Are We Alone - Alien Invasion: Margaret Race and Margaret McLean

Part 6 of Alien Invasion, featuring Margaret Race, biologist and Principal Investigator at the SETI Institute, and Margaret McLean, director of bioethics at the Markkula Center for Ethics, Santa Clara University.

Are We Alone - Alien Invasion: Frank Drake

Part 3 of Alien Invasion, featuring Frank Drake, Senior Scientist, SETI Institute.

Are We Alone - Alien Invasion: Paul Davies

Part 2 of Alien Invasion, featuring Paul Davies, physicist and author of The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence.

Seth responds to Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking and Malevolent Aliens

On a recent TV show, famed physicist Stephen Hawking said that we should go easy in our attempts to interact with aliens, because – after all – any contacts would surely be with more advanced beings than ourselves, and if they came to Earth (or sent their robotic emissaries), the results could be bad news.

Hawking’s statement is certainly congruent with what we know of our own history. When the Spaniards landed in the New World, they decimated the local culture. Even when intentions were thoroughly benign, such as when Captain Cook flitted about the islands of the South Pacific in the late 18th century, the result was a dramatic change in lifestyle for the natives.

Clearly, the historic precedent for a visit by another culture is riddled with disaster.

Still, we needn’t fear that any aliens we hear with our SETI experiments will scramble their spacecraft and head for our planet. And that’s because they won’t know we’ve tuned them in. Putting it bluntly, SETI poses neither danger nor cause for worry.

However, suppose we send messages to the stars, either by answering a detected signal, or simply broadcasting inquiries to space? Is there danger in that? Might the aliens – whose mindset we cannot accurately guess – be likely to wreak havoc and destruction on our planet?

That seems a priori fairly unlikely. After all, the receiving civilization would be far more advanced than ours (at least from a technical standpoint), and random destruction hardly sounds like something they would find useful. But no matter what your opinion of the alien mind-set may be, worrying about broadcasting our presence is silly – after all, we’ve been transmitting signals for more than a half-century. Our TV, our radars … even the light from our cities. The truth is out there.

Such “leakage” signals would be hard to find, of course. But any society that could possibly be a threat – any society that could come here on an alien wilding expedition – would have telescopes and antennas far larger than our own. They could find the signals that we’ve been sending willy-nilly into the cosmos since the Second World War. So it hardly pays to worry about them. That horse has left the barn.

So here’s the bottom line, as I see it. The suggestion that we should keep mum … not just now, but forever … is, to put it mildly, unwarranted.

- Seth Shostak

SETI: Now What?

Hello! Is anyone out there? As the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence marks its 50th anniversary, there’s been no contact as yet with alien beings. But SETI researchers maintain that we are not alone. Find out why in a SETI retrospective that looks at the past and future of the search.

We remember the first scientific SETI search… Carl Sagan… how the SETI Institute began… the WOW signal…and the 1993 NASA budget cuts.

We’ll also hear from critics of the search… scientists involved in optical SETI and SETI@home. Plus, international collaborations… and where the search is headed.

Listen to individual segments here:
Part 1 - Are We Alone?
Part 2 - The Birth of SETI
Part 3 - Contact
Part 4 - Abandoned
Part 5 - Ben Zuckerman
Part 6 - SETI@Home
Part 7 - The Future of SETI

SETI: Now What? - Are We Alone?

Part 1 of SETI: Now What?, a look at what prompted the need to search for extra terrestrial intelligence 50 years ago.

SETI: Now What? - The Birth of SETI

Part 2 of SETI: Now What?, featuring Frank Drake, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute.

SETI: Now What? - Contact

Part 3 of SETI: Now What?, featuring Jill Tarter, Director of the Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, and Tom Pierson, CEO, SETI Institute, discussing how the SETI Institute began, the book and film Contact, and the "Wow!" Signal.

SETI: Now What? - Abandoned

Part 4 of SETI: Now What?, featuring the tale of how one U.S. Senator ended SETI's funding from NASA.

SETI: Now What? - Ben Zuckerman

Part 5 of SETI: Now What?, featuring Ben Zuckerman, physicist, astronomer, UCLA, on why SETI may be a waste of time.

SETI: Now What? - SETI@home

Part 6 of SETI: Now What?, featuring Dan Werthimer, Chief Scientist, SETI@home, University of California, Berkeley.

SETI: Now What? - The Future of SETI

Part 7 of SETI: Now What?, featuring Paul Horowitz, physicist, electrical engineer, Harvard University, discussing optical SETI, as well as a description of the launch of the Allen Telescope Array.

Happy Birthday SETI Institute!

Twenty five years ago, on November 20, 1984, the SETI Institute was founded. It's history goes much deeper than that, of course. Nearly fifty years ago, Frank Drake conducted the first radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence, known as Project Ozma. Today, the Institute, independent astronomers, home computers, and supporters like you continue to bring SETI closer to the detection of a signal from our celestial neighbors. Hear all about SETI's history, from the Drake equation and the Allen Telescope Array to SETI@home and optical SETI, on this week's show.

Boldly Going Nowhere - Seth writes for the NYT

This week, Seth expanded on an earlier article for an op-ed piece in the New York Times. In it, Seth describes the near future of space 'travel' being conducted visually and robotically. After all, it would take as long as homo sapiens have walked the earth to get to the nearest star and back. And it may not be worth the wait. Better yet, Seth suggests, we should be sending unmanned craft, like the Mars rovers, to survey and capture data that we can analyze from the safety of our living rooms. You can read the whole editorial HERE.

Seth on Fora.tv

Seth discusses SETI, skepticism, close encounters, building his first telescope, the Allen Telescope Array, and other detection methods on Fora.tv with Blaise Zerega.

Jill Tarter makes her wish at TED

SETI's Jill Tarter was the recipient of this years TED prize! You'll hear a little about it from her in our latest program, "A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama!", and you can watch her full speech in the above video.

Jill's plan: To assemble a group of engineers to create a system to facilitate mass collaboration over the web and incorporate innovative data processing methods, including the ability to input alternative search algorithms. The aim would be to tap into the power of open-source initiatives, to globalize the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and empower a new generation of SETI enthusiasts. The launch of this new system would be backed with a major storytelling and awareness campaign whose goal is to inspire millions to participate.

AWA Celebrates IYA!

The International Year of Astronomy is underway, and Are We Alone? will be dedicating program segments, blog entries, and sometimes entire shows to celebrate! Tune in, log on, and space out by listening to the show, visiting this very blog, or checking out the Are We Alone? webpage dedicated to the International Year of Astronomy. There are less than 12 months left before its over. Don't miss it!

"I don't keep a Top 40 list of SETI questions, but if I did, this one would be perennially on the charts: "could our experiments pick up Earth?" - Seth Shostak

Read the rest of Seth's latest article at the SETI Institute's website. It can also be found at SPACE.com.

Barbara Vance

"A widespread and popular impression of SETI is that it's a worldwide enterprise. Well, it's not, and there's something modestly puzzling in that."

Read Seth's latest essay, Why Don't They Do SETI?, and find the possible answers to why SETI research seems to be an American endeavor.

This essay is also available on SETI Thursday at SPACE.com.

Disappointed to find life?

MIT's Technology Review magazine just published a provocative article by Nick Bostrum, who appeared on our show in August 2007 (Seth's Basement). He gives reasons why he would rather that SETI was unsuccessful, even though he still supports exploration and research. Our Formula One: The Drake Equation show is included with the online article (see the sidebar on the first page).

We, of course, are very much in favor of finding alien life. Perhaps we should bring Nick back for a debate with Seth!