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Clarksp2 t1_iteylsq wrote

I just really hope I’m still alive when we finally do find other life (regardless of civilized, moving, or microbial)

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WallStreetDoesntBet OP t1_iteynku wrote

If an alien were to look at Earth, many human technologies, from cell towers to fluorescent light bulbs, could be a beacon signifying the presence of life.

A technosignature (technomarker) is any measurable property or effect that provides scientific evidence of past or present technology. Technosignatures are analogous to biosignatures, which signal the presence of life, whether intelligent or not.

While scanning the sky for a TV broadcast of some extraterrestrial Olympics may sound straightforward, searching for signs of distant, advanced civilisations is a much more nuanced and difficult task than it might seem.

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FuturologyBot t1_itf1nse wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/WallStreetDoesntBet:

If an alien were to look at Earth, many human technologies, from cell towers to fluorescent light bulbs, could be a beacon signifying the presence of life.

A technosignature (technomarker) is any measurable property or effect that provides scientific evidence of past or present technology. Technosignatures are analogous to biosignatures, which signal the presence of life, whether intelligent or not.

While scanning the sky for a TV broadcast of some extraterrestrial Olympics may sound straightforward, searching for signs of distant, advanced civilisations is a much more nuanced and difficult task than it might seem.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yb6m6d/signatures_of_alien_technology_could_be_how/iteynku/

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DoomRide007 t1_itf1pqo wrote

Replying to Clarksp2 (#185,228)

I’m kind of on the line. They could have helped us OR they could just clean house. We are so ducked right now and they could be waiting for us to wipe ourselves out.

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Bothand_Nether t1_itf2it2 wrote

The navigational hazard beacons placed around this system will be the first proof of alien life

​

This shocking truth will be realized when some of the beacons message is deciphered.

​

A picture of a crying baby driving a comically large tank will be

the first form of deciphered alien cuneiform

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TheGreatArseholio t1_itf3nnf wrote

If an alien civilization 500 light years away is looking at earth through a big ass telescope, right now, they’re not seeing much except some blurry renaissance era dude trying to make a helicopter out of balsa wood and paper.

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Extremely-Bad-Idea t1_itf3vdp wrote

Might "signatures of alien technology" include gigantic orbiting garbage dumps? LOL

I hate to say it, but evidence of pollution might be a strong indication of advanced life forms. Squirrels and birds don't produce mountains of plastic, paper, and industrial waste.

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Extreme-Ad-5059 t1_itf476k wrote

lol keep dreaming. aliens dont exist no matter what you want to believe

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TheMaskedImp t1_itf51bi wrote

I just want to say, if weve ever come into contact with an alien probe or ship, Omuamua was probably one of them. Just think about it, it behaved unlike anything weve seen in the solar system (granted we havent observed it for that long), we never got a picture of it, and it was shaped really weirdly

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TirayShell t1_itf58yo wrote

They may not use what we consider to be technology. What if their main form of travel is dreams, and they consist of concepts transmitted to receptive individuals who apply the concepts to their own species then culture with the ultimate effect of the concepts being sent out by us too. Like right now on the Internet. We don't even know we've been invaded. And dreams have never been proven to exist. All of the evidence is anecdotal.

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feed_me_the_gherkin t1_itf64pm wrote

I just read the Three Body Problem trilogy last month and like...I dont think I want aliens anymore

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crazzyfuzzy88 t1_itf6yz7 wrote

If we find subscriptions in space , we know we have found advanced civilizations. Got it .

−1

AggravatingHome5222 t1_itfflmb wrote

IMO, unless the aliens have invented a spacetime machine and decided to say hello to humans by spawning in a particular location at select time and emit signal strong enough in the direction of earth for the receivers of our tech to detect by present time frame, we would not be able to receive a strong signal.

A civilisation with such advancement and knowledge about our presence in this space time continum would be possibly use tech to sheild us from detecting other civilisation as well. May be life on earth, is a experiment. We are all the subjects

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L8n1ght t1_itfgz5x wrote

Replying to TheGreatArseholio (#185,590)

Same goes for us looking at other stuff, it's just too far away to tell if there's intelligent life right now, we have to guess based on the circumstances of the planet in the past

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miggsd28 t1_itfjq1u wrote

The big problem with this for me is what ever technological signature we do see is thousands to millions to billions of light years away. So that civilization has either collapsed or advanced a terrifying amount. If some advanced tech that hasn’t discovered how to see faster than light looked at earth they would see the beginning of the dark ages

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MountainofObligation t1_itfmlm3 wrote

Whats crazy is if aliens were just a future of humanity where we evolved and adapted to each ecoystem.

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0xNNON t1_itfnev7 wrote

The fact that UATs haven’t been debunked yet means we may might already be there.

0

CSEnzley t1_itfnycy wrote

Replying to TheGreatArseholio (#185,595)

I like to imagine them getting all excited because of the Dinosaurs and being extremely underwhelmed when they arrived...

Like taking a cross country trip to Wally World only to find out it's closed when you get there.

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elsrjefe t1_itfnzqe wrote

Just waiting for the intergalactic bypass to be built. After all, the notice in intergalactic city hall has been up for nearly a million years now.

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Vancocillin t1_itfqy6w wrote

Replying to L8n1ght (#186,405)

What if human civilization had kicked off 200 million years ago instead of dinosaurs being cool? It's possible a sapient species could have been kicking around for millions of years by now.

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rwdrive t1_itfwxfe wrote

Replying to 0xNNON (#186,757)

Agreed. Too late to be worried about technomarkers... I am pretty confident they are already here and various leadership groups know it in detail. We just have not included in the knowledge---yet.

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zifahm t1_itg0phk wrote

Any metal 1 inch cube floating in the universe is enough as evidence.

0

Cinsev t1_itg2vzk wrote

“Put a circle around something in the photo, these people will click on anything with a circle around it”

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R3AP3RGAMING t1_itg5p33 wrote

Replying to DoomRide007 (#185,447)

It's the same concept why we don't intervene in primates. We don't know what would happen. We could tech them to light fire for cooking and heating and they could turn around and start hurling flaming pitch balls into African villages. I believe they disabled nuclear Arma in the 60s to prevent a war and they may even do it again but I doubt they will ever try to give us technology or even knowledge and I'm certain we will have to reach out to them first or they will stay quiet and on the side of our conciousness.

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ozas258 t1_itg6kol wrote

Like mass relays at the edge of our solar system also a mass effect engine on mars

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Impossible_Garbage_4 t1_itg8mkx wrote

Replying to Vancocillin (#186,946)

With 100% certainty I can declare there is life elsewhere in the universe. Anything beyond that is speculation but it’s more than likely that single called organisms or their ET equivalent exists. Less likely to exist but still fairly likely is multicellular but still microscopic creatures. So on and so on it gets less likely the further up the stages you go. The chance of intelligent life existing elsewhere is infinitesimally small, but since the universe is so fucking vast the chance might as well be 100%. Now, the odds that we ever meet them is far lower, since they could be so far away that getting to them would be like driving your car to Pluto at highway speeds.

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SirGlenn t1_itgcz0t wrote

One dark night, over Lake Superior, a large red object appeared in the sky, 10 or 12 smaller ones started rotating around the big light, them each flew away in different directions one at a time, then the large (mother ship?) Blasted away and in 2 seconds it was out of sight. My neighbor, a WWII flight camera man, shook his head and said, not from this planet!

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RedBaret t1_itgdltd wrote

Isn’t that what they tried with finding radio signals for decades and it didn’t really work? We need to stop looking for just ‘smart’ life and look for bio signatures.

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TheGreatArseholio t1_itggc9h wrote

Replying to Impossible_Garbage_4 (#188,046)

That’s part of the paradox, isn’t it? If we were to find a signature of alien technology like digital radio waves, we would be looking at technology from that many years ago (light years away). That intelligence life would either be that many years technologically more advanced than us or - if facing the same problems we’re facing as humans - could have already wiped itself out of existence.

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Kohouteky t1_itggf5g wrote

If there is intelligent life, it has to be close in time and space for us to be near enough to even witness a 'signature'.

The probability of that does not seem high given what little we know. The probability of intelligence in another galaxy could be high, given the massive number of planets.

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Alive-Pin7916 t1_itgh77o wrote

Fhdhhggjyghhh👩🏻‍🦲👨🏻‍🏭 Fgfhgg hi ggggggggggghghhhghgffh

−2

beepbeep_beep_beep t1_itgj3q3 wrote

Given the availability of resources to a star faring civilization—physical, mental, and spiritual, we humans are pretty presumptive to think we have anything to offer.

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YYC9393 t1_itgjryp wrote

What? We’ve already made direct contact with them many times..

−3

HerefoyoBunz t1_itgks4f wrote

Replying to Clarksp2 (#185,228)

But then they be like “cool, yall are like cave men to us, have no appreciation for this world, we gonna kill you and take your planet over, and make it better”

1

roflsst t1_itgsvl8 wrote

Replying to AggravatingHome5222 (#186,333)

Your last point resonates with me, why do we seem to be alone when all indicators point out that the universe should be teeming with life? Maybe it's no coincidence and we are right where we should be, in prison by design.

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gmoney32211 t1_itgtafv wrote

Replying to Extreme-Ad-5059 (#185,629)

There is 2 trillion galaxies within just our OBSERVABLE universe. There are 10^25, yes 10 to the 25th exponent planets that orbit stars.

It’s incredibly naive to think we are the only ones who exist and even the most intelligent to exist.

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uninterestingly t1_itgwpfm wrote

Replying to Impossible_Garbage_4 (#188,046)

I agree with everything here but your phrasing. Saying you can 100% guarantee something that you have zero proof of, even if it is overwhelmingly likely, is just mathematically wrong. 100% guarantees should very rarely be used, and yet people throw them around left and right. It's just one of my pet peeves.

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Busterlimes t1_itgym7z wrote

Bold of you to assume we will find intelligent life when we dont even have it here on earth. Intelligent life wouldn't be fighting with itself over profits while simultaneously stripping the planet of its ability to support life. Fermi paradox is the answer, life kills off the planet before it has a chance to advance their technology to move off the planet.

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ReturnedAndReported t1_ith06id wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#185,607)

Hello TheGreatArseholio, your comment or post has been removed for the following reason:

Rule 6 - Comment Quality

> Comments must be on topic, contribute to the discussion and be of sufficient length.

> Comments / Posts that dismiss well-established science without compelling evidence are a distraction to discussion of futurology and may be removed.

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FirmamentGaming t1_ith1yaj wrote

So, by seeing a bird's nest you then get proof that a bird made that nest. Man, stellar reasoning.

We found an ET spaceship!!! Bro, ETs must exist as this is proof!!!

−1

PunisherASM129 t1_ith4yzg wrote

Replying to Clarksp2 (#185,228)

You mean something as amazing as this story from a few weeks ago?

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover finds diversity, hints of microbial life in ancient lake bed rocks

By Emilee Speck, FOX

September 15, 2022 7:53pm

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evildork t1_ith5nvt wrote

Replying to Extremely-Bad-Idea (#185,605)

One possible technosignature that we could detect is high levels of CFCs in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. They're industrially useful chemicals with no known natural means of production.

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Buscemi_D_Sanji t1_ith7xje wrote

Replying to Poop_1111 (#188,583)

One of the best books I've ever read. There isn't some crazy conflict, just scientists exploring something for the most part. Plus there are three more that show what's actually happening.

If you remember oumoaoa, that thing that came into our system from interstellar space and was rotating like it would if it was hollow inside and needed to provide centrifugal gravity... You'll see how everyone who read Rama was kinda secretly bugging out.

I also recommend Childhood's End, also by Clarke and imo his coolest book. It's short and seriously great, one of the best endings of anything I've read.

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Buscemi_D_Sanji t1_ith98z5 wrote

Replying to uninterestingly (#190,073)

Heh, I have quite a few pet peeves, like affect/effect and saying there's instead of there're when referring to plurals. But I've spent some time making sure my students know that there is no such thing as 100% certainty for things existing in the universe. But then, you can say "I'm 100% certain that one does not equal two" and that's true, so it's more about being conscientious of the language you use to describe reality.

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jesjimher t1_ithalsl wrote

Replying to R3AP3RGAMING (#187,788)

Most likely they just don't care, same thing as we don't care about the ant nest in our backyard. We don't worry about their wellness, nor we think about contacting them or trying to help them with better technology.

In order for them to wanting to contact is, they might need to be just slightly more advanced than us. But then the chances they can get here are next to none.

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jesjimher t1_ithazbf wrote

Replying to WallStreetDoesntBet (#185,232)

We've been dark for thousands of years, and we've been emitting waves for just a few centuries. Who knows if we will switch to optical/quantum communications in a century or two, and we'll completely stop emitting radio waves, and then our "wave emitting" period will be just a blip in history.

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Xw5838 t1_ithe6iu wrote

Signatures of alien technology like say....odd objects flying in formation or separately around military and civilian aircraft?

Which they've been doing for decades.

Those sorts of signatures of alien technology?

Or

An odd acting object that enters the solar system that gets immediately classified by astronomers as an asteroid or comet even though it doesn't really look like or act like either?

And when someone mentions that it could possibly be alien technology they get mocked and denigrated.

So the problem with the "signatures of alien technology" idea being taken seriously is that apparently in the absence of a flashing neon sign saying, "hey guys this is alien technology" astronomers and other scientists and others due to the fear of ostracism etc...will immediately classify everything as a naturally occurring object making it impossible to study even the possibility of observing alien technology.

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vegainthemirror t1_itheo0d wrote

Replying to Poop_1111 (#188,583)

I'm joining the other commenters. It's a really good book. Bought it based on a recommendation. You know, how it is with older Sci-Fi novels and how they feel severely outdated? Rama isn't. The only thing that feels outdated is how competent and disciplined the entire crew of the Endeavour (the ship that explores Rama) is. We're used to drama, incompetence and personal agendas etc. nowadays, Rama goes a different approach. Very Hard Sc-Fi, very refreshing, a lot of mystery surrounding Rama's purpose and nature. I'm torn between what Clarke novel I like better, 2001 or Rama. Definitely worth a read

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AnAncientOne t1_itheyla wrote

We're probably the only technologically advanced civilisation that exists in this Galaxy at the moment and given we're not likely to last more than a few thousand years it's unlikely we'll hear from another.

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StoicType4 t1_ithll6c wrote

After recently finishing the Three Body Problem trilogy I’m a little conflicted on making contact. Could be a dark forest out there.

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SeverableSole7 t1_ithlmys wrote

I’m starting to think any civilization we come across is either going to be on our level (in terms of how technologically advanced they are) or well below because I feel like any civilization that’s more advanced than us would never let us find them unless they wanted to be found I guess

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[deleted] t1_ithr88t wrote

I'm sure religions, governments, doomsday preppers, and conspiracy theorists will absolutely react rationally if/when we find Alien anything.

0

_Puppet_Mastr_ t1_ithyquz wrote

Replying to Clarksp2 (#185,228)

Well, they're quite possibly already here and have been for a looong time. If a space traveling species exist, and made it here already, they'd definitely be able to conceal themselves from us. Or, they evolved before us here on earth and like to experiment on monkeys and poof here we are. Or a combo of 1 and 2.

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kcaJkcalB t1_itit42y wrote

They already found and contacted intelligent life hundreds years ago

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[deleted] t1_itiw6r1 wrote

Then they will nuke us from a distance because they already saw Maury Povic and then DJtrump. “Stick a fork in ‘em”, they were heard to say.

−1

lucidrage t1_itixn7z wrote

Replying to jesjimher (#191,181)

> our "wave emitting" period will be just a blip in history.

especially since the waves travel at lightspeed so the first wave should be at a distance of 200 lightyear at most

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seanbrockest t1_itiyxfl wrote

The first discovery of an exoplanet was made years before we realized what it was. I would imagine the same will happen for aliens. In fact we've likely already discovered them, we just don't know how to recognize them.

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YadaYadaYou t1_itj47ci wrote

Evidence of life could be evidence of life? Who would have thought?

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yt1nifnI t1_itj5arj wrote

It most likely would depend entirely on how advanced the alien technology is. Just look at the Kardashev scale for reference. Their technology might not work or behave like ours at all making them next to impossible to find and that is assuming they would want to be found.

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Captain_Dunsel t1_itj6es5 wrote

Replying to IceCreamMeatballs (#190,732)

Have an UpVote :)

I read somewhere that there “were” alien worlds out there and were destroyed, just how we’re doing it to our planet now. Technologically advanced but depleted their world’s resources until it killed them. Kinda like a planetary scale Easter Island; where the decline of the palm and the rapid deforestation that took place on the island caused societal collapse and population collapse.

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fazhenda t1_itjsit6 wrote

That capition which says something like "intelligent species may purposefully avoid broadcasting out their locations" reads as "I never win the lottery so the lottery operator may be intentionally avoiding me"

1

rwdrive t1_itm28xr wrote

Replying to iCthe4 (#187,584)

Many governments have said UFOs are real, and not likely of human origin.... In particular the US is finally admitting this. I believe they know much more than they are sharing with the public.

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herbw t1_itm2qwe wrote

CART before the Horse. First you have to find a site, out of several trillions. Not an optimal search program.

The BEST is finding a very large planet, in the liquid water temps/zone, with unstable organic cmpds. & spectra, which ID such substances, clearly, and confirmably. Something which looks like Chlorophyll or the other pigments found from plants.

Then we look for the living systems creating that, if possible.

Then we go from there. It's not the Wizard of Oz ideas.

As Ellie's dad said in Contact " Slow steps, ellie, Slow steps."

1

Xw5838 t1_itmf3ek wrote

Replying to miggsd28 (#188,691)

There are hundreds of stars within a few hundred light years of earth with stars that are as old if not older than our sun.

Also interstellar travel only seems difficult to a planet bound civilization that has to depend on primitive rockets. Just like oceanic travel seemed difficult to people who only had canoes.

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miggsd28 t1_itmhi3k wrote

Replying to Xw5838 (#205,774)

Ya but hundreds on a galactic scale is a very small handful it’s .000000001% of the stellar systems in the universe . As for the travel thing I agree that’s why I emphasized a civ that doesn’t have beyond light speed capabilities

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pauljs75 t1_itnui71 wrote

Space junk in other words. It could be something as innocuous as a detached panel, or perhaps a nut or bolt that doesn't seem to match any of the dimensional standards used by us here on Earth. It could be something we may not quite recognize as alien until there's enough people working out in space to specifically look over things like that.

1