sighting took place.

The blurry camera images are not as good as what I saw with my own eyes that night in 1995. I got two exposures of the same object driving in a straight line at 70 mph on the motorway. That made it possible to actually triangulate distance, speed and size of the object:

Triangulation of distance to UAP, frames 7 & 8

It has been suggested that what I saw was an advertising blimp parked near the motorway. I don’t think so, because it had no advertising or any markings on it. Also, the object became 25% smaller as we drove towards it for approx. 15 seconds at 70 mph.

To get smaller the blimp would have to have traveled faster than 70 mph. But a blimp top speed is only 55 mph.

UAP?

That leaves me with the question: what did I see?

This is the reason I am stepping forward, now.
I know how to answer this type of question, once and for all.


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The Mission of ‘The Contact Initiative’:
to investigate UAPs/UFOs using real-time tracking, radio, video, gigapixel images and passive radar, so that this type of question can be answered without doubts.

The engine of this initiative will be an app designed to coordinate real-time reporting, alerting, documenting and contacting efforts.

The goal of the ‘Contact Initiative’ is to gather high quality evidence and, if possible, find out if UAP react to radio transmissions.

What do you think of the Contact Initiative? Join the discussion on https://reddit.com/r/contactproject or friend me on Facebook.

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The Short Version of the Contact Project Research Proposal as PDF

5. Dec. 2021

Here’s the PDF version of the Contact Project research proposal, together with the introductory note and the “Contact app” flowchart. The working title for the Contact App development is currently “UFO Alert!”.

Download and email these documents to promote or evaluate the Contact Initiative. If you do forward these documents I’d be interested in the responses you get.

Contact Project: The Introduction Letter

Contact Project: The Research Proposal

Contact Project: The Contact app flowchart

A note on the Alien Marketplace, funding, etc.
As with most projects or initiatives, a positive cash flow greatly contributes to development speed and stamina.

The last chapter of the research proposal is the “The Alien Marketplace”. This type of chapter is more at home in a business plan than a research proposal and it outlines a funding possibility.

To finance the Contact Initiative a lottery and ad platform funded by advertisers and NFT trading technology are optional but not mandatory. It seems to be the most straightforward way to finance the app and its development and growth.

The Contact Project and Initiative welcomes donations and investments. Mostly the two are mutually exclusive, but I’m not an expert. How investment into the Contact Project could convert into equity has not been explored. I’m open to suggestions.

For donations: we are not tax exempt since this is the early start-up phase.

What do you think of the Contact Initiative? Join the discussion on https://reddit.com/r/contactproject or friend me on Facebook.

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