Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is stuff you should
Speaker 1: know the podcast. Don't get it confused? What is that?
Speaker 1: What was that? That was my burgess? Meredith? Okay, thank you,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Thanks. It's a good burgess, Meredith, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you're in the mood for alien talk. Sure, this is
Speaker 1: the second time we've done something like this almost a
Speaker 1: year later. Yeah, right at it? We did? Uh how
Speaker 1: UFOs work live in Austin? Yeah, last March? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess once a year we do aliens aliens? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: but hey, before we get started, may I take a second. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say special high to my wife Umi, right,
Speaker 1: who made me the happiest guy in February. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: could just call her on February when we got married. Indeed,
Speaker 1: are you just gonna no, that's all I was just
Speaker 1: wanting every I wanted to share my happiness with everybody
Speaker 1: out there. Thank you very much. So let's get back
Speaker 1: to aliens. Okay, okay, So we are doing this in
Speaker 1: honor of are We Alone? Month on Science Channel? Right,
Speaker 1: So the month of March is are We Alone? Month?
Speaker 1: And Science Channel every Tuesday, I believe at ten it's
Speaker 1: having a premiere of um some new show that has
Speaker 1: something to do with the search for extraterrestrial life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be very cool. And I mean there's some
Speaker 1: like all those are going to be awesome, but there's
Speaker 1: some that are clearly going to be really awesome, like
Speaker 1: Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. I mean that in
Speaker 1: the context of an are We Alone Month, it's big news. Also,
Speaker 1: um uh the Alien Encounters with Nick Sagan got to
Speaker 1: be related to Carl Carl Pilkington. Yes uh. And then
Speaker 1: if you're in the mood for a contest, what would
Speaker 1: a month be without one? There is a steady live
Speaker 1: contest where the prize is to go visit Sad no Way,
Speaker 1: go to the California to the Institute. Yes, pretty sweet. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this is all going on on Science Channel all
Speaker 1: month long, and if you want more details, watch Science Channel. Pal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're hit him up on Facebook. I bet they have
Speaker 1: info there and in honor of this month is very
Speaker 1: special month. We are doing how steady Works, which is
Speaker 1: an acronym study if you don't know, for to search
Speaker 1: for extraterrestrial intelligence. Yes, and a joke before we did this.
Speaker 1: Are we Alone? Month will be followed by yes We're
Speaker 1: Alone Day? Sort of a joke. But they haven't really
Speaker 1: found a lot of stuff yet. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let me let me give you an example of something.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of the wild signal? Yeah, we talked
Speaker 1: about this before we did WIN. I think it might
Speaker 1: have been one of the webcasts. It definitely rang a
Speaker 1: bell that had your stank on it. No, we talked
Speaker 1: about them, you submity Sam signal. But I think we
Speaker 1: talked about a couple of years ago. Okay, well, old webcast.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you again. Let me refresh your memory
Speaker 1: because you clearly don't remember. August fifty seven, a guy
Speaker 1: who's now known as Dr Jerry or Aman e h
Speaker 1: m A N. I keep wanting to call him ermine
Speaker 1: he uh. He was manning the Big Year Radio telescope
Speaker 1: at Ohio State University UM and was analyzing some data
Speaker 1: from it and so basically saw this is what it
Speaker 1: looks like it's a it's a bunch of numbers and letters.
Speaker 1: It looks like the matrix scroll very much so, yes, um.
Speaker 1: But what that is is a burst of radio activity
Speaker 1: transmitted on the one four, two oh point four or
Speaker 1: five six mega hurts frequency for seventy two seconds W
Speaker 1: A L N right right um. And it was basically
Speaker 1: the closest thing we've ever gotten to hard evidence of
Speaker 1: a radio transmission from an alien civilization. It meant like
Speaker 1: all of the criteria that SETI follows, which will talk
Speaker 1: about later um for um radio transmissions from intelligent life.
Speaker 1: Right Um. The problem is is after searching for it
Speaker 1: for like fifty times, specifically, it's never been found again.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's called the wow Um transmission is
Speaker 1: because Jerry aman Um circled it and wrote wow with
Speaker 1: an exclamation one and that's that's why it's called that.
Speaker 1: So although since that time, nothing else has come up
Speaker 1: in that same area and we haven't had anything even
Speaker 1: remotely close to it, set still continues, right yeah. And
Speaker 1: SETI is both a a movement and a group of people.
Speaker 1: It's an institute. Yeah. Well, there's the SETI Institute, and
Speaker 1: there's just independent set operations. Yeah, I mean you can
Speaker 1: use steady as a with it being down because it
Speaker 1: is a search. Yeah, yeah, you're right, just a funky nown.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about it, Chuck, Let's talk about Set,
Speaker 1: the challenges that has. Well, first of all, if you've
Speaker 1: seen the movie Contact I have, apparently it's not too inaccurate.
Speaker 1: From the writer of this article who was Freud and Lake,
Speaker 1: wasn't it, He said that that movie, if you want
Speaker 1: to watch that one, is fairly accurate and on track. Well,
Speaker 1: it was based on a book written by Carlson Slegan
Speaker 1: and he definitely knew his stuff. He was like, the
Speaker 1: Sagan Institute is one of the parts of Set Institute
Speaker 1: very nice or the Second Research Center, I think. So
Speaker 1: go ahead, and you're saying, oh, well, so let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the origin of it. Um. Set
Speaker 1: came about in a time when there was a large
Speaker 1: intellectual push towards searching for alien life. A lot of
Speaker 1: very very smart people suddenly started postulating that there's probably
Speaker 1: other people out there. There's gotta be two guys Um.
Speaker 1: Philip Morrison and Giseppe Cony wrote I wrote wrote a
Speaker 1: paper in Nature, and they basically said, look, if we look,
Speaker 1: we may very well not find anything. But if we
Speaker 1: don't look, we're definitely not going to find anything. And
Speaker 1: that came at a time when a guy named Frank Drake,
Speaker 1: an astrophysicist, UH, an astronomer, was um trying to start
Speaker 1: his own search, and he eventually founded CET I think
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty founded the CET Institute or just set seat.
Speaker 1: He well, he conducted the first set search. Yeah, Frank
Speaker 1: Drake did, and it was based on something called the
Speaker 1: Drake equation, which I find this utterly fascinating and refreshingly
Speaker 1: understandable as far as like theoretical math equations go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and is the number of civilizations in the Milky
Speaker 1: Way whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable. So n equals are
Speaker 1: times FP times in A, times f L times FI
Speaker 1: times FC times L. And then there's the r is
Speaker 1: the rate of formation of stars over the lifetime of
Speaker 1: the galaxy, and that's anywhere from like ten to four
Speaker 1: to a year. Yea stars suitable for development of intelligent life.
Speaker 1: That narrows it down. Um, then there's the fraction of
Speaker 1: those stars with planets that be Then there's the average
Speaker 1: number of those planets that are Earth type, meaning suitable
Speaker 1: for life as we understand it, that's about of the
Speaker 1: fift of stars with planets, so we're starting to whittle
Speaker 1: down pretty quickly. Um. And then there's the fraction of
Speaker 1: those planets where life develops that's estimated at and as
Speaker 1: much as a And then there's the fraction of life
Speaker 1: that develops intelligence. So it's not just enough to be
Speaker 1: in a me, but you have to be an amba
Speaker 1: capable of creating a radio. UM. That's pretty low as well,
Speaker 1: UM about ten percent UM. And then another ten percent
Speaker 1: is the fraction of planets where intelligent life develops technologies
Speaker 1: such as radio. Yeah, so you've got life and then
Speaker 1: l intelligent life, and then technology, and then you have
Speaker 1: the lifetime of that communicative civilization in years so boom,
Speaker 1: multiply that on out. You got your Drake equation and
Speaker 1: you have as little as one as much as billions,
Speaker 1: well plus it's it's as little as one or billions
Speaker 1: because it you know, those are it depends on what
Speaker 1: value put in there, and everyone's gonna put in different values.
Speaker 1: So the Drake equation is gonna have a wide swath. Yes,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Um. So you've got this. This is
Speaker 1: the framework different the Drake Equation created by Frank Drake
Speaker 1: for the founder of CT. This is the framework that
Speaker 1: CD conducts its research with. Like one of the things
Speaker 1: they do is try to figure out exactly how many
Speaker 1: stars out there have planets with that are suitable for life, um,
Speaker 1: to really kind of plug in the best possible data
Speaker 1: into the Drake equation and to help them figure out
Speaker 1: where to look. Because there's three main challenges for CT
Speaker 1: that they face just as a concept and an organization,
Speaker 1: and they are, um, yeah, you have a really big
Speaker 1: sky out there, right, you have a lot of frequencies
Speaker 1: that could that we have a lot of radio frequencies,
Speaker 1: and um, you have a limited amount of telescopes, not
Speaker 1: much equipment. No, because it's very expensive. And while CET
Speaker 1: is funded to a large degree, it's not funded to
Speaker 1: a large degree compared to like like when it was
Speaker 1: part of NASA. I think it's only like one percent
Speaker 1: of their budget. Even still that was like the most
Speaker 1: money city has ever had. But they're they're pretty well funded,
Speaker 1: the Seti Institute is so as far as private funding goes,
Speaker 1: they're doing okay, yeah, I mean they're nonprofit obviously, so
Speaker 1: they're not getting rich, you know what I mean. Now
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of hurting right now. They all thought
Speaker 1: they were doing all right. No, they they also receive
Speaker 1: federal funds and that's all but dried up right now
Speaker 1: because of the economic downturn. Yea, he slippers to go,
Speaker 1: isn't it all right? So you propose the three problems.
Speaker 1: UM here a couple of approaches. For the large sky
Speaker 1: problem a lot of area out there, So they have
Speaker 1: two approaches there. The wide field search basically casting a wide,
Speaker 1: non specific net over uh you know, a low resolution
Speaker 1: over a long period I'm sorry, short period of time
Speaker 1: over a wide area could get you some nibbles if
Speaker 1: you were fishing, let's say, but it's going to be
Speaker 1: difficult to find out exactly like where this stuff is
Speaker 1: coming from, right, Or a targeted search, which is what
Speaker 1: my money would be on, which are limited to sunlike
Speaker 1: stars like. They basically factor in more of Drake's equation
Speaker 1: in this one. Say, let's look at places where we
Speaker 1: might find uh, you know, target these things where we
Speaker 1: might find E. T. S. UM. And they do both
Speaker 1: of those depending They have various projects going on ongoing
Speaker 1: UM and some are targeted, some are wide field search. Um,
Speaker 1: so they're kind of bring their bases as much as possible. Um.
Speaker 1: The next challenge was you know what frequency to listen
Speaker 1: for to listen to you know, like it's not a
Speaker 1: radio no, but even with a radio, even with like
Speaker 1: a walkie talkie, like if you've ever used one of those,
Speaker 1: So if you're not on the right frequency, you are
Speaker 1: going to miss everything that's being told to you. So
Speaker 1: there's like you said, it's not a radio dial. It
Speaker 1: doesn't go from like eight point five all the way
Speaker 1: to one or seven point five. They're billions from alternative
Speaker 1: to country exactly. Um, there are billions of radio frequencies
Speaker 1: and they um, I mean, which one are you gonna
Speaker 1: listen to? You? You can listen to them all, but
Speaker 1: again you're cycling through them. Uh, you're not able to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time as much like the same
Speaker 1: dilemma with the sky you have with the radio frequencies.
Speaker 1: Plus you're full of noise. Yep, that's another problem occurring
Speaker 1: stuff right. Um. But there is a window in the
Speaker 1: radio frequency. It's called the water hole, which is pretty cool. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a natural place in the radio frequency spectrum UM.
Speaker 1: And by the way, radio is their light waves. It's
Speaker 1: a type of of light wave UM, but they're very specific.
Speaker 1: They exist on a specific frequency. But UM. In this
Speaker 1: the spectrum, the band, there's this thing called the water
Speaker 1: hole UM which goes from the one to tend giga
Speaker 1: hurts range and it has very little UM natural background noise,
Speaker 1: like very few things you know broadcast in this frequency.
Speaker 1: And the reason being UM, they these frequencies are caused
Speaker 1: by hydrogen atoms and hydroxyl ions, both of which are
Speaker 1: constituents of water, which is why it's called the water hole.
Speaker 1: And they suspect that for a couple of reasons, alien
Speaker 1: civilizations would be aware of this. One that it's just
Speaker 1: so profoundly unique in the radio spectrum that if you
Speaker 1: had any kind of aware irness of the radio spectrum,
Speaker 1: you would stumble upon this, and that you would intentionally
Speaker 1: broadcast in a low noise frequency exactly because you want
Speaker 1: to be heard. Yeah, I mean, anybody who broadcast on
Speaker 1: the radio wants to be heard, right UM. And then
Speaker 1: the other reason they think that alien civilizations would know
Speaker 1: about it is because water with which it's associated UM
Speaker 1: is considered a an essential to life and therefore universal
Speaker 1: among intelligent life. It's not geocentric. The concept of water
Speaker 1: is so aliens would be familiar with water and would
Speaker 1: thus be familiar with the water hole in the frequency
Speaker 1: spectrum as well, So that this is probably where they're
Speaker 1: putting most of their research or their effort into this
Speaker 1: waterhole band of frequencies. Yeah, I mean they search all over,
Speaker 1: but pretty much all CET operations will search the water
Speaker 1: hole as part of their problem, as part of their ops.
Speaker 1: Then there's magical frequencies to like Basically, they're saying, like,
Speaker 1: where on this band of billions of frequencies is there's
Speaker 1: sort of universal pattern. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: they figured out is prime numbers might be a good
Speaker 1: place to look because prime numbers are part of math
Speaker 1: and they're universal constant. So an advanced civilization might be
Speaker 1: aware of prime numbers, and if they're trying to communicate
Speaker 1: to another advanced civilization, they may be broadcasting on prime
Speaker 1: number channels. That's a magical frequency. I wonder if they've
Speaker 1: searched pie the Pie station. So so far we've got
Speaker 1: to we've got two of the big problems tackled. Yes, generally,
Speaker 1: the third one is the most down to earth problem. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: no equipment. Basically, these radio telescopes are expensive to build
Speaker 1: and so there's not a whole lot of them. So
Speaker 1: they said, you know, there's a few ways we can
Speaker 1: handle this. We can UH conduct limited runs on ones
Speaker 1: that are already out there, basically rent space from other dudes. UH.
Speaker 1: We can conduct analysis of data are already acquired by
Speaker 1: other dudes, so like, hey, you've been listening in on
Speaker 1: all these frequencies, let us see your data and we'll
Speaker 1: just work from that. Or we can build set dedicated
Speaker 1: radio telescopes, which is clearly the least popular because it's
Speaker 1: so expensive and it's the most popular but least feasible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like the UM, like the projects that they have
Speaker 1: ongoing for wide target search UM or wide field search
Speaker 1: or targeted search. They have different projects dedicated different types
Speaker 1: of radio use, like UM Project Phoenix. UH rents time at.
Speaker 1: Some of the better radio telescopes around the world Australia
Speaker 1: are Cebo YEA in Puerto Rico, U the one in
Speaker 1: West Virginia. Green Bank, West Virginia has a huge radio
Speaker 1: telescope and that's where the first city conference was held
Speaker 1: at ten sixty I believe yeah. Um. And then there's
Speaker 1: the serendip project, which piggybacks cracks me up for some reason.
Speaker 1: Why erendipp I don't know, just because it's short for serendipity.
Speaker 1: It sounds like your friend Adam that shortens everything, Like
Speaker 1: he would say, yeah, we met up. It was a
Speaker 1: bit of serendip he would say that, total serendipd um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they piggyback by basically saying like hey, like you said,
Speaker 1: let me see your dad. I once you're done with it,
Speaker 1: we want to go over it too. Yeah, And like,
Speaker 1: hey man, it's like the hippie rob version exact of
Speaker 1: astronomy Boy. He had made an appearance in a while,
Speaker 1: he just did. I didn't expect him to pop up
Speaker 1: in steady if he didn't pop up in magic Mushrooms,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh So Project serendip like you said, it
Speaker 1: takes um takes advantage of a lot of telescope time,
Speaker 1: but they don't have the control to say, hey, pointed
Speaker 1: over there, so they have a lot of hours, but
Speaker 1: they're just basically that's the wide search being cast. And
Speaker 1: then you said, like the most desirable one was having
Speaker 1: their own telescope well, yeah, that'd be great. Study figured
Speaker 1: out something rather than making a huge you're paying for
Speaker 1: a huge radio telescope. Um, they figured out that they
Speaker 1: can take a bunch of backyard satellite dishes, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure are really easy to come by these days. Um,
Speaker 1: you know the kind like from the eighties. Put a
Speaker 1: bunch of those together there, like eight ft wide. You
Speaker 1: put a bunch of those together and connect their signals
Speaker 1: using a process called interferometry. Nice, thank you, dud, well
Speaker 1: done first try and uh, you can basically simulate a huge,
Speaker 1: large telescope for a fraction of the cost. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like linking a network of computers, which, um is actually
Speaker 1: something also being done. We might as well get into
Speaker 1: that the set at Symbol at Home project and uh,
Speaker 1: that's actually the SETI Institute, isn't it. So they decided that, hey,
Speaker 1: instead of building a couple of supercomputers to analyze this data,
Speaker 1: because that's one of the big problems is there's so
Speaker 1: much data. It's not like you can just plug it
Speaker 1: into your laptop. But you can plug a tiny chunk
Speaker 1: into a laptop and network a bunch of laptops together
Speaker 1: to do the power of the supercomputers and that is
Speaker 1: what they've done and you can participate. Yeah, it's pretty ingenious. UM.
Speaker 1: And there's there's other things that I think Setting at
Speaker 1: Home started it. And now there's things like folding at home,
Speaker 1: which you simulate protein folding for cancer research, the same
Speaker 1: thing UM. And I'm sure there's other ones that I
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to look, but SETI at home
Speaker 1: started it. Where you it's a screen saver UM, but
Speaker 1: it's also a program. And while it's running, it's it
Speaker 1: downloads a chunk of UM data from the air CBO
Speaker 1: radio telescope and that's like your little assignment and it's
Speaker 1: like a hundred second chunk maybe something like that. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like much, but it takes like ten to
Speaker 1: twenty hours for the normal UM computer to process it.
Speaker 1: But like you said, if it's if you have thousands
Speaker 1: of computers doing this, you have a thousand times the
Speaker 1: processing power all of a sudden, for pretty cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while your computers analyzing it, it's making notes of
Speaker 1: all this stuff using statis algorithms, and then it uploads
Speaker 1: the results to city and then downloads another chunk for analysis.
Speaker 1: And that this is a very popular thing. To do
Speaker 1: for star gazers, for stargazing nerds of the world. There
Speaker 1: was a guy I remember who was in Arizona, I think,
Speaker 1: and he uh was fired from his job as like
Speaker 1: the I T head for the Department of Education in
Speaker 1: this one community. Um, because he he booted SETI at
Speaker 1: home onto all the computers without asking. But I mean
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. It doesn't take that much
Speaker 1: processing power and it just kind of runs in the background. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: he was made a mockery of by the local news
Speaker 1: like that. He was fired because of his search for aliens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty bad. But yeah, some poor guy got
Speaker 1: fired for that. So the at home got him fired.
Speaker 1: I bet he got a job with CT or something,
Speaker 1: though I don't bet that, you don't think so they
Speaker 1: said sorry, thanks anyway pretty much. Um well, you talked
Speaker 1: about building your own and the alien telescope array, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The Allen Telescope Array. Yeah, I kept taking it like
Speaker 1: that until I found out it's named after Paul Allen,
Speaker 1: the co founder of Microsoft, is it who donated all
Speaker 1: of the money for it. Well that is still underway.
Speaker 1: Um as far as its construction. I think they they
Speaker 1: were down for a little while because of a lack
Speaker 1: of funding, and it's a twenty six million dollar deal.
Speaker 1: But I think as of h two thousand eleven they
Speaker 1: were up and running again and part of it is
Speaker 1: complete to the extent I think where they can use
Speaker 1: it for for things, right, but they're still not finished
Speaker 1: with them. No, they're not. They have enough money to
Speaker 1: construct it, but they didn't have enough money to run it,
Speaker 1: so they have like a skeleton crew on it right now.
Speaker 1: But it is operational. I think it is. UM. They're
Speaker 1: hoping that they're they're going to be able to fund
Speaker 1: it by um releasing some time on it to the
Speaker 1: Air Force who was interested in using it. They should
Speaker 1: try a bake sale. I don't know, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it'll be a great day when schools have all the
Speaker 1: funding they need and the Air Force has to hold
Speaker 1: a bake sale to buy a stealth bomber. That'll be
Speaker 1: the day. Somebody should put that on like a bumper
Speaker 1: stick or something. That's we could shorten it, but yeah, agreed, Uh,
Speaker 1: should we mention the Fermi paradox. Yeah, it's as good
Speaker 1: a time as any. I mean. One of the things
Speaker 1: that happens to set is that they're constantly pummeled by critics,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them cite the Fermi paradox too. Well,
Speaker 1: here's what Seti Institute says, because I dug into their
Speaker 1: f a Q a little bit on one of the
Speaker 1: questions is why do we think that there might be
Speaker 1: life out there? Quote and Setti said, you should keep
Speaker 1: in mind that we are one planet around a very
Speaker 1: ordinary star, and they're roughly four d billion other stars
Speaker 1: and nearly one billion other galaxies, and they think it
Speaker 1: would be extraordinary if we were the only thinking beings
Speaker 1: in all these enormous realms. Fare Me Enrico fare Me
Speaker 1: said that, uh, if it takes life billions of years
Speaker 1: to develop intelligence and signal or travel to the stars,
Speaker 1: and there are billions of the worlds in the universe,
Speaker 1: and the universe is thirteen billion years old plus, then
Speaker 1: why haven't we been visited yet? Yeah, when you look
Speaker 1: at it like that, the odds are makes sense. They
Speaker 1: just increase exponentially. It's kind of like a perverted version
Speaker 1: of the Drake equation used to disprove the existence of life,
Speaker 1: the anti Drake. Yeah, interesting, anti Drake. So what happens
Speaker 1: if we get a signal. What happens if they're sitting
Speaker 1: around one day and they hear phone home come over
Speaker 1: the radio waves. Well, they have a a strict set
Speaker 1: of protocols that start with, you know, the first person
Speaker 1: who finds it to the um the you know who
Speaker 1: gets told first, what what agencies learn of it? And um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Apparently contact follows the course of it
Speaker 1: pretty pretty um accurately. But so its signals detected. Right.
Speaker 1: The first thing they do is they move the radio
Speaker 1: telescope away from the signal, and then they move it back.
Speaker 1: I bet that's nerve wracking. I'll bet too, because you
Speaker 1: probably just want to stay locked on it. You know,
Speaker 1: right you're gonna lose your signal. But you can't do
Speaker 1: that because you gotta prove that's genuinely coming from there, right. Um,
Speaker 1: So if you move it and then move it back
Speaker 1: and the signal wanes and then comes back, you know
Speaker 1: that you have an extraterrestrial signal. That's a big one.
Speaker 1: The next step then is to figure out whether you're
Speaker 1: getting it from like a satellite or from elsewhere on Earth.
Speaker 1: Right after that, you're starting to shake, Your palms are
Speaker 1: sweaty um, and you start to allow extraterrestrial sources like pulsars, quasars,
Speaker 1: other things that broadcast radio frequencies. By this time, you
Speaker 1: may have tinkled a little bit in your pants. Um,
Speaker 1: and you are on the phone with another radio telescope,
Speaker 1: hopefully one on another continent, saying, hey, can you go
Speaker 1: check these coordinates and see if you're getting this frequency?
Speaker 1: Point your little machine that way. What do you see
Speaker 1: are here? And if they come back and say yep,
Speaker 1: you say, well, it's time to announce it to the world.
Speaker 1: Now I gotta get out my book, the SETI Institute,
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Principles concerning Activities following the Detection of
Speaker 1: Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and SETI Institute says, no one's keeping anything
Speaker 1: a secret. No, they wanted disseminated quickly and widely, but
Speaker 1: they want you to follow the proper channels. First and all,
Speaker 1: the astronomical community gets first DIBs on learning of it.
Speaker 1: Then after that you go to the u N. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the u N a lot of other international bodies and
Speaker 1: you say, hey, guys, we have confirmed extraterrestrial contact. And um,
Speaker 1: they say awesome. And the astronomer goes along and says Okay,
Speaker 1: we're moving on to the next people. Eventually you get
Speaker 1: to the public and the person who discovered it um
Speaker 1: is meant to have the honor of announcing it to
Speaker 1: the world, according to the protocols. Jodie Foster uh and
Speaker 1: CETI is on record, by the way, the SETI Institute
Speaker 1: is saying that they don't think that there are aliens
Speaker 1: that we've been hiding in Roswell, New Mexico. They said that,
Speaker 1: you know, the presence that would be like the biggest
Speaker 1: discovery in the history of science and a you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to keep it a secret and be there would
Speaker 1: be thousands and thousands of people working on it, and
Speaker 1: they said it would just be impossible. So they're not,
Speaker 1: you know, they're not these crackpots that think, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got aliens hidden away working on a farm in the
Speaker 1: desert of New Mexico, harvesting on water farms, and that's
Speaker 1: where we got our microwaves from, exactly. Uh and I
Speaker 1: also looked at their f a Q under the are
Speaker 1: we sending signals because I thought that was kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because obviously close encounters. They sent messages out and
Speaker 1: they said they are completely passive experiment. They're only looking,
Speaker 1: they are not sending. However, we have been sending signals ah,
Speaker 1: unintentionally for fifty years or more. Yes, since the thirties,
Speaker 1: since we started broadcasting on the radio. Yeah, in television. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the early TV broadcast reached out about to
Speaker 1: about one thousand nearby stars. And but they said, it's
Speaker 1: very unlikely that any any alien civilization could have picked
Speaker 1: up on that. But we are inadvertently broadcasting, probably in
Speaker 1: the water hole too, I would think. And the other
Speaker 1: reason we don't send out signals is because if the
Speaker 1: nearest civilization they said, is a hundred light years away,
Speaker 1: it would be two hundred years to get a reply,
Speaker 1: and it's just not a very good way to spend
Speaker 1: your time. Well. Plus also it's in the protocols that
Speaker 1: UM we decide through like the u N and other
Speaker 1: international bodies, whether or not to respond to a signal.
Speaker 1: That's like one of the last steps. Well, they said
Speaker 1: that we've sent UM symbolic messages before, like, hey, here's
Speaker 1: what our solar system is like. Here the compounds important
Speaker 1: for life. Here's the structure of our DNA in the
Speaker 1: form of a human. They say, it's symbolic. But I
Speaker 1: think they're like, oh, you never know, you know, so
Speaker 1: they're liars. Then when they say they're passive, well they
Speaker 1: are passive. They have done that in the past. They
Speaker 1: said it was like the seventies. They're passive as far
Speaker 1: as astronomy goes, active as far as lying on their
Speaker 1: f a Q go. Now, I think it was Sniking
Speaker 1: seventy four was the last time they sent out a message.
Speaker 1: There was what the Viking or some I can't remember,
Speaker 1: the spaceship we send into orbit or into outer space
Speaker 1: that had like um gold records containing all sorts of
Speaker 1: information like the world's great information and knowledge on them.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that sort of Viking? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably get that wrong though. So what's
Speaker 1: in the future for CET right now? Uh, well, the
Speaker 1: future with the programs like SETI at Home could get
Speaker 1: more people active than that they're interested in their home
Speaker 1: future could be good there. They said, they might be
Speaker 1: UM sending or looking for light at some point because
Speaker 1: it may not come via radio, it may come via light.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, you never know. Yeah. Frank Drake is
Speaker 1: all about that one. Now. He says that this is
Speaker 1: like the hot new field for study is optical UM astronomy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course finishing up things like the Allen telescope
Speaker 1: array is important. And then they're study at home. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you want to go do that, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to go download UM folding at home. I've never had
Speaker 1: steady at home. You did folding? Uh huh cool? Uh?
Speaker 1: And then my computer crash and I was just like,
Speaker 1: maybe that crashed it. I don't know. Maybe I could
Speaker 1: tell the difference when it was processing UM and that's steady.
Speaker 1: So if this kind of piqued your interest, there's plenty
Speaker 1: more information out there. UM. You can also check out
Speaker 1: sets stuff on Science Channel. UM. During Are We Alone
Speaker 1: Month in March, premiers come on I think Tuesdays at
Speaker 1: ten starting March six, every Tuesday, like Moonlighting? Um? Was
Speaker 1: it was that on Tuesday? I think? So I seem
Speaker 1: to remember being drawn to the television on Tuesdays. I
Speaker 1: think it was Moonlighting and eighteen nice? Where was it Moonlighting?
Speaker 1: In love Boat? That was Loveboat Fantasy Island? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's too definitely together, let's see recamping. What else is
Speaker 1: at the begame? I'm married? Do you mean? And I
Speaker 1: are married? Um? And I guess that's it. If you
Speaker 1: want to read set, you can type that word into
Speaker 1: the search bar. Howstuffwork dot com s E T I
Speaker 1: and that will bring up this very nice article including
Speaker 1: cool graphs and screenshots from CETI at home for some reason. Um,
Speaker 1: and since I said search bar, I think I said
Speaker 1: handy search bar. Even Um, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Uh wait, chuck, before we do listener mail, let me
Speaker 1: stop you. I know you're usually stopping me, but I
Speaker 1: got the drop on you. You did. Let's announce some
Speaker 1: very important things. V I T S as it were.
Speaker 1: Yes are Austin, Texas south by Southwest Activities. We will
Speaker 1: be live podcasting. This is for official badge holders. We
Speaker 1: will be live podcasting uh Sunday, March e leventh, at
Speaker 1: three thirty at the Driftll Hotel when our favorite places
Speaker 1: in the Maximilian Room in the Drisco Hotel and the
Speaker 1: Drisco Hotel. And that's did you have brunch there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I actually manage you mean I did before we live
Speaker 1: podcasted last time. I just said it. I think I
Speaker 1: had a bloody mary. I know you did. That's all
Speaker 1: that all I did. You had a sweaty bloody Mary.
Speaker 1: We were nervous. Yeah, but this is in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: so it will be more acceptable to have You'll have
Speaker 1: had five bloody Mary exactly. So that is a live podcast.
Speaker 1: And then the following day, Monday, March twelve, from five
Speaker 1: to nine fade Irish Pub on Fourth Street to fourteen
Speaker 1: West Fourth in Austin, Texas. Uh. This is for the
Speaker 1: public at large. Yeah, you don't need to be a
Speaker 1: Badge holder. No, you don't need to be a south
Speaker 1: By Southwest attendee. You can live in Austin, you can
Speaker 1: live in Greater Austin, you can live in New Mexico
Speaker 1: and just drive there and show up. Don't pay any cover,
Speaker 1: you get in to the Stuff you Should Know variety show.
Speaker 1: And in fact, if you're one of the first one
Speaker 1: hundred people, we will even give you a drink ticket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at yourself a little drinking. That's a present from Uncle
Speaker 1: Josh and Uncle Truck and Uncle Science Channel, uh and
Speaker 1: Uncle House Stuff works. That's right. And the reason we
Speaker 1: say Science Channel is because they have been kind enough
Speaker 1: to give us a chance to do a TV pilot
Speaker 1: for their network and they are super cool and awesome,
Speaker 1: supportive creative people, and uh, we did that TV pilot
Speaker 1: about a month ago or actually I don't know when
Speaker 1: this comes out, but it was a month ago today,
Speaker 1: Oh was it? Yeah? Well or close, and we are
Speaker 1: putting that thing together in the edit room, and we
Speaker 1: are going to be previewing uh clips from said show
Speaker 1: like before anyone else gets to see this, saying literally
Speaker 1: except for people at Science Channel, you can do so
Speaker 1: if you come to put out the I don't know
Speaker 1: if you really got that point across, Chuck. We made
Speaker 1: a half hour TV pilot that's going to Aaron Science
Speaker 1: Channel at some point correct in the spring. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and this is the public debut any even a second
Speaker 1: of it. Everybody's seen it or just some sweaty weirdo
Speaker 1: editors in a man cave that stinks to high heaven.
Speaker 1: I can tell you this is it. This is it,
Speaker 1: and that's not enough, although it should be. Special appearances
Speaker 1: by Mr John Hodgman, comedy set by stand up extraordinary
Speaker 1: Eugene Merman, music by Lucy Wayne White Roach who plays
Speaker 1: Jerry in the pilot. Henry Clay. People are buddies for
Speaker 1: a while now. They worked on the score, not worked
Speaker 1: on the score. They did the score, they did the
Speaker 1: theme song and local Austin ban crooks who are awesome,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're kind enough to let everyone else use
Speaker 1: your gear, which is a big deal. They will all
Speaker 1: be rocking and rolling. That's about the squarest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever said. And uh yeah, so that's it. Comedy hogg
Speaker 1: Us TV show pilot and uh music X one, well done.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal. It's a big two days March twelve,
Speaker 1: five to nine bade Irish pub to fourteen fourth. And
Speaker 1: if you're laying around in your hotel room not wearing
Speaker 1: pants or a shirt and it's mark eleventh and it's
Speaker 1: three o'clock, be like, I should probably get up and
Speaker 1: get dressed and get down to the driscoll and watch
Speaker 1: Uncle Josh and Uncle Chuck dose a my podcast. Agreed,
Speaker 1: good night, back the listener, Man at long last Um,
Speaker 1: all right on the listener mail, Yes, all right, Josh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this uh Luca libra slash American wrestling
Speaker 1: from Zach uh Chuck. You suggested that wrestlers carry fake
Speaker 1: blood packs. Not quite true, or at least usually not true. Instead,
Speaker 1: most wrestlers carry a razor blade in order to blade
Speaker 1: their foreheads. I've heard this. Actually, any of that, we'll cut,
Speaker 1: make a little cut and bleed, uh, right around the
Speaker 1: hairline after being hit in the head of a chair
Speaker 1: or a cage or another hard weapon. You were also
Speaker 1: talking about the big companies in America. The w w
Speaker 1: E is the biggest right now, with ten as the
Speaker 1: second biggest, and Ring of Honor is the third. W
Speaker 1: w E and t n A are on big TV networks,
Speaker 1: while the Ring of Honor is only on the air
Speaker 1: in certain markets, and there are many many independent leagues,
Speaker 1: including Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan's Resistance Pro. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I guess so, dude, he's got his own wrestling league.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's still on the dope. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I saw him one day. He's really tall,
Speaker 1: which surprised me for some reason. I think I noticed
Speaker 1: that when the Cubs were in the World Series and
Speaker 1: he's saying the uh, the national anthem. You know, he's
Speaker 1: saying that taking out to the ball games stretch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all those guys, uh, so Zack says, when talking about
Speaker 1: the rules, you're saying that weapons are not allowed. And
Speaker 1: I think I might have said that it's different with
Speaker 1: American wrestling, but not true. He said the chair was
Speaker 1: just really popular in the late nineties because they book
Speaker 1: matches specifically to be more violent, so they would knock
Speaker 1: the ref down and people would use the chair when
Speaker 1: the ref wasn't watching. But you would still get Q
Speaker 1: if the ref was to see that. And he also
Speaker 1: said Raymond would get day queened. Oh man, that'd be great. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then he said ray Mysterio is out with injury,
Speaker 1: but there's a good chance he we'll be back soon.
Speaker 1: Did he's still kicking it. That was a heck of
Speaker 1: a dispatch from the wrestling world. And dude, I redacted
Speaker 1: about half of it. Thanks Zack. That is Zack from
Speaker 1: I don't know where he's from. He's from Billy Corgan's basement. Well, wow,
Speaker 1: if you have some supplementary information, not even necessarily correction.
Speaker 1: I think Zach handled that very well. Sure. Um, we
Speaker 1: like to hear that stuff all the time, and we
Speaker 1: frequently read them as listener mail. So please feel free
Speaker 1: to go ahead and send us something. Um. You can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast. You
Speaker 1: can send us a note or a message on Facebook
Speaker 1: at facebook dot com. Slash Stuff you Should Know, and
Speaker 1: you can email us at Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as we
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought
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