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Speaker 1: In many ways, it's a scientific dream come true, a

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Speaker 1: fantasy even to be indulged during daydreams. Usually it goes

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Speaker 1: something like this. You're sitting at your desk where you

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Speaker 1: monitor some telescope or communications equipment. Suddenly you see something unusual,

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Speaker 1: interrupting endless hours of monotony. It's some kind of signal,

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Speaker 1: something you've never seen before, something that can't have come

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Speaker 1: from any Earth source and isn't produced by any natural phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: It's a signal from space. It's humanity's first interplanetary email.

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Speaker 1: Of course, that's exciting, it's amazing, it's mind blowing, but

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Speaker 1: you know it's actually just the first step. The existence

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Speaker 1: of the signal says hey, aliens are here. But what

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Speaker 1: is the message that's encoded inside? What does that alien

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Speaker 1: email have to say? Does it say you killed my father,

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Speaker 1: prepared to die? Does it say here's our alien unified

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Speaker 1: theory of everything? Or is an interstellar version of a

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Speaker 1: Nigerian oil scam? Of course we're dying to know. But

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Speaker 1: how do we crack the message? How do we know

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Speaker 1: what the alien code is? How do we figure it out?

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Speaker 1: And hanging over the whole enterprise is the question What

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Speaker 1: if we can't What if we never figure out what

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Speaker 1: it means, and there's a growing sense of doubt that

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Speaker 1: it actually means anything. What if it's not an alien

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Speaker 1: email but some kind of weird universe electromagnetic purp. Now

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Speaker 1: this scientific fantasy has turned into a kind of scientific nightmare.

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Speaker 1: Today in the podcast, we're going to be digging into

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Speaker 1: the true story of a message from the skies and

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Speaker 1: what it might mean. We'll be answering the question did

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Speaker 1: Earth get a message from aliens?

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly is extraordinary universe. I'm Kelly

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Speaker 2: Wiener Smith, and I think probably there are aliens out there. Daniel,

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Speaker 2: how are you doing? What's your story?

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Speaker 1: Hi? I'm Daniel Whitson. I'm a particle physicist and a

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Speaker 1: professor at UC Irvine, and I wish I could say

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Speaker 1: I was an alien.

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Speaker 2: That is not what I expected you were going to

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Speaker 2: go with today. Why do you wish you were an alien?

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Speaker 1: Earth just seems like such a wonderful place to visit,

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Speaker 1: And you know, there's so many friendly physicists and other

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Speaker 1: scientists who want to know all of your secrets of

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Speaker 1: the universe. I just imagine it would be a great

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Speaker 1: experience to be an alien, arrive on Earth and get

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Speaker 1: to hang out with a bunch of cool nerds.

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Speaker 2: Okay, sweet, No, I'm down for that. Okay. So, if

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Speaker 2: you were able to send a message that you knew

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Speaker 2: aliens were going to get, what would you send out

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Speaker 2: into space if you knew it would be received?

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Kelly, Wow, the hardest question time.

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Speaker 2: Oh Man, no balls here.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I pretty strongly believe that any message we send

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Speaker 1: out into space will be undecipherable, untranslatable without us there

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Speaker 1: to explain it or to interact with them or some

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Speaker 1: kind of common context. I love the message that we

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Speaker 1: did send out into space, but I think it's probably

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Speaker 1: impossible for aliens to figure out what we meant by that,

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Speaker 1: because I think there's so much of us in it,

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Speaker 1: so much of our cultural context, and that it's hard

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Speaker 1: for us to see that and to strip it away.

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Speaker 1: But of course, if you gave me the opportunity, I

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Speaker 1: would still send something, probably a picture of my kids.

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Speaker 2: Aw, that's cute. I think if I was going to

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Speaker 2: send a message out in a space, one thing that's

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Speaker 2: kind of universal is music, especially instrumental music. So I

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Speaker 2: think i'd send some like beautiful music out into space,

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Speaker 2: because I agree. I think if you sent like we

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Speaker 2: come in peace, they wouldn't know what that means. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I can listen to music from a culture I know

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Speaker 2: nothing about and still feel kind of choked up about it.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe that's the closest we have to

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Speaker 2: something universal.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I mean it's the universe, maybe across humans. And

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Speaker 1: I can appreciate music from other species like bird song

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Speaker 1: can be quite nice. But I don't know if that

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Speaker 1: means that it's universal beyond Earth right, other than just

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Speaker 1: speculation and hope, do we have any solid evidence biologically

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Speaker 1: for music being something that has to fundamentally be part

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Speaker 1: of intelligence.

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Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. But I think it's maybe one of

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Speaker 2: our best chances at sending something that represents our whole species.

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Speaker 2: Because almost all of us are excited about music.

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Speaker 1: That means we have to send them Taylor Swift or

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Speaker 1: like the Macarena or something.

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Speaker 2: I think we could take a more historical perspective.

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Speaker 1: What's more likely to get us invaded or nuked from orbit? O?

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Speaker 2: God, let's withhold the makarena. Bleeps.

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Speaker 1: But we don't just have to speculate about signals to

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Speaker 1: send to aliens, because humanity has sent messages to the

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Speaker 1: skies in the past, and we've done so in response

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Speaker 1: to weird lips and bleeps we've heard from the cosmos.

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Speaker 2: Do you think most people know about the weird blue

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Speaker 2: in bleeps we've heard. I think we should ask our audience.

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Speaker 1: One of the best candidates for a potential alien signal

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Speaker 1: is something we're going to be talking about on the

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Speaker 1: podcast today. It's called the Wow signal because someone wrote

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Speaker 1: wow next to the computer print out when they first

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Speaker 1: saw it. Was it Aliens? Was it the Russians? Was

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Speaker 1: it just birds?

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Speaker 2: I think the writing wow next to it thing is

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Speaker 2: really cute, better than WTF or something a WTF signal?

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Speaker 1: I love it, And so I asked folks what they

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Speaker 1: thought the Wow signal might be. Was it a message

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Speaker 1: from aliens? Or are we just fooling ourselves. Here's what

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Speaker 1: people had to say.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure what calls the Wow signal.

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Speaker 1: Maybe supernova, maybe maybe aquasa.

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Speaker 2: Some sort of cosmic anomaly.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember if there's been any resolution on its origin,

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Speaker 1: so I'd love to hear progress on that.

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Speaker 2: The Wow signal is a seventy two second narrow band

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Speaker 2: high energy signal sent by the Santee, an alien race,

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Speaker 2: in an attempt to find refuge from their failing three

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Speaker 2: body problem.

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Speaker 1: It must be very impressive to be called the WOW.

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Speaker 1: That's the signal that was seen by SETTI for a

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Speaker 1: brief time. I don't think it's known what caused it,

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Speaker 1: no idea, It never never repeated.

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Speaker 2: My guess is the WOW signal was a short transmission

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Speaker 2: from a satellite that just happened to be in the

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Speaker 2: beam of the Big Year at the time, something that

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Speaker 2: they thought was alien. But they've recently done done some

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Speaker 2: research to improved that it was actually a massive comet

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Speaker 2: going between one planetary signal and US. I think it

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Speaker 2: had something to do with hydrogen. I'm curious to hear.

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Speaker 1: To find out the WOW signal was just a glitch,

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Speaker 1: a random occurrence. Or who was written upside down and

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Speaker 1: he was thinking about his mom mikes would be moving.

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Speaker 1: Electrons burst from like a pulsar equasar that collided with

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Speaker 1: the cloud of hydrogen, which then created the signal of

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Speaker 1: sweatpast Earth. If you'd like to virtually answer these persons

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Speaker 1: on the street questions, we'd love to have you participate

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Speaker 1: please write to us two questions at danieland Kelly dot org.

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Speaker 1: That's danieland Kelly dot O RG Kelly, is.

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Speaker 2: K E l L Y not I E. That's the

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Speaker 2: wrong way to spell it. Sorry to I E. Kelly's

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Speaker 2: out there. Let's go ahead and alienate the audience for

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Speaker 2: no reason. So I thought the answers that we got

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Speaker 2: this time around were great. I really loved the person

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Speaker 2: who was quick on their feet and had the upside

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Speaker 2: down and it actually met mom answer, like, oh, message

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Speaker 2: for mom, I got to call home.

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Speaker 1: Maybe moms are the most universal thing in the universe, Kelly.

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Speaker 2: I love that idea. I think that's probably right. Everyone

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Speaker 2: everywhere loves their mom.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. We have a running joke as a

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Speaker 1: family whenever we watch a movie, either the dad or

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Speaker 1: the mom is usually like a terrible character. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, when you see a mom acting badly on

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Speaker 1: the screen, my kids are like, moms are the worst.

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Speaker 1: Oh you see a dad behaving terribly, and they're like,

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Speaker 1: dads are the worst. Oh my gosh. But anyway, I

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Speaker 1: hope aliens out there have really nice moms.

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Speaker 2: I hope so too. Well. So another common guess was

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Speaker 2: that this was just a like equipment problem or some

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Speaker 2: you know, environmental phenomena. So let's get into where we

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Speaker 2: collected the WOW signal, what it looked like, and let's

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Speaker 2: jump in.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the Wow signal is a really exciting example something

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Speaker 1: I think is really important, which is basically just listening

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Speaker 1: to the universe and trying to hear messages. You know,

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Speaker 1: we don't have a whole lot of ways of communicating

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Speaker 1: with aliens because we're stuck on this rock. You know,

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Speaker 1: space is vast and rockets are slow, and even photons

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Speaker 1: don't go very fast compared to the huge distances between

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Speaker 1: here and any other stars. So our best chance to

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Speaker 1: discover life is not to land on some other planet

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Speaker 1: or for other aliens to land here, but to hear

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Speaker 1: from them, right, to get a message from space. And

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Speaker 1: so the best way to figure out are we alone

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Speaker 1: in the universe is to listen to hear if other

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Speaker 1: people are basically sending us interplanetary emails.

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Speaker 2: I feel like it's common for people to try to

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Speaker 2: convince you that the question they work on is really

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Speaker 2: important by prefacing it with one of the most important

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Speaker 2: questions humankind will ever have to answer. And people often

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Speaker 2: say whether or not we're alone one of the most

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Speaker 2: important questions humankind will ever have to answer. And I

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Speaker 2: think that's the one time that I believe it. I

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Speaker 2: think that might actually be one of the most important questions.

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Speaker 2: What do you think what do you think is the

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Speaker 2: most important question humans could ever answer?

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Speaker 1: Man, you are dropping the big questions kind of.

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Speaker 2: Getting us off track.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, And I think we know

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Speaker 1: it's one of the most important questions because it's one

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Speaker 1: of the oldest questions, and there's a question we've been

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Speaker 1: asking since we've been asking questions. It's up there with

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Speaker 1: like how big is the universe and where does it

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Speaker 1: all come from? It changes the whole context of our experience,

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Speaker 1: you know, in a way that like some question in

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Speaker 1: organic chemistry, can you synthesize this polysaccharator or whatever? I

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Speaker 1: don't even know enough chemistry to make that joke, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the answer doesn't change what it means to be human,

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Speaker 1: what it means to be alive, and how you should

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Speaker 1: live your life. But if we know we're alone in

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Speaker 1: the universe, we're the only thinking beings that really changes

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Speaker 1: what it means to be human. And also if we're

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Speaker 1: one in the zillion changes what it means to be human.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I agree this is one of the deep questions.

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Speaker 1: I don't personally work on this question, which means I'm

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Speaker 1: not like invested in it that same way, but I

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Speaker 1: agree it's one of the most important questions basically anybody's

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Speaker 1: ever asked.

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Speaker 2: And I also don't work on this question, but I

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Speaker 2: still think it would probably profoundly change the way I

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Speaker 2: see everything. And I feel like, also over the course

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Speaker 2: of my life, I've been more and more convinced that

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Speaker 2: probably there's something else out there. During my lifetime, we've

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Speaker 2: learned so much about other exoplanets and how much is

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Speaker 2: out there, and I feel like, statistically it would be

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Speaker 2: really surprising if we were alone. And so anyway, I'm

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Speaker 2: more excited about listening.

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Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting how scientists have hunches like that.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's widely enough understood that you know,

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Speaker 1: we're scientists and we're doing science and we're trying to

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Speaker 1: be objective, but also look where people we got feelings

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Speaker 1: and guesses and emotions, and that's important because that drives

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Speaker 1: how science is done. Like, if you believe in something,

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Speaker 1: you're more likely to investigate it, And of course you

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Speaker 1: can investigate it in a very scientific way and try

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Speaker 1: to draw objective answers, but it changes the kind of

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Speaker 1: things you do with your science, little places you spend

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Speaker 1: your time. So these like scientific hunches, they're important. You know,

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Speaker 1: these feelings that scientists have.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think you need to be honest about them,

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Speaker 2: because if you feel like something is right, then you

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Speaker 2: need to be extra careful to make sure you're not

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Speaker 2: tricking yourself into something. You know. I think people who

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Speaker 2: are like, oh, scientists, they're always unbiased and they're just

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Speaker 2: looking for the truth. It's like, no, we're humans. We

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Speaker 2: like have a hunch that things are going to go

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Speaker 2: one way or another, and you need to be honest

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Speaker 2: about that and then try extra hard to prove yourself

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Speaker 2: wrong if you know you're leaning in a certain direction exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I feel just that way about the aliens question.

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Speaker 1: People write to me about this because I'm very skeptical

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Speaker 1: of all the videos that we've seen, you know, gimbal

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Speaker 1: and the Tiktac video and all this stuff. And I

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Speaker 1: talked to Mick West once about it and he helped

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Speaker 1: us debunk them. And the reason I feel so skeptical

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Speaker 1: about them is that the threshold is absolutely, very very high.

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Speaker 1: And one reason for that is that I really want

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Speaker 1: it to be true, Like I want there to be aliens,

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Speaker 1: and I want them to be here on Earth visiting us.

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Speaker 1: I would so love for that to be true that

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Speaker 1: I have to be extra scrupulous about believing this stuff, right,

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Speaker 1: It needs to be really, really rock solid, because I

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Speaker 1: know I'm biased in fame of believing it, And.

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Speaker 2: So I bet you want it to be true because

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Speaker 2: you would love to know their physics theories and if

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Speaker 2: they imagine with ours.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, I would love to talk to a theoretical physicists

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Speaker 1: from another planet, if they even do theoretical physics. And

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Speaker 1: you know, of course that I'm writing a book on

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Speaker 1: that exact question, but also because it would instantly answer

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Speaker 1: so many other questions about the prevalence of life, Like

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Speaker 1: your hunch that there is life out there in the

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Speaker 1: universe is informed, of course by science. You know, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot more planets, a lot more stars, a

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Speaker 1: lot more earth like planets and all that stuff, But

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Speaker 1: there's still the question of how often life arises, and

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Speaker 1: something we don't even understand here on Earth, right, And

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Speaker 1: so that would help us understand that question, which I

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Speaker 1: feel like is so deep and informs the context of

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Speaker 1: our lives so profoundly that yeah, I'm desperate to know.

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Speaker 1: And also because it's a question that has an answer,

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Speaker 1: and the answer is out there. Yeah, like the aliens

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Speaker 1: are either there or they're not. You know, it's just

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Speaker 1: a fact about the universe and we just don't have

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Speaker 1: the answer. It's like if somebody puts the answer in

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Speaker 1: an envelope in front of you, you're going to be

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Speaker 1: so desperate to open it, right. That's to me what

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Speaker 1: science is is like ripping open the envelopes of the universe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I just started this book called The Zoologists

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Speaker 2: Guide to the Galaxy, and the argument that he's making

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Speaker 2: is that natural selection must be acting everywhere, and so

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Speaker 2: there are some things you can predict about how animals

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Speaker 2: will look and anyway, as a biologist, I would just

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Speaker 2: love to know, like do they have something like DNA

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Speaker 2: like we do? Are there other ways of encoding things?

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Speaker 2: I mean, it does feel like they must be shaped

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Speaker 2: by natural selection, but is that true? And what do

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Speaker 2: they look like now? And I'm only about the first

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Speaker 2: quarter of the way into the book and it's a

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Speaker 2: very interesting argument. But okay, so we both agree.

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Speaker 1: Well, I actually talk to Eric Kirshenbaum and interviewed him

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Speaker 1: for the book that I'm writing. He's hilarious, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I believe his arguments that like, basically critters or always

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Speaker 1: going to munch on other critters, and that affects how

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Speaker 1: aliens evolve. And you can learn a lot about how

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Speaker 1: aliens might behave from the things that have happened here

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Speaker 1: on Earth. But maybe he's totally wrong, and the only

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Speaker 1: way to know he is to meet the aliens.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Anyway, So we have spent way longer than

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Speaker 2: we intended talking about why we should look you and

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Speaker 2: I are convinced that we should be looking how do

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Speaker 2: you look?

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Speaker 1: Well, Basically, the right way to do it is to

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Speaker 1: open every single technological eyeball or earball that you can

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Speaker 1: right listen to the skies in every possible way, because

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Speaker 1: we can't anticipate how are aliens going to try to

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Speaker 1: connect with us? Now, Because we're scientists, the first thing

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Speaker 1: we do is the easiest thing, Right, every time you

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Speaker 1: try something in science, you always do the dumbest, simplest,

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Speaker 1: cheapest thing first, because hey, that might just work something

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Speaker 1: you're done right, and when that doesn't work, then you

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Speaker 1: get more creative and more expensive. So the simplest, easiest

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Speaker 1: thing to do is to just listen for radio waves.

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Speaker 1: Like it's that simple. You know, we have these things

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Speaker 1: that can send messages from one part of the Earth

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Speaker 1: to the other by exciting the electromagnetic field. You know,

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Speaker 1: that's how radio waves work. You have an antenna somewhere,

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Speaker 1: electrons inside of it are oscillating because of the current

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Speaker 1: that makes oscillating electromagnetic waves, which is then reach an

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Speaker 1: antenna you have which wriggles the electrons in your antenna,

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Speaker 1: which creates a current which feeds into your circuit and

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Speaker 1: then gets translated into sound for your ears. Right, So

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Speaker 1: the idea is, Look, you don't need air or anything

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Speaker 1: to send radio waves. You can send them from here

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Speaker 1: to the moon. You can send them from here to Mars.

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Speaker 1: They go through space itself, just like light does. Right.

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Speaker 1: Radio waves are fundamentally just another kind of light. Light

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Speaker 1: exists in lots of different frequencies. We can see it

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Speaker 1: from like red up to violet, but it exists in

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Speaker 1: higher frequencies we can't see the ultraviolet and lower frequencies,

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Speaker 1: we can't see the infrared and radio waves, and so

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Speaker 1: this is basically like listen for radio waves from space

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Speaker 1: because we have that technology.

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Speaker 2: So we could also look for like photons from far away.

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Speaker 2: Are there any kind of waves that would not travel

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Speaker 2: through space and could not be used to send a message?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, we can definitely look for signals from space,

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Speaker 1: like if aliens are shining a laser beam at us

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Speaker 1: and turn it on and off in Morse code or

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Speaker 1: the alien equivalent, we could totally see that. The different

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Speaker 1: frequencies have different strengths and weaknesses because the universe is

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Speaker 1: transparent or opaque at different frequencies. Like the visible spectrum

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Speaker 1: is nice because the universe is mostly transparent. Like if

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Speaker 1: you shine a laser beam from here to Alpha Centauri,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna make it and they can see that laser

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Speaker 1: because visible light can go through space. It's transparent. And

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Speaker 1: you know, it didn't always used to be that way.

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Speaker 1: Earlier in the history of the universe, it was filled

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Speaker 1: with a plasma and the universe was opaque. And so

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Speaker 1: it's just like in our era of the universe that

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Speaker 1: it's mostly transparent to this, but space is not actually

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Speaker 1: empty right, there's lots of dust and gas and stuff,

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Speaker 1: so some frequencies of light can penetrate that and some

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Speaker 1: of them can't. So radio waves in infrared and ultraviolet

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Speaker 1: and X rays, some of those things can make it

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Speaker 1: through gas and dust and some of them can't. So

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Speaker 1: the right thing they do is still listen on all

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Speaker 1: the frequencies because we don't know where they're coming from

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Speaker 1: and how they can transmit, So they might be invisible

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Speaker 1: to us because they're behind gas and dust in the

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Speaker 1: center of the galaxy or something else. But radio is

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Speaker 1: sort of easy. We have lots of receivers for radio,

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Speaker 1: We have large antenna, and we've been doing it a

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Speaker 1: little while, so radio is sort of like the first place.

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Speaker 2: To go, you know, there's lots of radio stations on Earth.

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Speaker 2: Is everything that we transmit to each other by radio

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Speaker 2: also making it out into space, Like have the aliens

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Speaker 2: heard the Macarena or will they in many late years

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Speaker 2: or whatever? Or does it depend on where we're aiming it,

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Speaker 2: Like our radios aimed towards Earth, and so those messages

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Speaker 2: aren't going out into deep space.

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Speaker 1: No, we have definitely beamed the Macharina into deep space.

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Speaker 1: Embarrassingly right now, or maybe they love it, you know,

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Speaker 1: and maybe that's the reason they're going to come, which

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Speaker 1: would be wonderful. Messages can be beamed, they can be aimed,

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Speaker 1: but generally radio is not right. Radio is broadcast in

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Speaker 1: every direction, so you can pick up your tailor switch

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Speaker 1: in every direction, which means that it's also broadcast up

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Speaker 1: right and out into space, and also with our TV signals,

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Speaker 1: and so yes, our signals have left the planet though

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Speaker 1: you know, we've only been transmitting for about one hundred years,

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Speaker 1: and that means that there's like a bubble one hundred

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Speaker 1: light years wide within which you can pick up signals

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Speaker 1: from Earth. And one hundred light years seems like a

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Speaker 1: long way because light travels really really fast, right, but

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Speaker 1: the galaxy is one hundred thousand light years across, So

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Speaker 1: the fraction of the Milky Way which is filled with

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Speaker 1: Earth signals is really really small. And as you get

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Speaker 1: further and further from Earth, those signals get weaker. If

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Speaker 1: you're twice as far away, the signals get four times

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Speaker 1: a week. If you're ten times further away, then they

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Speaker 1: get one hundred times this week. So because they're not

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Speaker 1: typically aimed, they get really pretty weak when you get

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Speaker 1: to like the next star. So, for example, our radio

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Speaker 1: telescopes couldn't pick up Earth like transmissions from the nearest star.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so the nearest aliens living on a planet orbiting

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Speaker 2: the nearest star wouldn't necessarily be able to eavesdrop on

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Speaker 2: all of the communications we were sharing by radio during

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Speaker 2: World War II, for example, so they might not know

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Speaker 2: about those atrocities, and then don't have to be so

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Speaker 2: insecure about how our species looks exactly.

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Speaker 1: If we knew they were there, beam them a message,

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Speaker 1: which they probably could receive, assuming they had technology similar

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Speaker 1: to ours. But if we're just broadcasting into space, then

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Speaker 1: by the time it gets there. Again, if they have

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Speaker 1: technology similar to ours, they wouldn't be able to pick

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Speaker 1: it up. If they're far advanced and their technology is

401
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Speaker 1: much more powerful, then yeah, maybe they're listening to us

402
00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:19,439
Speaker 1: right now and they watched every episode of I Love Lucy,

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Speaker 1: in which case we got some splaining to do.

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Speaker 2: I'm enjoying your choice of pop culture references, and I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure if I'm getting some insights into your preferences

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Speaker 2: here or not. So let's take a break for some commercials,

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Speaker 2: and when we get back, we'll talk about Sagittarius A.

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Speaker 2: All right, we're back. During the break, you told me

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Speaker 2: something that I didn't know, which means I didn't read

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Speaker 2: our outline very carefully, which is that Sagittarius A is

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Speaker 2: a black hole discovered by radio waves. All right, tell

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Speaker 2: me more about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we do radio to talk to each other, but

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Speaker 1: astronomers do radio to listen to the skies. But not

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Speaker 1: in the beginning. Radio astronomy has its origins in the

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Speaker 1: radio industry. The first radio telescope was built by somebody

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Speaker 1: at Bell Labs, essentially to listen to see like, hey,

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Speaker 1: how much noise is there in the radio spectrum? How

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Speaker 1: much do we have to worry about this if we

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Speaker 1: want to transmit radio around the world. So this is

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Speaker 1: like in the thirties, This is not somebody doing astronomy.

422
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Speaker 1: This is just like, hey, this is a commercial, useful technology.

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Speaker 1: Let's figure out how noisy it is. And then after

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Speaker 1: World War Two there are a lot of advances in

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Speaker 1: radar which then got applied to radio astronomy, and that's

426
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Speaker 1: when it first took off and people started listening in

427
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Speaker 1: depth to the skies and they immediately discovered something really

428
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Speaker 1: really weird that there was a point in the sky

429
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Speaker 1: where you couldn't really see anything interesting, but it was very,

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Speaker 1: very loud in the radio. It wasn't loud or equivalently

431
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 1: bright in the visible like if you look with a telescope,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't really see anything there, but that point in

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Speaker 1: the sky was extraordinarily loud in the radio.

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Speaker 2: Why are black holes screaming in radio?

435
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:19,040
Speaker 1: Death metal? Of course? I mean what kind of music

436
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: is a black hole going to make? You know? Soell

437
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 1: Garden right, it's not John Denver for sure. Yeah. So

438
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 1: why do things in the sky emit in radio? Well,

439
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 1: all electromagnetic radiation that includes visible photons and X rays

440
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:38,160
Speaker 1: and everything are emitted by charged particles being accelerated. It's

441
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 1: a fundamental piece of electromagnetism. Like you have an electron,

442
00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:43,840
Speaker 1: you accelerate, it means you're giving it a kick in

443
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 1: order to conserve momentum. It's going to shoot off a

444
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,880
Speaker 1: photon in the other direction, right, That's how charge particles

445
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,720
Speaker 1: get accelerated. Every time a charge particle is accelerated, it's

446
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:53,919
Speaker 1: going to give off a photon. So what's happening here

447
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: is you have electrons moving at high speeds being bent

448
00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 1: by the strong magnetic fields around the black hole, and

449
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: that corresponds to radio and it's fascinating because stars don't

450
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 1: produce radio waves. If you listen to the sky in radio,

451
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: you don't hear from the stars. They admit in the

452
00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:11,639
Speaker 1: visible spectrum, they admit in the infrared, but they're pretty

453
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 1: quiet in the radio. And so this is like another

454
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:16,720
Speaker 1: way to see what's out there in the universe. It's like, well,

455
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:19,199
Speaker 1: some stuff is loud in this frequency, some stuff is

456
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,159
Speaker 1: loud in that frequency. The sky looks very different at

457
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:23,120
Speaker 1: different frequencies.

458
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 2: Okay, So we looked out and there was an area

459
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 2: that was screaming sound garden. It was screaming at us

460
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 2: in radio. We decided that was a black hole. We

461
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 2: named it Sagittarius A.

462
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: That's right, And that really kicked off the whole era

463
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 1: of radio astronomy, and people started listening to the sky

464
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: discovering all sorts of stuff, and of course people were wondering, like, hey,

465
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: are we also going to get messages from non black holes?

466
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe aliens are sending messages to us.

467
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,440
Speaker 1: And there's one frequency in the radio which astronomers particularly

468
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: think maybe aliens are going to use this channel to

469
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 1: talk to us, and that's called the twenty one centimeters

470
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: hydrogen line. A cloud of hydrogen will very naturally emit

471
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: at this particular frequency because it corresponds to like an

472
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: energy gap in hydrogen. You get hydrogen hot and excited,

473
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 1: and then it cools back down and it emits a photon.

474
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,479
Speaker 1: When those electrons dek back down, it admits of this

475
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 1: particular frequency. And because hydrogen is like the basic building

476
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: block of the universe is hydrogen, everywhere, anybody who does

477
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:23,199
Speaker 1: radio astronomy is going to hear hydrogen and they're going

478
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: to listen to hydrogen and use this to study the universe.

479
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like figuring out, Hey, anybody out

480
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: there who's curious about the universe is probably paying attention

481
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 1: to this channel. So let's spam this channel, or let's

482
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 1: listen to this channel to see if this is what

483
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: people using to talk to each other.

484
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 2: Okay, that's very cool. And so once we think we

485
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 2: Eves dropped on something, how long ago did this happen?

486
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so people have been listening to this for a

487
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 1: long long time, wondering if we're going to get a message,

488
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: and then there was this fantastic moment. It was August fifteenth,

489
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. This took place at Ohio State. They

490
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: have a radio telescope they called the Big Ear. Love

491
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: that name. And the way this telescope works is it's

492
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: just a bunch of antennas. Right. You say telescope, and

493
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: you imagine like a scientist using one eyeball to look

494
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: through a glass or something. Right, But a telescope is

495
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: a general word for anything that can listen to the skies,

496
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,360
Speaker 1: and so this telescope is just a bunch of radio

497
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,680
Speaker 1: antennas spread out across a cornfield somewhere. That's how they

498
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 1: listen to these radio waves. You can also have like

499
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: a big dish, you know, like the Green Bank Observatory

500
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 1: and the Parks observatories. These are actually big dishes help

501
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: focus it. But you can also just spread out a

502
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 1: bunch of antennas on the ground, and that's what the

503
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: Ohio State Big Ear was. And the way this thing

504
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,919
Speaker 1: worked is it scanned for ten seconds and then it

505
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: processed it through a computer for two seconds and then

506
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: summarized the strength of anything it saw. So it's like

507
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 1: ten seconds of scanning, two seconds of analysis. And printing out.

508
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: And when I say printing out, I mean literally this

509
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: telescope feeds its data into an old fashioned computer and

510
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: IBM eleven thirty, which is then printed out the data

511
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: like onto one of those line printers, you know, like

512
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: like this is the output of the telescope. Yeah, exactly.

513
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: And so some human had to then go like literally

514
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: sift through these pages to see, like, hey, was there

515
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: anything interesting last night? You watch a movie of like

516
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: Discovering Aliens, and there some guy like sifting through pages

517
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: looking for something interesting, Like that's what really happened.

518
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: So was there someone whose job was just to sit

519
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 2: there constantly, so someone was always on shift. Presumably our

520
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,959
Speaker 2: eyes detect patterns, and so we'd look for things that

521
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:25,479
Speaker 2: look like a pattern or something different than what we

522
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 2: were usually seeing.

523
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this had to be scanned visually, and they

524
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: would transform the signal from the telescope into a code.

525
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: And so if they saw basically nothing in this spectrum,

526
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: it would be a space. If they would put a

527
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: one or two or three. If it was a stronger signal,

528
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: all the way up to nine. For a fairly strong signal,

529
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: it got really strong, it would go into letters ABCDFG

530
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 1: all the way up to you. You was the maximum

531
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: signal that could detect that was saturating it. And so

532
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: there was this morning August fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven, when

533
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 1: they saw a signal that was seventy two seconds long,

534
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: so six observing periods, which corresponds to six legs, and

535
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: the signal was six E, the letter Q, the letter

536
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: U J and five. Now this is very confusing because

537
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: it makes it sound like, oh, the aliens sent us

538
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: an email and it was these letters six EQUJ five.

539
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: Like I said, a license plate. You should not use

540
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: your decoding skills to try to understand what the aliens

541
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: meant from these letters. These just correspond to the strength

542
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: of the signal. If you translate this back from the

543
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: particular code that this experiment used, it basically just means

544
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: that the signal got stronger and then very very strong,

545
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: and then quieter. So it's like a blip. It goes

546
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: up and then comes down.

547
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 2: But you're missing two seconds every ten seconds, that's right.

548
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: So it could be even more complicated, that's right.

549
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: Because the telescope can't sample constantly because the computer was slow, essentially,

550
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 1: and so you're missing two seconds Also, the signal could

551
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,959
Speaker 1: have been longer. We only saw it for seventy seconds

552
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: because that's how long it was visible for. This telescope

553
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: can't be pointed. It's just like laying on a cornfield somewhere,

554
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: and as the Earth rotates, it basically scans different parts

555
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: of the sky, and so it just naturally scanned across

556
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: this region for seventy seconds. It could have still been emitting. Right,

557
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: you can't like turn the earth back and like hold

558
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: on a second.

559
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 2: That was great, go back.

560
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: Also, they didn't see this until like you know, days

561
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,719
Speaker 1: later when they got to looking at this output. But

562
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: still it was a very strong signal like the letter's

563
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: Q and you in there tell you it's a very

564
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 1: very powerful signal. It's very loud compared to like the

565
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: average noise you expect in this spectrum. It's exactly the

566
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 1: kind of thing at the twenty one centimeter line you

567
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 1: might expect to get from aliens.

568
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 2: So we've got this message that caught our attention, and

569
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 2: so presumably, as you mentioned, you don't get things that

570
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 2: are this loud most of the time. And so what

571
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 2: do you do with it? Now? Yeah, how do you

572
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 2: figure out what it was? From? Just this information.

573
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well, the first thing you do is you're

574
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 1: write wow on the piece of paper next to it,

575
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: forever immortalizing yourself and your handwriting in the history of astronomy. Right,

576
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: that's literally what it did, Like on that physical piece

577
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: of paper, he wrote wow exclamation point because it was

578
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: very unusual, and that really highlights the nature of the

579
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: problem and also a hint to try to figure it out, Like,

580
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: this is an unusual signal compared to what we typically see.

581
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: That means that, like we listen to the sky in radio,

582
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: we look around, we hear, we know the kind of

583
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: things we expect to see, you know, black hole this

584
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: and black hole that, and random electrones amid different clouds.

585
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: We know typically what the sky does, and this is unusual.

586
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: Unusual doesn't necessarily mean aliens, right, it means not the

587
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: typical thing, quite rare, very weird. Again, not necessarily aliens.

588
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: It means it's fascinating, It means we could learn something.

589
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: It means it's definitely something you should pay attention to

590
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: and look for more examples of. But how to interpret

591
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: that is difficult. And this is like a classic thing

592
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: in science. You know, we're always doing this two hypothesis test,

593
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: where like, do we reject the current hypothesis do we

594
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: accept the new hypothesis. You can't just reject the current

595
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: one and be like, yeah, I have no explanation. You

596
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: need some explanation, some way to describe this, some theory

597
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: that says this is why we should see this particular

598
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: weird thing and not some other weird thing. And that's

599
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: very hard, you know. How do you look at this

600
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: signal and say I'm convinced this is from aliens? It's

601
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: very challenging. It's not an easy thing to do.

602
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you only see it once and you

603
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 2: get no more extra information, and so you can't try

604
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 2: to match it up with a natural phenomenon or something

605
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 2: like that. And so what did they try doing?

606
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: People try to do lots of stuff. Number one is like,

607
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 1: look for other examples of this. Do we see this

608
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: anywhere else? In this guy? Has anybody else ever seen one?

609
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: And nobody's been able to repeat this like it didn't

610
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: come back. You know. A classic possible explanation for this

611
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: is like, oh, it's something out there that's emitting, but

612
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: like a pulsar, right. Pulsars are neutron stars, which are

613
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: remnants from stellar collapse. You have a star, it burns

614
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: its life mostly at the end. It's very very bright,

615
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: it burns out very quickly, it collapses. You're left with

616
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: this very dense remnant. Sometimes those are spinning really really fast,

617
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: and they're spinning off center, so they have like a

618
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: b shooting up and down their poles, and that beam

619
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: is now sweeping across the universe. And if you're in

620
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: the path of that beam, you're not always in the

621
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: path of the beam. It's like a lighthouse. It's sweeping

622
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: past you regularly. So pulsar is cool. And actually, when

623
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: pulsars were first discovered, people thought, oh, maybe this is

624
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: aliens because they were regular it's like beep, beep, beep.

625
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: But this was just one beep, so it's not a pulsar.

626
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: This never came back again. Nobody's ever seen anything this

627
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: strong from that direction in the sky. So they were

628
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: able to like immediately filter out a bunch of possible explanations.

629
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: And for me, there's sort of two simultaneous things you

630
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: need to do. One is like, well, let's see if

631
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: there are prosaic explanations, you know, just some natural phenomena

632
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: we haven't seen before. And also let's actively try to

633
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: figure out if it looks like an alien signal. And

634
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: this is the challenge I was referring to earlier, like

635
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: how do you do that? How do you decode an

636
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: alien signal? And the challenge really is that you don't

637
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: know what you're trying to decode it into. Like let's

638
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: say the Aliens encode their message somehow, even if you

639
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: could guess correctly how to decode it, how would you

640
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: know that you've done it correctly? Right, you don't know

641
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: what you're translating it back into. It's not like the

642
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: Aliens have written in English, and once you figure out

643
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: the puzzle, some message is going to pop out and

644
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: be like, Hi, we're from Alpha Centauri. Right. You have

645
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,479
Speaker 1: to somehow not only know the system they're using to

646
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: translate their ideas into radio waves and reverse that, but

647
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: you have to be able to recognize the message when

648
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: it's decoded, which we can't do because we have no

649
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: idea how the aliens think or what they might be saying.

650
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 2: So, like I imagine if they had been trying to

651
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 2: communicate with us, maybe it would be something easier ish

652
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 2: to figure out, like the prime numbers or you know,

653
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 2: maybe we all would have converged on that, because I

654
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: think that's the thing that's pitched often as some way

655
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,719
Speaker 2: to communicate our intelligence to other life forms. But if

656
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 2: we only got it once for a little while, if

657
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,719
Speaker 2: it is an alien message, it would probably be eavesdropping, right,

658
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 2: because otherwise it would have been pointed at us. Maybe

659
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 2: this was a message for someone else, which I think

660
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 2: makes it even less likely that we'd be able to

661
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 2: figure it out. Anyway. It's a hard problem.

662
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, and people often think, oh, well, if

663
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: it's mathematics, it's probably simpler somehow to translate or easier

664
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: to recognize, but that's not necessarily true. You know, we

665
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: don't know how much of mathematics is human, and how

666
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: much of mathematics is universal, how much it just reflects

667
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: our thinking, and how much it reflects something deep in

668
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: the universe. Even if you're going to start off with mathematics,

669
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: you still have to use some kind of symbol, some

670
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: kind of way to represent the number one or the

671
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: number seven. Here's what eleven looks like. And so there's

672
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: always going to be some sort of cultural influence because

673
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: the way we communicate is through symbols, like right now,

674
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: I'm translating my ideas into words, and because we agree

675
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: on the meaning of those words, I imagine that my

676
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: words are creating in your mind the ideas that are

677
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: in my mind. Right, But that's because we've agreed in

678
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: common on the meaning of those words. And every single

679
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: kind of communication method that's not like directly brain to brain,

680
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: we don't have telepathy, relies on this translation right where

681
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: you go to symbols and then back to ideas, and

682
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: those symbols fundamentally are arbitrary. The way we represent one

683
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: or the way we represent like mathematical operations, all of

684
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: those things are cultural symbols. And so we talked on

685
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: the top of the episode about the messages we've sent

686
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: into space, Like Carl Sagan and Francis Drake designed this

687
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: pioneer plaque that they sent into space hoping maybe someday

688
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: aliens would get it right. They got to actually answer

689
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: the question that you posed to me, and they did

690
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: their best. But if you look at what they did, like, man,

691
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: there's so much humanity in that message. They tried to

692
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,719
Speaker 1: encode the structure of atoms and spin flip transitions, and

693
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: they were really ambitious and frankly, I think it's impossible

694
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,719
Speaker 1: for aliens to get that message and actually understand what

695
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: it means without already knowing a lot about us.

696
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: The biologist in May, didn't it also include pictures of

697
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 2: human bodies naked to be like, this is what we

698
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 2: look like?

699
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: Yeah? It did.

700
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of cool, but also could just

701
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 2: be confusing. Is that what they eat?

702
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: Here's how we look like when you eat us for dinner? Yeah,

703
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: it could be a recipe. I actually talk to a

704
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: philosopher about this, because you know, philosophers think deeply about

705
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: like stripping away all of our assumptions and what does

706
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 1: this really mean? And how do we know what we're

707
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: doing here? I talk to Kareem Jabbari, a philosopher in

708
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: Sweden who thinks a lot about this and game theory

709
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: and should we communicate with aliens or are we likely

710
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: to get misinterpreted? And here's his comment. He says, quote

711
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: translation between speakers with no common language requires repeated interaction

712
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: and a familiar context. This implies that translating a message

713
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:35,720
Speaker 1: conveyed to us by an encoded signal is not only

714
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: very difficult, but practically impossible. What he means. Thereby, repeated

715
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: interaction in a familiar context is basically like, Hey, if

716
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: I point to a rock, I can say rock and

717
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: you can look at it. And if I do that

718
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 1: a few times, you're like, Okay, this symbol. He's telling

719
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: me this word rock means this thing, and we can

720
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: build up from that a common dictionary. If you just

721
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,479
Speaker 1: get a message, you have basically no hope of every

722
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: decoding it because you don't the symbols, and you also

723
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: can't recognize it if you have decoded it correctly.

724
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: I don't communicate back to do a lingo. But it's

725
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 2: teaching me Russian. It's working with me in my language.

726
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 2: That's why it's different.

727
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's translating it for you. And also it's telling

728
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: you when you're right and telling you when you're wrong.

729
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 2: Okay, So like if someone just sent me a book

730
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 2: in Russian, I would be screwed. But so like we

731
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 2: translated the Rosetta Stone and that wasn't a back and forth.

732
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: Oh but we knew one of the three languages, and

733
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 2: we couldn't do it before then.

734
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: The Rosetta Stone had one of the languages we already knew,

735
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 1: and one of the languages we didn't, so that was helpful. Plus,

736
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 1: did you know that after we discovered the Rosetta stone,

737
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 1: it took us twenty years to decode that message on

738
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: the Rosetta stone, And that's for like a message, We

739
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: already knew what it said, right, And the reason is

740
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: that we had all sorts of backwards ideas about what

741
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: hieroglyphics were. People thought hieroglyphics were like pictorial. They're like, oh, look,

742
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 1: the bird symbol must be something about birds, right. It

743
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 1: turns out that was totally wrong. All hieroglyphics are actually phonetic,

744
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: like the bird signal means a sound that a speaker

745
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 1: would make. And so because they had this wrong cultural

746
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: assumption about hieroglyphics, it took them twenty years to figure

747
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: it out. And it wasn't until people use their cultural

748
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: context from the other languages to figure this out. And

749
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: there are lots of examples of languages here on Earth

750
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: that other humans have written down that nobody's ever translated,

751
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: like Etruscan. Nobody has ever figured out how to translate it.

752
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: Trust can we be a bunch of examples of it

753
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,879
Speaker 1: and nobody's ever been able to translate it? So yeah,

754
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty much hopeless to translate a message

755
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: from aliens unless the aliens show up and they like

756
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: point at apples and donuts, and you know, we can

757
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: have basically a duo lingo conversation with them.

758
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 2: So I feel like I'm usually the pessimistic one. It's

759
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 2: nice that the tables have turned. And on that note,

760
00:36:47,360 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 2: let's take a little break, all right. So we've established

761
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 2: that it's really hard to send messages and receive messages

762
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 2: that anybody would have any hope of understanding, but that

763
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 2: hasn't stopped humans from trying. Nothing stops us from trying.

764
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 2: So we talked about the voyager plaques and what's on them.

765
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 2: What have been some other methods or proposed methods for

766
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 2: communicating with aliens.

767
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: So there's been a bunch of really good ideas and

768
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: also a bunch of really hilarious absurd attempts. One of

769
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: my favorites is Austrian astronomer Joseph von Littrow. He proposed

770
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 1: that we take huge trenches and write out math equations

771
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:40,760
Speaker 1: in them by filling them with water and then topping

772
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: them with curosene and setting them on fire. He thought

773
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: maybe Martians could see them from Mars and recognize that

774
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: we're here and we're smart. Just look at our flaming math.

775
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's epic. I guess this was back

776
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 2: when we thought that there were canals ferrying water around

777
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 2: on the Martian surface. Yeah, exactly, all right.

778
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: Back before we really knew anything about Mars, you know,

779
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: and it could have been there could have been intelligent

780
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: life on Mars before we had the technology to look

781
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 1: more carefully.

782
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 2: Sure, all right, well, so that's how I would like

783
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 2: to communicate with Zach from now on. I'm going to

784
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 2: put aside a little part of our yard so that

785
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 2: we can communicate with flaming mass.

786
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: What else, So we actually sent a message in response

787
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: to the wow signal. The WOW signal we know comes

788
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: from the Sagittarius constellation. So the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico,

789
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: now sadly destroyed, sent a message in response. A bunch

790
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 1: of humans sat down and decided, here's how we would

791
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: encode a message, and includes things like you know, what

792
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 1: our DNA looks like and what a human looks like,

793
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: all encoded into this two D sort of pictogram, and

794
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 1: we beamed it into space. Hoping that maybe somebody, if

795
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: they had sent us the Wow signal, was going to

796
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,439
Speaker 1: get this as a reply, and.

797
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 2: I assume our mail was left unresponded to.

798
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: We haven't heard any response to the ARCIPA message. But

799
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's a fleet of ships coming to

800
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: destroy us or welcome into the galactic community. Guy who knows.

801
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot of responsibility there, like

802
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: if you're going to broadcast from Earth on behalf of humanity,

803
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,839
Speaker 1: Like it's interesting. There should be some thought that goes

804
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: into this, And I want to ask you about this.

805
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: You thought a lot about like international law and what

806
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:19,439
Speaker 1: you can do in space. Are there any laws about

807
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: you know, stepping up to the mic and speaking for humanity?

808
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 2: No? No, I did look into this, and it's a

809
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: topic that has come up at the United Nations, but

810
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: no decision has actually been made, so there is no guideline.

811
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 2: So I think as Americans, we want to believe that

812
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 2: the message would come to us first. And if so,

813
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 2: there's no rule that says we have to like consult

814
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 2: the international community to say like, hey, we're gonna tell

815
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: them where we are. Is that okay? Everyone? We could

816
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 2: just do that. There's a group called SETI, the Search

817
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 2: for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and they do have a protocol that

818
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 2: was informed by the International Astronautical Association.

819
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 1: Is that right, sounds like a thing that could exist.

820
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, some like smart spacey people. They came up

821
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 2: with a procedure for like what we should do, and

822
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: it does involve like if you get a message, be

823
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,280
Speaker 2: careful deciphering it, share what you know, consult the United Nations,

824
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 2: and try to get some input from everybody. And so

825
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 2: like they've got some good procedures and they're probably one

826
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 2: of the groups that's more likely to receive these messages.

827
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 2: But no, there's no like specific international protocol for what

828
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 2: we're supposed to do, so you could just get rogue messages.

829
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 2: But I mean they've already like watched all of our

830
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: TV shows and listened to the BBC, so like, you know,

831
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 2: they probably know what we're about. The gig is up.

832
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing left to hide. Well. I actually had

833
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: a chance to talk to Jill Tartar. She was a

834
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 1: director of SETI for a long time, and I asked

835
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: her this question once. Here's what Jill had to say.

836
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 3: Oh, we've thought about it and we've held workshops and

837
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 3: basically should we respond and if so, who will speak first?

838
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 3: And what will they say? And I think the disappointing

839
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 3: thing for me at the moment is we've held a

840
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 3: number of workshops. They haven't really involved very much of

841
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 3: the world's diverse cultures. It's been sort of pretty waspy

842
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 3: and pretty male. So we continue to think about this,

843
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 3: and I continue to try and find a way to

844
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 3: take this question globally and find appropriate venues to ask

845
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 3: other cultures and other ways of being and thinking what

846
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 3: they would do, how they feel. So it's a work

847
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 3: in progress.

848
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 2: You know.

849
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 3: Freeman Dyson and here's alive and would listen to me

850
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 3: talk and this is very very highbrow approach to doing things.

851
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 3: He would just chuckle and he'd say, come on, Jill,

852
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 3: if you ever make such an announcement, anybody anywhere on

853
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 3: the planet that has access to a transmit will grab

854
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 3: that trend and just start saying whatever the hell they please.

855
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 3: And then he, you know, with a twinkle in his eye,

856
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 3: and so he said, yeah, wouldn't that cacophony be about

857
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 3: the best representation of the Earth today that we could make.

858
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 2: I am feeling totally depressed because I think you're probably right.

859
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 2: They're going to be getting like the dankest memes and

860
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 2: all of the weirdest stuff that humans have to offer

861
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 2: as soon as we get that message. So probably no

862
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 2: hope of a concerted message set by all of us.

863
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 2: They're just going to get like all of our spam

864
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 2: all at once.

865
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: All right, So we have no hope of really ever

866
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: decoding this thing unless the aliens have somehow figured out

867
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,359
Speaker 1: English and write to us in our own language, which

868
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: you know is not impossible and is the basis for

869
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: a lot of good science fiction. But in the meantime,

870
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 1: we haven't just been sitting idly by. We've been looking

871
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: for other explanations for what the Wow signal could be,

872
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: because again, it was very unusual, it's very weird. Doesn't

873
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: mean as aliens, but it does mean it's an opportunity

874
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: to potentially learning about what's out there in the universe,

875
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: And so we ruled out things like pulsars and stellar flares.

876
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: These things tend to be more periodic, they tend to

877
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: repeat themselves. The people also look really really carefully for

878
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: like more boring explanations. Is this just an Earth signal

879
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: bouncing off of a satellite, and you know, Earth's stuff

880
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: doesn't tend to broadcast in this regime is protected for astronomy.

881
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: So for example, if you're a radio station, you should

882
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: not be broadcasting in the twenty one centimeter line. If

883
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: you're building like a drone, you should not be using

884
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:30,280
Speaker 1: this frequency to communicate between the controller and the drone.

885
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: It's like protected, it's supposed to stay quiet. That doesn't

886
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: mean that there isn't some like rogue station out there broadcasting.

887
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: And maybe this like bounces a satellite or something, but again,

888
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:40,800
Speaker 1: it doesn't really look like it. They were able to

889
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: triangulate it to a place in the sky who was

890
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: fairly constant as the Earth moves, which suggested it doesn't

891
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: come from an earth like place. For it to come

892
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: off like a satellite in the sky, the satellite would

893
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: have to like be very slowly moving and not be tumbling.

894
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: It'd be very weird. And for a long time there

895
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 1: was just really no good explanation for this guy who

896
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: discovered it, Jerry Emon. He said, quote, I'm convinced that

897
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: the WOW signal certainly has the potential of being the

898
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: first signal from extraterrestrial intelligence. I'm like, all right, the

899
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: guy's invested in it. He's the one who wrote wow

900
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: on it. But you know he's also a serious astronomer.

901
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: He's not just somebody who's going to make these claims.

902
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: But as time goes on, we understand more and more

903
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: about the universe and we're better at thinking about like

904
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: rare things that could happen out there in the universe.

905
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: And so pretty recently there was a paper that explained

906
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: what might have caused the WOW signal.

907
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 2: Well, don't keep me waiting. What do they think it is?

908
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: Basically, they think it was a giant space laser, a

909
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: random organization of events in the sky that happened to

910
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: create this huge emission. This pulse of light pointed at Earth.

911
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:50,239
Speaker 2: So it wasn't like aliens pointing a laser at us

912
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 2: hoping that we'd bet at it like a cat or something.

913
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 2: This was like the universe accidentally makes lasers.

914
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right now. Lasers are something we know very

915
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: very we well here on Earth. Essentially, you have a

916
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: population of gas, and the gas can go up and

917
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 1: down on energy level, and if you pump energy into them,

918
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 1: they go up the energy level, and then they relax,

919
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: they go down an energy level they release a photon

920
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: of a particular wavelength that corresponds to that energy level,

921
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: and if you get a bunch of them in the

922
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: right conditions and the right cavity, they can resonate. And

923
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: that's what a laser is. It's like a little cavity

924
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: filled with these special atoms that have energy pumped in

925
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: just the right frequency, so they emit a very coherent

926
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: beam of powerful light. And this we can make here

927
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: on Earth, of course, but you could also randomly assemble

928
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,720
Speaker 1: the ingredients in space. If you have something which dumps

929
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: a bunch of light into a pocket of gas that

930
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: has the right conditions, it can absorb that and then

931
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: they can emit it and they can generate a very bright,

932
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: pulseive light. And in this case, it's not actually a

933
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: space laser, but a space maser with an M like

934
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: for mom, oh good, exactly. And a maser is not

935
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: a laser that emits moms. It's a laser that emits

936
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: microwave photons. So you know that your microwave in your

937
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: kitchen is something that just beams light into your food

938
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: at a particular wavelength. The wavelength of that light is

939
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: what makes it called microwaves. It's fairly short wavelength compared

940
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 1: to like radio waves.

941
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 2: But so then why was the radio telescope picking up

942
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 2: micro waves.

943
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: Because microwaves are in the radio. There's so many terrible

944
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,800
Speaker 1: names here, like we didn't understand for a long time

945
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 1: the connection between radio waves and visible light and all

946
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: this kind of other stuff. So different parts of the

947
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: electromagnetic spectrum, which all should just be called light or

948
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: should be called one thing, they all have different names,

949
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: and they're all overlapping and historically inconsistent. Anyway, this thing

950
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,240
Speaker 1: in space emits light in the microwaves, So it's a maser,

951
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: not a laser. And interestingly, maser's actually predated lasers. Humans

952
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: invented masers before they invented lasers. Laser is much more famous,

953
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: so the masers don't get the licensing fees or whatever.

954
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: But if you have just the right stuff lined up

955
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: in the sky, you have like a source like a

956
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: magnetar or something, which emits a bunch of light and

957
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: then it hits a cloud of hydrogen gas. That hydrogen

958
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: gas acts like a mazer and creates a pulse of microwaves.

959
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: And if it all lines up where you have like

960
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: the source and then the gas and then the Earth.

961
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: Then the Earth can get washed over in this sudden, rare,

962
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: difficult to reproduce wash of radio waves at just the

963
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 1: right frequency.

964
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 2: So if we haven't seen this again, how do we

965
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:29,280
Speaker 2: know that that's what happened? Because I feel like, ideally

966
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 2: what you'd want is to see it again at the

967
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 2: same time as this maser thing has happened, you can

968
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 2: be like, Bam, that's it.

969
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Because science shouldn't just be descriptive. So I'm like, hey,

970
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: I can come up with a plausible explanation. You should

971
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: be able to prove that this is what it is.

972
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 1: And so what they did is they went back through

973
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: the Aricibo data, the radio telescope in Puerto Rico, and

974
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: they said, look, maybe this happens all the time, and

975
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: this one WOW signal was just like the brightest one

976
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 1: we've ever seen. So they went back and looked more carefully,

977
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: and they found a bunch of examples of similar signals,

978
00:47:57,440 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: not nearly as powerful as the Wow signal, but the

979
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: same shape, the same features in the Aerocibo data. And

980
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: this is exactly what you would expect, like if this

981
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: happens sometimes in the universe, you would expect occasionally to

982
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: be right in the center of the action when it's

983
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,879
Speaker 1: super bright, and you would expect more often to see

984
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: weaker examples of it. So the brightest ones should be

985
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 1: rarest and less bright ones should be more common. And

986
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 1: they see a bunch of less bright versions of the

987
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: WOW signal in the Aerocibo data, And that's pretty compelling, right.

988
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,879
Speaker 1: It suggests that there is a mechanism for generating these

989
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: kinds of signals out there in the universe, and that

990
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: we've seen them before. So if that's true, that means

991
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 1: the WOW signal probably was this kind of thing, and

992
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 1: it was rare. It wasn't usual, it was lucky right.

993
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,320
Speaker 1: Everything had to line up just right, especially powerful magnetar

994
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: flare especially well lined up with Earth. Probably we're not

995
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: going to see another one of these for a long time.

996
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean, necessarily, though, that it was aliens.

997
00:48:54,719 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 2: Science ruins everything, although vaccines are nice. My field does

998
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:01,720
Speaker 2: good stuff.

999
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: Or maybe this is how aliens communicate, you know, maybe

1000
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 1: there's like a galactic civilization out there and the way

1001
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: they talk to each other is by inducing magnetars to

1002
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: create masers in hydrogen gas and be messages and they'd

1003
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: sent us a blast, and we haven't responded. We've like

1004
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: left them on red for decades and.

1005
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 2: Decades we've responded, Oh no.

1006
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: You're right, we did respond, but we didn't respond in

1007
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: the same way. Right, we sent our own radio message, right,

1008
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: And maybe they're like, what's that. Yeah, And even if

1009
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,240
Speaker 1: this message wasn't aliens, that doesn't mean aliens aren't out there,

1010
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean they aren't talking to us, and

1011
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that they can't hear our messages. And

1012
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 1: so there's actually a group out there. You talked about SETI,

1013
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There's another group that's more aggressive.

1014
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 1: They're called medi that wants to send messages to extraterrestrial intelligence.

1015
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: They think like Earth should be out there. We should

1016
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: be shouting that we exist, that we should be broadcasting

1017
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: our location. We should be inviting everybody to come and

1018
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,839
Speaker 1: have dinner with us or of us, And so they've

1019
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 1: been sending messages Like twenty seventeen, they sent a message

1020
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,760
Speaker 1: that was basically like a science and math Wikipedia page

1021
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,720
Speaker 1: to a red dwarf star located fair only nearby.

1022
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 2: It feels to me like that is the kind of

1023
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 2: thing that should maybe have to go through the un first,

1024
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 2: like humanity should decide do we want to be like

1025
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,320
Speaker 2: blasting our address out into the cosmos and letting people

1026
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 2: know that we're here. I guess technology gives people power

1027
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 2: that is good in bad.

1028
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. Essentially, the Internet's comments section is getting broadcasted to

1029
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,399
Speaker 1: the galaxy, and so let's hope that doesn't piss off

1030
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: the aliens.

1031
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 2: Well, if they're not going to attack us over the Macarina,

1032
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 2: maybe we're going to be okay.

1033
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's the reason they come, right, Maybe something

1034
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: somebody says in the Internet comment section is the reason

1035
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: why aliens come and share with us all the secrets

1036
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: of the universe. Let's end on an optimistic note.

1037
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, on a low probability optimistic note, but let's

1038
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 2: do it.

1039
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: And even if this isn't aliens, and even if we

1040
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: never meet aliens, the lesson here is that when you

1041
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: listen to this, when you look out into the universe,

1042
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 1: you always see something new, something weird, something fascinating. That

1043
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: does teach us about how the universe works. Even if

1044
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: the only thing we've learned from the Wow signal is like, hey,

1045
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:16,360
Speaker 1: sometimes universe organizes massive astronomical masers that beams powerful messages

1046
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: through the universe. That's pretty cool, right, and understanding how

1047
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: that all works, and understanding the crazy things that are

1048
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: out there in the universe. It's worth doing. So we

1049
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 1: should be listening to the sky with all of our

1050
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: eyeballs and earballs.

1051
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 2: Agreed, we need a lot more big ears out there.

1052
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And this is not my science, and this is

1053
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: not Kelly's science, so we're not like self invested here.

1054
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 1: But I definitely think we need more funding for this

1055
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 1: kind of work.

1056
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 2: I'm emotionally invested, but not professionally invested. Yes, I would

1057
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 2: like more answers, Yes, exactly.

1058
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 1: But you know, I believe in more funding for all

1059
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 1: kinds of science. Like you're studying duck mating rituals, Like, yes,

1060
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 1: that's funded. You never know what we're going to learn.

1061
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: I don't understand why we don't fund more science in general.

1062
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: It's such a great investment by humanity for humanity, about humanity.

1063
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 1: It's human scientists that are getting paid to do this stuff.

1064
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: It's just good all around.

1065
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 2: I don't understanding there's a fascinating woman who studies duck

1066
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 2: mating rituals who we should really have on the show

1067
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: so coming soon.

1068
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: So thanks very much everybody for listening to the messages

1069
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: from our brains to yours. We're not aliens. You're probably

1070
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: not an alien, but still we'd like to talk about aliens.

1071
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1072
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you, We really would.

1073
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1074
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

1075
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,439
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1076
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Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

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Speaker 2: back to you.

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Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

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Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly dot.

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00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 2: Org, or you can find us on social media. We

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Speaker 2: have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on all

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Speaker 2: of those platforms. You can find us at D and

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Speaker 2: K Universe.

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Speaker 1: Don't be shy write to us