Mystery signal coming from Proxima Centauri

[bison]

On 2/1/2021 at 12:16 PM, Tom O'Neil said:

Does anyone know where to download the proxima-centauri signal as a .wav or .mp3 file?

The signal was unmodulated-- that is, there was reportedly no artificial variation in it that could convey information. If it were rendered as an audio file, with a tone applied to denote the carrier, it would merely sound a steady note. The only change noted in the signal was a slight, very slow, steady increase in frequency, over a number of days.  This might signify movement of the source of the signal, such as that of a planet or satellite orbiting Proxima Centauri.

 

[Hyperionxvii]

On 12/23/2020 at 1:27 AM, MrBene said:

What do you guys think...if we finally discover that there is intelligent life elsewhere and they finally make contact, would we stop being jerks one to another in terms of war/corruption/environment damage/ etc? 

What if they just incinerate us with their alien laser beams because they just read social media? 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Hyperionxvii

[badeskov]

9 hours ago, bison said:

The signal was unmodulated-- that is, there was reportedly no artificial variation in it that could convey information. If it were rendered as an audio file, with a tone applied to denote the carrier, it would merely sound a steady note. The only change noted in the signal was a slight, very slow, steady increase in frequency, over a number of days.  This might signify movement of the source of the signal, such as that of a planet or satellite orbiting Proxima Centauri.

 

What if we just can't decihper the  modulation?

[Abramelin]

15 hours ago, Hyperionxvii said:

What if they just incinerate us with their alien laser beams because they just read social media? 

 They must have received the Nazi broadcasts from WWII. If they were ok with that insanity, then we won't have to worry about our present a-social media.

[Abramelin]

10 hours ago, badeskov said:

What if we just can't decihper the  modulation?

Then they'll know we are too stupid, and switch to another, more promising target.

 

 

[Nobu]

On 2/3/2021 at 8:39 PM, badeskov said:

What if we just can't decihper the  modulation?

We have the algorithms that can tell us if something contains a code. To a pretty high degree.

 

and if someone was sending a “hello” message - wouldn’t it be simple?

 

I don’t know about this one. It’s interesting and I don’t really have an opinion yet. Tbh the government owns the best algorithms and the question really is- would it be leaked if they found something? I worked for them and I think in this case probably not.

 

so I don’t really have an opinion. Very interesting.

[bison]

On 2/3/2021 at 6:39 PM, badeskov said:

What if we just can't decihper the  modulation?

The possibility that there is modulation present in the Proxima signal has been considered. With the long integration time used, around 17 seconds, much could have been missed.  The statement about there being no modulation came from the Breakthrough Listen team. This presumably means that they weren't able to find any, even with whatever computer analysis they  had applied to the signal.

This doesn't rule out the possibility that further analysis turned up something, and that they are holding this news for release  in the promised scientific papers.  For all we know, they might even have reacquired the signal, and gotten something more in that way. 

[bison]

It's been over two weeks now, since Dr. Peter Worden, Executive Director of Breakthrough Listen, claimed that two scientific papers on the Proxima signal were 'about to be submitted'. I took that to mean in hours, or, at most, a few days. In  the field of astronomy, preprints  are typically issued online, when a paper is submitted to a scientific journal. The extraordinary public interest in the Proxima signal would make this seem an even more obvious thing to do  than usual. 

If there was a ready, mundane explanation for the signal, as Dr. Worden suggested, why shouldn't it be given?

Meanwhile, I have been looking in at the Parkes Observatory webcam. On a number of occasions, I have seen the dish antenna pointed in what appeared to be the direction of Proxima Centauri, low, and to the South of the observatory. This, too, might suggest that the mystery of the Proxima Centauri signal has not been solved quite yet. 

Edited February 9, 2021 by bison
improved punctuation.

[XenoFish]

On 12/19/2020 at 5:31 AM, Abramelin said:

The signal, translated:

L-E-A-V-E-U-S-A-L-O-N-E

Or

S E N D N O O D S

[L.A.T.1961]

I was recently reading a piece on centauri dreams, the group who detected the signal did not give a definitive answer as to the signals origin but implied that it was the lack of a second receiving station that stopped them identifying the source.  

To me this implies that the signal was close-ish and a second dish, in a different geographical location and pointed at the same region of sky would have looked past the signal source and not seen it ?

It will be interesting to see the report when its finely published. 

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2021/01/22/was-the-wow-signal-due-to-power-beaming-leakage/

Edited February 9, 2021 by L.A.T.1961

[bison]

The Centauri Dreams article is about the 1977 Wow Signal, which appeared to originate in the constellation Sagittarius. It was received at Ohio State University. 

The use  of a second receiver in radio astronomy, some distance from the main one, is to rule out localized interference. The idea is that if the signal is heard at both, the possibility of it being a genuine signal from space is increased. They call this second receiver a follow-up detection device (FUDD). This authentic little detail even appeared in the movie  Contact, in a passing reference. 

I've seen no mention of a FUDD being used at Parkes Observatory, when the Proxima Centauri signal was detected in 2019. If one was used, this fact will presumably turn up in the scientific papers on the Proxima signal, once they appear. 

Of course, independent confirmation, of any sort, is always considered desirable, in scientific observation of novel phenomena.

[Hankenhunter]

Exellent thread. Bison, you've outdone yourself. Well written, and fairly easy to digest. Looking foreward to more data from you. Keep up the great work.

[bison]

Thank you, Hankenhunter, for your gracious assessment of my efforts here. 

The recent news of the tentative discovery of a planet in orbit of Alpha Centauri A caught my attention. I am skeptical that a planet will be confirmed to exist in this star system.  The stars Alpha Centauri A and B come within 8.6 astronomical units of each other, at times. This is likely to disrupt either the formation of a planet around either star, or to disarrange the orbit of any that might form. In this latter case, the planet would probably be thrown out of the system entirely, or into one of the two stars. 

Still, something was discovered, and  anything happening in the Alpha Centauri system could have some relationship to the Proxima signal, ostensively from the small, distant member of that same system. 

When one looks into the details, they appear rather intriguing. The Proxima Centauri signal was observed from April 29th to May 5th, 2019. The initial detections of a supposed planet of Alpha Centauri A were made on May 23rd to June 11th, of that same year. So, we see they lie within  just 18 days of each another.  

The observations that revealed the Proxima signal were conducted on a set schedule. Had they continued, they might well have begun to overlap with the images of whatever was found at Alpha Centauri A, by the planet hunters. 

 

[bison]

A brief interview with Dr. Andrew Siemion, head of the Breakthrough Listen observation project, raises a couple of interesting points.

He isn't willing to rule out intelligent life on the planet Proxima B. Dr. Siemion suggests that the high radiation inferred to exist on the planet may act as a spur to evolution. That strikes me as an imaginative suggestion, given the apparent severity of the radiation.

Still, it's well known that radiation causes genetic mutations, and such mutations are a prime driver of evolution. Our own, relatively low-radiation environment has made us see higher levels as inevitably destructive. But as for life an another world, adapted over ages to the conditions there, who can say? As Dr. Siemion mentions, there is also the option for life to retreat underground, which would protect it from the radiation. H.G. Wells vividly, and credibly imagined such a subsurface civilization in his famous novel, 'The First Men in the Moon'. 

The second point of particular interest is this:  The interview was posted just a week ago. In it, Dr. Siemion discloses that the signal is exceptional, and that its source has not been identified, despite a great deal of effort to do so. This seems at odds with others'  earlier statements that the signal has been credibly linked to a Earthbound source, which they never did specify.

Dr. Siemion loosely estimates the odds of the signal eventually bring found to have an Earthly origin at 99 percent. However, he makes it clear that the inquiry into the true source of the signal is ongoing, and that excitement about it still reigns. Given the importance of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, and the  way this mystery has persisted, even under intense inquiry,  I'll take that remaining  one percent!  

Please find a link to the interview of Dr. Siemion, below:

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2021-02-09/was-et-new-radio-signal-and-ongoing-search-alien-life 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by bison
added information, corrected spelling

[bison]

A full month, now, since Dr. Peter Worden, executive head of the Breakthrough Initiatives, parent organization of Breakthrough Listen was interviewed. He stated then, that the observation team that detected the now-famous Proxima Centauri signal was about to submit two papers on the discovery for publication. 

Ordinarily, this should probably have triggered the release, at that time, of online  preprints of these papers. These do not require the time-consuming process of peer review. They are considered a good way to quickly share new scientific findings, and receive informal expert feedback. I still check daily for these preprints. Finding none, I entertain an explanation.

 There is presumably a good reason that no preprints were offered. Perhaps, at some point, the findings became too controversial, and/or too important to present without the support of peer review.  Since the peer review process can take months, we may still be in for a considerable wait.

[bison]

Some commentators on the Proxima signal seem almost affronted by the idea that a signal could be coming to us from the very nearest star to our solar system. For them, this almost guarantees that the signal is really Earth-based interference of some sort. The basis  of this attitude is the idea that intelligent life in our galaxy is rare, and that the odds are spectacularly against it residing so near to us.

A case can be made for the rarity of intelligent life in out galaxy, but this is far from being a settled question. Suppose only a very small percentage of the billions of potentially habitable planets, now believed to exist in our galaxy, actually do bring forth intelligent life and civilizations.

Such planets are believed to be, on average, a billion years older than Earth.  It's not unreasonable, then,  that there would have been more than ample time for a relatively few civilizations to have expanded their range, and filled the galaxy, long ago. This could be the case, even if they traveled at well below the speed of light. 

Our real knowledge of life and intelligence in our galaxy amounts to almost nothing. We are our own sole data point here. What if a real, intelligently-crafted radio signal turns out to actually be coming our way from Proxima Centauri? It will imply that we very probably inhabit a densely tenanted galaxy. That will be mind-blowing, but it seems far from an unreasonable possibility.      

[Hyperionxvii]

33 minutes ago, bison said:

Some commentators on the Proxima signal seem almost affronted by the idea that a signal could be coming to us from the very nearest star to our solar system. For them, this almost guarantees that the signal is really Earth-based interference of some sort. The basis  of this attitude is the idea that intelligent life in our galaxy is rare, and that the odds are spectacularly against it residing so near to us.

A case can be made for the rarity of intelligent life in out galaxy, but this is far from being a settled question. Suppose only a very small percentage of the billions of potentially habitable planets, now believed to exist in our galaxy, actually do bring forth intelligent life and civilizations.

Such planets are believed to be, on average, a billion years older than Earth.  It's not unreasonable, then,  that there would have been more than ample time for a relatively few civilizations to have expanded their range, and filled the galaxy, long ago. This could be the case, even if they traveled at well below the speed of light. 

Our real knowledge of life and intelligence in our galaxy amounts to almost nothing. We are our own sole data point here. What if a real, intelligently-crafted radio signal turns out to actually be coming our way from Proxima Centauri? It will imply that we very probably inhabit a densely tenanted galaxy. That will be mind-blowing, but it seems far from an unreasonable possibility.      

" this is far from being a settled question"

Sure, but the likelihood of a planet around that star having an advanced civilization, or any advanced life, is extremely unlikely because of the volatility of the star and other reasons. Really has nothing to do with the debate about whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe anywhere. That's entirely another topic.

We'll probably know more if they ever get James Webb up and especially after we get some of the more advanced instruments up that will follow. Looking forward to that.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Hyperionxvii

[Peter B]

1 hour ago, Hyperionxvii said:

" this is far from being a settled question"

Sure, but the likelihood of a planet around that star having an advanced civilization, or any advanced life, is extremely unlikely because of the volatility of the star and other reasons. Really has nothing to do with the debate about whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe anywhere. That's entirely another topic.

We'll probably know more if they ever get James Webb up and especially after we get some of the more advanced instruments up that will follow. Looking forward to that.

I think the point has been made elsewhere in this thread that the Proxima signal - if a genuine alien artifact - could be being generated by an automated device left there by visitors, rather than being part of an ongoing civilisation currently present at Proxima.

Maybe the best way to look at this would be to think back to the 1970s, when equipment left on the Moon by the Apollo missions transmitted data back to Earth. If aliens detected those signals and somehow failed to detect signals from Earth they should still have been able to work out that the equipment generating the signals came from somewhere other than the Moon.

[Peter B]

2 hours ago, bison said:

Some commentators on the Proxima signal seem almost affronted by the idea that a signal could be coming to us from the very nearest star to our solar system. For them, this almost guarantees that the signal is really Earth-based interference of some sort. The basis  of this attitude is the idea that intelligent life in our galaxy is rare, and that the odds are spectacularly against it residing so near to us.

A case can be made for the rarity of intelligent life in out galaxy, but this is far from being a settled question. Suppose only a very small percentage of the billions of potentially habitable planets, now believed to exist in our galaxy, actually do bring forth intelligent life and civilizations.

Such planets are believed to be, on average, a billion years older than Earth.  It's not unreasonable, then,  that there would have been more than ample time for a relatively few civilizations to have expanded their range, and filled the galaxy, long ago. This could be the case, even if they traveled at well below the speed of light. 

Our real knowledge of life and intelligence in our galaxy amounts to almost nothing. We are our own sole data point here. What if a real, intelligently-crafted radio signal turns out to actually be coming our way from Proxima Centauri? It will imply that we very probably inhabit a densely tenanted galaxy. That will be mind-blowing, but it seems far from an unreasonable possibility.      

Assuming this is correct, then these aliens would have had time to develop technology far in advance of what we have. To us their technology would be as advanced as our technology would appear to ancient Sumerians. On that basis how much credit should we pay to the idea that they'd use the same sort of technology for long-range communication as we do? Wouldn't it sort of be like ancient Sumerians assuming we still use clay tablets inscribed with messages to communicate?

Therefore, is there some other way of interpreting the existence of the signal? To use the analogy from the paragraph above, we don't use clay to make communication devices as the Sumerians did, but for making other things - plates, vases, works of art, play material for kids. If radio signals are no longer used by an advanced civilisation for communication, then what might they be used for? And how might we want to reinterpret the Proxima signal in that context?

[Hyperionxvii]

29 minutes ago, Peter B said:

I think the point has been made elsewhere in this thread that the Proxima signal - if a genuine alien artifact - could be being generated by an automated device left there by visitors, rather than being part of an ongoing civilisation currently present at Proxima.

Well, OK, but that 'point' is nothing more than wild speculation at this point. 

[Hyperionxvii]

58 minutes ago, Peter B said:

Therefore, is there some other way of interpreting the existence of the signal? 

I'll wait for some experts in the proper fields to weigh in on something like that. In other words, I'm not saying at this time that anyone is wrong. But, no, I'm not going to believe in any alien signals until I get some real solid scientific proof, and at the moment, there is none. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Hyperionxvii

[bison]

3 hours ago, Peter B said:

Assuming this is correct, then these aliens would have had time to develop technology far in advance of what we have. To us their technology would be as advanced as our technology would appear to ancient Sumerians. On that basis how much credit should we pay to the idea that they'd use the same sort of technology for long-range communication as we do? Wouldn't it sort of be like ancient Sumerians assuming we still use clay tablets inscribed with messages to communicate?

Therefore, is there some other way of interpreting the existence of the signal? To use the analogy from the paragraph above, we don't use clay to make communication devices as the Sumerians did, but for making other things - plates, vases, works of art, play material for kids. If radio signals are no longer used by an advanced civilisation for communication, then what might they be used for? And how might we want to reinterpret the Proxima signal in that context?

If a civilization had far better communications technology than radio, they might still find it expedient to use it in communicating with those who couldn't manage anything better. This entertains the possibility that there was an intent to communicate with us, or at least to make us aware of their presence. 

Yes, Peter, there might be other uses for radio waves than communications, and we might well have happened upon such a thing. Perhaps we stumbled upon their space debris radar detection system, or a system for the wireless transmission of power, or some application of radio waves we haven't even conceived of yet.

Even though our species discovered the use of fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, we still find a remarkable multitude of used for it, today.

In any case, I suspect that an ET civilization communicating with us might not be hugely more advanced than we are. It seems to me they'd be more likely to take an interest in us, and have something intelligible to communicate. Perhaps the role of contacting naive species, like ourselves, falls to the least advanced nearby civilization; one that recently became involved in galactic civilization.    

Edited February 28, 2021 by bison
improved paragraph structure, added information

[bison]

20 hours ago, Hyperionxvii said:

" this is far from being a settled question"

Sure, but the likelihood of a planet around that star having an advanced civilization, or any advanced life, is extremely unlikely because of the volatility of the star and other reasons. Really has nothing to do with the debate about whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe anywhere. That's entirely another topic.

We'll probably know more if they ever get James Webb up and especially after we get some of the more advanced instruments up that will follow. Looking forward to that.

 Hyperion;    

The volatility of Proxima Centauri is surely an issue to reckon with, as is the probable tidal locking of its planet B. However, no less an expert than Dr. Andrew Siemion, astrophysicist,  Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lead Observer of the Breakthrough Listen Project is optimistic.

He does not assume that the planet is uninhabitable, or unable to support a civilization. He makes a case that this may be possible.  See my post # 114, this thread, for further information on this, including a link to Dr. Siemion's remarks. 

In any case, an automated transmitter in the Proxima Centauri system could be the source of the signal. Even this would seem to indicate that our galaxy could be more or less filled with civilizations, and their artifacts. It would appear unlikely that we would happen upon such device at the very nearest star to out Sun, if this were not the case.

Consider a hypothetical case-- Only a few people live on a particular continent, randomly placed there by circumstance.  What are the odds that they would encounter one another, or one find some gadget owned by another?  very unlikely, it would seem. Those odds would become reasonable, though, if a great many people shared that same space. Let that continent stand in for our galaxy, and perhaps you'll see what I was driving at.  

[Hyperionxvii]

4 hours ago, bison said:

 Hyperion;    

The volatility of Proxima Centauri is surely an issue to reckon with, as is the probable tidal locking of its planet B. However, no less an expert than Dr. Andrew Siemion, astrophysicist,  Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lead Observer of the Breakthrough Listen Project is optimistic.

He does not assume that the planet is uninhabitable, or unable to support a civilization. He makes a case that this may be possible.  See my post # 114, this thread, for further information on this, including a link to Dr. Siemion's remarks. 

In any case, an automated transmitter in the Proxima Centauri system could be the source of the signal. Even this would seem to indicate that our galaxy could be more or less filled with civilizations, and their artifacts. It would appear unlikely that we would happen upon such device at the very nearest star to out Sun, if this were not the case.

Consider a hypothetical case-- Only a few people live on a particular continent, randomly placed there by circumstance.  What are the odds that they would encounter one another, or one find some gadget owned by another?  very unlikely, it would seem. Those odds would become reasonable, though, if a great many people shared that same space. Let that continent stand in for our galaxy, and perhaps you'll see what I was driving at.  

Fair enough. Like I said, we need more data, and at this time I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong. Just that with our current data, I have to err on the side of skepticism. 

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

On 2/4/2021 at 7:29 AM, Hyperionxvii said:

What if they just incinerate us with their alien laser beams because they just read social media? 

There would be much rejoicing before incineration?