1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,089 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:13,089 --> 00:00:17,610 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily 3 00:00:17,610 --> 00:00:27,373 the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 4 00:00:27,373 --> 00:00:33,336 Our voices have ascended into space, announcing our presence to the universe. 5 00:00:33,336 --> 00:00:38,497 Other men on other worlds may be listening. 6 00:00:38,497 --> 00:00:43,619 We await an answer from afar, placed by an intelligence we do not know. 7 00:00:43,619 --> 00:00:45,580 We will not recognize. 8 00:00:45,580 --> 00:00:51,862 We may not even understand. 9 00:00:51,862 --> 00:00:56,263 Radio waves that might bear the conversations of distant beings are monitored. 10 00:00:56,263 --> 00:01:05,346 Day and night, by astronomers throughout the world. 11 00:01:05,346 --> 00:01:09,468 Our understanding of life in outer space may begin with reaching out to another form of 12 00:01:09,468 --> 00:01:13,229 intelligence here on Earth. 13 00:01:13,229 --> 00:01:17,911 If we can communicate with one strange intelligence, we can hope to communicate with others. 14 00:01:26,274 --> 00:01:36,557 We have always dreamed of talking with celestial beings. 15 00:01:36,557 --> 00:01:40,759 Discoveries in deep space have revealed that the same chemistry that created earthly life 16 00:01:40,759 --> 00:01:42,999 operates elsewhere. 17 00:01:42,999 --> 00:01:46,200 Perhaps we are not accidents of creation. 18 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:52,923 Perhaps we are not alone. 19 00:01:52,923 --> 00:02:11,329 Our search for intelligent life beyond the planet Earth has begun, and the job is as 20 00:02:11,329 --> 00:02:13,770 immense as the universe itself. 21 00:02:13,770 --> 00:02:19,612 Our galaxy alone contains an estimated 250 billion stars, and there are at least 100 22 00:02:19,612 --> 00:02:21,613 billion other galaxies. 23 00:02:21,613 --> 00:02:25,854 How many of these stars have Earth-like planets harboring life? 24 00:02:25,854 --> 00:02:29,375 Until recently, we searched with our eyes, aided by telescopes. 25 00:02:29,375 --> 00:02:36,658 Then, with the advent of radio, a whole new noisy universe emerged, and man began to listen 26 00:02:36,658 --> 00:02:39,379 to the stars. 27 00:02:39,379 --> 00:02:45,381 In 1971, at Mass' Ames Research Center, 24 scientists and engineers began the search 28 00:02:45,381 --> 00:02:47,261 for other life. 29 00:02:47,261 --> 00:02:52,023 Developed by Dr. Bernard Oliver and Dr. John Billingham, the group concluded that radio 30 00:02:52,023 --> 00:02:56,264 is the most effective way of detecting other voices in space. 31 00:02:56,264 --> 00:03:02,426 The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, nicknamed SETI, became a reality. 32 00:03:02,426 --> 00:03:04,587 Dr. Oliver explains. 33 00:03:04,587 --> 00:03:09,789 The concept of doing this really has its origin and the belief that we will have to go to 34 00:03:09,789 --> 00:03:14,591 other stars rather than just other planets of our own system before we find intelligent 35 00:03:14,591 --> 00:03:22,313 life, and the belief that that is an extremely difficult thing to do physically. 36 00:03:22,313 --> 00:03:27,635 If we are not going to cross the Gulf of interstellar space, how then are we going to ever detect 37 00:03:27,635 --> 00:03:30,076 other intelligent life? 38 00:03:30,076 --> 00:03:35,358 The answer seems to be by looking for evidence of it in the form of signals that it may either 39 00:03:35,358 --> 00:03:41,800 radiate on purpose to arouse our attention or simply in the course of its own activities. 40 00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:47,322 It's quite possible that signals have been falling on the Earth for millions or billions 41 00:03:47,322 --> 00:03:48,882 of years. 42 00:03:48,882 --> 00:03:54,484 In 1931, extraterrestrial radio signals were accidentally discovered by Bell Telephone 43 00:03:54,484 --> 00:03:57,445 engineer Carl Jansky. 44 00:03:57,445 --> 00:04:02,607 Jansky detected a hiss that seemed to be coming from the very center of our galaxy. 45 00:04:02,607 --> 00:04:09,850 For the first time, dense star clouds invisible to optical telescopes revealed their presence 46 00:04:09,850 --> 00:04:13,891 through radio emissions. 47 00:04:13,891 --> 00:04:20,693 Growth Reber, an enthusiastic radio amateur, confirmed Jansky's observations. 48 00:04:20,693 --> 00:04:26,535 Using a homemade backyard antenna, Reber found that radio emissions of natural origin occur 49 00:04:26,535 --> 00:04:29,056 throughout our galaxy. 50 00:04:29,056 --> 00:04:34,418 Then in 1961, the search for intentional signals began. 51 00:04:34,418 --> 00:04:39,420 At Green Bank, West Virginia, a radio telescope was used for the first time to listen for 52 00:04:39,420 --> 00:04:42,141 intelligent signals from space. 53 00:04:42,141 --> 00:04:47,662 Project OSMA, a whimsical reference to the land lying over the rainbow, was followed 54 00:04:47,662 --> 00:04:54,825 ten years later by the most far-reaching life search program ever devised. 55 00:04:54,825 --> 00:05:00,227 The Cyclops plan was to start with a modest size antenna element, say something like 300 56 00:05:00,227 --> 00:05:06,709 feet in diameter, and simply add additional ones as time went on to increase the total 57 00:05:06,709 --> 00:05:08,550 collecting area. 58 00:05:08,550 --> 00:05:13,471 This sort of a system is known as an antenna array, and it works by having all of the antennas 59 00:05:13,471 --> 00:05:19,433 feed their signals together into a common receiver, a common detector, so that they 60 00:05:19,433 --> 00:05:24,555 add in phase and act as if they had been picked up by a single antenna. 61 00:05:24,555 --> 00:05:28,636 So we believe we can take as many as a thousand antennas and connect them together in this 62 00:05:28,636 --> 00:05:35,759 fashion and get a huge collecting area. 63 00:05:35,759 --> 00:05:42,681 A listening post beyond Earth is an alternative explored by SETI astronomer Dr. Charles Seeger. 64 00:05:42,681 --> 00:05:49,244 A basic problem in a search for extraterrestrial signals has to do with the interference to 65 00:05:49,244 --> 00:05:55,886 receiving systems produced by all our transmissions in the same radio frequency spectrum. 66 00:05:55,886 --> 00:06:02,328 Space may offer some advantages and may not be all that more expensive for a large receiving 67 00:06:02,328 --> 00:06:04,329 system than on Earth. 68 00:06:04,329 --> 00:06:08,570 Space has the advantage of a more benign environment. 69 00:06:08,570 --> 00:06:12,531 You don't have winds and storms and rain and repainting to do all the time. 70 00:06:12,531 --> 00:06:13,532 It's very quiet. 71 00:06:13,532 --> 00:06:16,093 Well, it's even put up a very light system in space. 72 00:06:16,093 --> 00:06:17,933 It floats there. 73 00:06:17,933 --> 00:06:22,295 The backside of the moon is attractive since there you are beautifully shielded from all 74 00:06:22,295 --> 00:06:30,698 Earth activity. 75 00:06:30,698 --> 00:06:38,860 What we envision is to reproduce in the craters of the moon a series of arocebo type antennas. 76 00:06:38,860 --> 00:06:44,502 And it's estimated by engineers that one could build a thousand or three thousand foot, even 77 00:06:44,502 --> 00:06:50,584 larger perhaps, arocebo type structures relatively economically, scattering them among a bunch 78 00:06:50,584 --> 00:06:55,106 of adjacent craters on the back of the moon. 79 00:06:55,106 --> 00:07:02,068 An alternative to the moon is to have an antenna floating in space in orbit around the Earth. 80 00:07:02,068 --> 00:07:07,790 The early antennas would be so arranged that they could be constructed in space, carried 81 00:07:07,790 --> 00:07:12,312 out in pieces on a shuttle along with the work as necessary to construct it. 82 00:07:12,312 --> 00:07:23,476 It would then be set into orbit and the shuttle would return while we tried out the device. 83 00:07:23,476 --> 00:07:27,877 While we wait for a call from space, we have not ruled out breaking the silence of the 84 00:07:27,877 --> 00:07:37,120 universe by sending our own signals to cosmic neighbors. 85 00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:41,882 Nestled in the tropical mountain jungle of Puerto Rico is the largest radio telescope 86 00:07:41,882 --> 00:07:44,883 on Earth. 87 00:07:44,883 --> 00:07:52,686 A thousand feet across and 300 feet deep, the arocebo telescope can listen to signals 88 00:07:52,686 --> 00:07:56,887 from the farthest reaches of the universe. 89 00:07:56,887 --> 00:08:01,049 It can also converse with other beings in the cosmos. 90 00:08:01,049 --> 00:08:09,211 On November 16, 1974, man prepared to beam his first and only intentional signal to intelligence 91 00:08:09,211 --> 00:08:36,901 beyond the Earth. 92 00:08:36,901 --> 00:08:43,383 Our message, traveling at the speed of light, will take 24,000 years to reach star cluster 93 00:08:43,383 --> 00:08:47,745 M13 in the constellation Hercules. 94 00:08:47,745 --> 00:08:54,587 In code, the message describes our solar system, the Earth, and the life upon it. 95 00:08:54,587 --> 00:09:01,469 The chemical basis of life on Earth is represented by the famous double helix of DNA. 96 00:09:01,469 --> 00:09:08,272 The final depiction of a human being is like a cry in the night of space. 97 00:09:08,272 --> 00:09:17,515 Who or what will answer our call? 98 00:09:17,515 --> 00:09:36,041 On March 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 began its 21 month journey to Jupiter. 99 00:09:36,041 --> 00:09:41,403 Attached to the spacecraft is a plaque, a kind of planetary Rosetta stone, designed 100 00:09:41,403 --> 00:09:43,764 by astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan. 101 00:09:43,764 --> 00:09:50,246 In the remote contingency, there are interstellar space faring societies, which might someday 102 00:09:50,246 --> 00:09:53,847 pick up this derelict and no longer radioing. 103 00:09:53,847 --> 00:09:59,329 We thought we would put a message on it to indicate a little bit of where we are, when 104 00:09:59,329 --> 00:10:02,450 we are, and who we are. 105 00:10:02,450 --> 00:10:07,052 We think that the information on where we are and when we are indicated in this part 106 00:10:07,052 --> 00:10:12,814 of the message by the configuration of certain cosmic objects called pulsars will be completely 107 00:10:12,814 --> 00:10:17,775 obvious to any society capable of traveling between the stars. 108 00:10:17,775 --> 00:10:21,817 These two objects will be more mysterious because it is unlikely that there will be 109 00:10:21,817 --> 00:10:26,138 human beings anywhere else, even though there may be other creatures elsewhere. 110 00:10:26,138 --> 00:10:31,740 And the plaque has served a very useful purpose in making us think about what sort of impression 111 00:10:31,740 --> 00:10:37,422 we might wish to give to the cosmos. 112 00:10:37,422 --> 00:10:41,583 Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter in December 1973. 113 00:10:41,583 --> 00:10:46,305 In 1984, it will leave the solar system forever. 114 00:10:46,305 --> 00:10:51,067 Who will pick up our message floating in interstellar space? 115 00:10:51,067 --> 00:10:57,629 Radio waves traveling much faster than Pioneer will provide our first clue. 116 00:10:57,629 --> 00:11:02,231 Any signal that we pick up will certainly not have originated from a civilization much 117 00:11:02,231 --> 00:11:07,632 less advanced technically than we because it is only very recently that we have been 118 00:11:07,632 --> 00:11:11,714 able to radiate and detect such signals. 119 00:11:11,714 --> 00:11:16,355 If we look at the enormous time spans involved, then it seems very likely that what we will 120 00:11:16,355 --> 00:11:23,678 find is a civilization considerably more advanced than ourselves and which might have reasons 121 00:11:23,678 --> 00:11:29,720 for attempting to contact us that we do not even comprehend at the present time. 122 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:35,762 At AIMS Research Center, psychologist Dr. Mary Connors is working to determine what 123 00:11:35,762 --> 00:11:39,923 an extraterrestrial civilization might be like. 124 00:11:39,923 --> 00:11:47,446 Basically on the non-technological issues, which is what I'm primarily concerned with, 125 00:11:47,446 --> 00:11:51,687 we're concerned with two basic questions. 126 00:11:51,687 --> 00:11:58,970 One is what can we know about the nature of the intelligence that we're likely to contact? 127 00:11:59,410 --> 00:12:01,651 Well, what do we know about intelligence? 128 00:12:01,651 --> 00:12:04,532 We could ask what is intelligence? 129 00:12:04,532 --> 00:12:07,093 What possible forms can it take? 130 00:12:07,093 --> 00:12:10,174 What can we learn from animal intelligence? 131 00:12:10,174 --> 00:12:15,376 The dolphin, although it shares our planet, exists in a world of its own. 132 00:12:15,376 --> 00:12:18,537 It speaks a language we do not comprehend. 133 00:12:18,537 --> 00:12:24,859 Its brain size is comparable to man's, yet the dolphin is still an enigma, as alien to 134 00:12:24,859 --> 00:12:28,820 us as a creature from outer space. 135 00:12:28,860 --> 00:12:35,062 At San Diego's SeaWorld, trainers and scientists work behind the scenes in an intensive effort 136 00:12:35,062 --> 00:12:39,304 to unravel the mysteries of dolphin sonar and communication. 137 00:12:39,304 --> 00:12:41,464 I'll tell you what, we'll give you another munchie for that. 138 00:12:41,464 --> 00:12:46,946 The dolphin has always seemed akin to man, and some have wondered if this creature, even 139 00:12:46,946 --> 00:12:51,468 now, is attempting to communicate with us. 140 00:12:51,468 --> 00:12:54,549 But he doesn't know yet what the difference means. 141 00:12:55,549 --> 00:13:01,551 The greatest problem remains the limit of our own experience. 142 00:13:01,551 --> 00:13:03,552 There you go. 143 00:13:03,552 --> 00:13:11,555 Despite our theories and our hopes, man has yet to exchange one word with the dolphin. 144 00:13:11,555 --> 00:13:17,397 SeaWorld's curator of mammals, Dr. Lanny Cornell and researchers Sherry Gish, are interested 145 00:13:17,397 --> 00:13:20,358 in cracking the communication barrier. 146 00:13:20,358 --> 00:13:26,160 One of the projects that we have in an overall study of communications amongst dolphins is 147 00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:34,763 one between two animals in a crew pool separated by a soundproof gate, which allows us to determine 148 00:13:34,763 --> 00:13:39,764 specifically when the animals will be able to communicate with one another. 149 00:13:39,764 --> 00:13:45,646 Cornell and his assistant will monitor every sound emitted by the two dolphins. 150 00:13:45,646 --> 00:13:51,128 In the exchange, each signal and response will be carefully studied and patterns of 151 00:13:51,128 --> 00:13:54,810 sound production analyzed. 152 00:13:54,810 --> 00:13:59,971 Sound waves are converted into a form that can be measured electronically. 153 00:13:59,971 --> 00:14:08,934 An oscilloscope reveals the changes in frequencies, some inaudible to the human ear. 154 00:14:08,934 --> 00:14:15,937 At one-sixteenth normal speed, the intricacies of dolphin signals become apparent. 155 00:14:22,859 --> 00:14:26,540 The dolphin is one form of non-human intelligence. 156 00:14:26,540 --> 00:14:32,102 The form that extraterrestrial life may take is subject to scientific speculation. 157 00:14:32,102 --> 00:14:40,785 It does appear that at least at our present stage of evolution there may be some advantages 158 00:14:40,785 --> 00:14:45,987 to being structured, at least with some of the characteristics that we have. 159 00:14:45,987 --> 00:14:54,270 There are clear advantages, for example, to having two eyes with which you can see in 160 00:14:54,270 --> 00:14:58,391 color and with which you can achieve binocular vision. 161 00:14:58,391 --> 00:15:01,432 It's clear that there are advantages to having an upright posture. 162 00:15:01,432 --> 00:15:07,794 It's clear that there are advantages to having a brain located at one end of the body and 163 00:15:07,794 --> 00:15:09,955 you can go on like this. 164 00:15:09,955 --> 00:15:15,197 If it is inevitable that another civilization will have had at one point some of the characteristics 165 00:15:15,197 --> 00:15:22,199 we have now, we'll contact with these alien beings from some unknown planet, bring Doomsday 166 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:28,602 to our tiny world, or do the benefits to our future outweigh the dangers. 167 00:15:28,602 --> 00:15:34,123 The greatest miracle that we have before us is the fact that within a few billion years, 168 00:15:34,123 --> 00:15:38,605 the universe through the marvelous laws of chemistry and physics has converted part of 169 00:15:38,605 --> 00:15:44,807 itself into consciousness and that part can now contemplate the universe that began it. 170 00:15:44,807 --> 00:15:52,810 A French scientist put it this way, astronomy is useful because it shows us how small is 171 00:15:52,810 --> 00:15:57,291 man's body, how great is mine. 172 00:15:57,291 --> 00:16:02,413 Dr. John Kraus is an electrical engineer and astronomer at Ohio State University. 173 00:16:02,413 --> 00:16:07,615 He is one of a few who are working intently to solve the riddle of the universe. 174 00:16:07,615 --> 00:16:10,176 To answer the question, are we alone? 175 00:16:10,176 --> 00:16:13,057 He is philosophical about his mission. 176 00:16:13,297 --> 00:16:19,299 I think one of the exciting things about all this work is that those of us who are involved 177 00:16:19,299 --> 00:16:20,899 are like pioneers. 178 00:16:20,899 --> 00:16:25,261 We are exploring the universe. 179 00:16:25,261 --> 00:16:34,264 It's a pioneering venture to find out what is out there and perhaps who is out there. 180 00:16:35,224 --> 00:16:43,707 Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence is like looking for a needle in a haystack. 181 00:16:43,707 --> 00:16:48,909 Assuming that we're not unique and that there are intelligent beings elsewhere, we have 182 00:16:48,909 --> 00:16:51,310 to try and second guess them. 183 00:16:51,310 --> 00:16:55,471 But you need some kind of roadmap. 184 00:16:55,791 --> 00:16:57,792 Roadmap. 185 00:16:59,793 --> 00:17:05,075 Dr. Kraus' roadmap is a giant radio telescope that he helped design and build. 186 00:17:05,075 --> 00:17:08,276 He affectionately calls it Big Ear. 187 00:17:08,276 --> 00:17:12,917 Larger than three football fields in area, Big Ear has detected signals from the most 188 00:17:12,917 --> 00:17:16,038 distant known objects in the universe. 189 00:17:16,118 --> 00:17:20,600 Big Ear now finds intelligent signals in the vastness of space. 190 00:17:32,924 --> 00:17:39,646 We began our search on Friday, the 7th of December, 1973. 191 00:17:39,646 --> 00:17:45,889 Bob Dixon and Ed Tega worked for weeks setting up the testing in a channel filter 192 00:17:45,889 --> 00:17:49,810 and getting it ready for the life search. 193 00:17:49,810 --> 00:17:51,650 Well, why not run it? 194 00:17:51,650 --> 00:17:53,011 Let's give it a go. 195 00:17:53,011 --> 00:17:55,012 All right. 196 00:17:56,052 --> 00:17:58,773 There was no fuss or fanfare. 197 00:17:58,773 --> 00:18:03,655 Switches were set, recorders started, and the data began to flow. 198 00:18:08,056 --> 00:18:14,778 Now our Big Ear was listening for other men on other planets circling other stars 199 00:18:14,778 --> 00:18:18,780 who might have built beacon stations to announce their presence. 200 00:18:24,622 --> 00:18:30,784 If Bob Dixon said, we got something that looks interesting, John, I'm sure it wouldn't be 201 00:18:30,784 --> 00:18:36,066 that he had recorded a voice saying, this is planet MX-3 calling Earth. 202 00:18:36,706 --> 00:18:40,707 It wouldn't be anything as direct and unequivocal as that. 203 00:18:41,668 --> 00:18:48,710 It would just be a little bump on a squiggly line record that went on for hundreds of feet 204 00:18:49,350 --> 00:18:52,791 that occurred in a way that set it off from others. 205 00:18:59,754 --> 00:19:07,356 The probability of life developing elsewhere is hard to determine definitely, but I don't think 206 00:19:07,356 --> 00:19:12,318 it is zero. And if it is not zero, then I think we have a chance. 207 00:19:13,679 --> 00:19:19,521 Someday this call from space may come. It's hard to say when it will. 208 00:19:20,321 --> 00:19:27,443 The signal that we're looking for might be found within a day, but it might take might be weeks, 209 00:19:27,443 --> 00:19:32,485 years, but it will have profound significance to man. 210 00:19:32,565 --> 00:19:38,727 If we are not alone, what will we say to our neighbors? 211 00:19:45,369 --> 00:19:49,051 For centuries man thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. 212 00:19:49,051 --> 00:19:52,092 The sun, moon and stars would light our days and nights. 213 00:19:52,652 --> 00:19:58,254 Then Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and we learned that the moon and planets were worlds 214 00:19:58,254 --> 00:20:03,936 beyond dispute, that the stars weren't just ornaments in the sky, but represented a cosmos far 215 00:20:03,936 --> 00:20:10,018 beyond man's earthly imagination. We dreamt of life beyond the planet Earth and set out to 216 00:20:10,018 --> 00:20:14,019 explore the universe. We began humbly with the moon. 217 00:20:20,261 --> 00:20:25,623 We found that there is no man in the moon, but there are nine other planets in our solar system. 218 00:20:26,583 --> 00:20:29,304 So we set our sights on Mars and sent our probe. 219 00:20:32,185 --> 00:20:38,347 Now we look beyond to the vastness of the universe and search the stars for voices of other beings. 220 00:20:38,988 --> 00:20:45,230 If we were in fact to decipher messages from the other civilizations over and above simply 221 00:20:45,230 --> 00:20:51,952 receiving a signal and knowing that they are there, then it is conceivable we might learn about 222 00:20:52,032 --> 00:20:57,154 the pathways that they took when they were at our present stage of development. 223 00:20:57,714 --> 00:21:04,356 I think in this way one can easily visualize a network of intercommunicating societies growing up 224 00:21:04,997 --> 00:21:14,360 in our galaxy. Such a network could achieve results in science and in philosophy and in other fields 225 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:19,001 that would be more painful if they were isolated. 226 00:21:19,882 --> 00:21:25,324 Past human history may be only the prelude to our future as members of a galactic society. 227 00:21:26,444 --> 00:21:29,965 Our future will begin with a call from space. 228 00:21:34,847 --> 00:21:40,609 Coming up next, a high-tension investigation starts off when a federal judge is gunned down 229 00:21:40,609 --> 00:21:48,051 in front of his home on FBI The Untold Stories. Then histories, crimes and trials, probes, 230 00:21:48,051 --> 00:21:53,093 controversial and conflicting theories about the JFK assassination.