Subject: Re: Dr. Werthimer's explanation of the mysterious signal
From: "Alfred A. Aburto Jr." <aburto@sbcglobal.net>
Date: 06/09/2004, 14:28
Newsgroups: alt.sci.seti,sci.astro.seti

I think regardless of the drifting signal characterestics is that the 3 detections came from the same point in the sky (or very nearly the same point, within the beamwidth (I'm assuming) of Arecibo)! This in itself is very interesting and unusual! Enough so that I would want to search this spatial area in even more detail!
 
Well(!), so if I was the SETI League for example, I would be asking those members with time and good recources to steadily take a look at that part of the sky where the seti@home detection was made (while their beamwidths will be alot wider and their sensitivity alot less, still they can concentrate look time on that spatial area)! Of course seti@home would need to give them a better idea what spatial area to cover.
Al
 
"Joe M" <jjmele.remove.this@aol.com> wrote in message news:8NR_c.117$kY1.282493@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
I just read the following at http://planetary.org/news/2004/seti_signal_0902.html
 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Because of the drift, explained Werthimer, “if we had looked at the sky even a few seconds later we wouldn’t have found a match” for this candidate. A signal that drifts so quickly that it can only be heard for seconds at a time at a given frequency can only be detected by blind luck. Needless to say, such a transmission is an unlikely vehicle for message from an advanced civilization
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
 
Now it seems to me that he is making an unfound assumption. Namely of all signals likely to be received from ET are INTENTIONAL signals. I think that is It is far more likely to receive unintentional signals. Let me explain.  In the small amount of time that we had a marginal capacity of space travel. We sent out dozens of probes. It is not hard to imagine an advanced civilization in the course of its existince from a few hundred years to a few thousand years for it to send out thousands of probes(varying in size and sophistication), not to mention "space junk". The actual number of probes has to be in a ratio of 1000 to 1 when comparing to the existence of planets that CURRENTLY have advanced civilizations that are transmitting in our direction. Probes and space junk can conceivably outlive their respective civilizations by thousands of years. 
 
What would it take to concentrate to detect errant signals from probes? They would have be narrowly focused. and they may rotate as consequence of their travels when they initially did not rotate.  And in that case their signal would not be corrected. contradicting Dr. Werthimer. If they are intended to be truly long distant and therefore would transmit at that favored frequency? Wouldnt that make sense?
 
perhaps we should change the definition of advanced civilization to one that can send probes?
 
joe
 
.--