On This Day In Space: Aug. 15, 1977: 'Wow!' Mystery signal boosts search for E.T.

[tn1911]

https://www.space.com/39251-on-this-day-in-space.html

Astronomer Jerry Ehman was using the telescope to scan a region in the constellation Sagittarius when it detected a weird, 72-second-long radio burst. The signal was too strong to be explained by background noise, and researchers determined that it was very unlikely that this signal came from anything on Earth.

[SteyrAUG]

6EQUJ5

[gsd2053]

You wanna get anal probed? Because that's how you get anal probed.

Some want to believe. While I do.

[SteyrAUG]

You wanna get anal probed? Because that's how you get anal probed.

Some want to believe. While I do.

Just a minor point, SETI is the search for their signals, METI is the one that we might need to worry about, well that and all of the transmissions that have been going out into space since we started broadcasting almost 100 years ago. The good news is that episode of "I Love Lucy" is pretty hard to detect once it reaches even Proxima Centauri (the nearest known star to us).

Our broadcasts wouldn't even stand out among the background radiation of the universe, which is also why it would be so difficult to detect alien transmission IF they are there.

On the subject of first contact being dangerous, it's very human centric for us (most of us anyway) to assume alien intelligence would be anything like human intelligence much less to assume they developed similar values. Just because they have advanced technology doesn't automatically equate to things like empathy or even a capacity to understand empathy or even a brain (or brain equivalent) to even contemplate empathy or similar thoughts or emotions.

For all we know alien life might be similar to jellyfish who can navigate in space without the need for a vehicle or any "technology", and if they happen to be similar to giant man of war floating through space on a bag of helium, they wouldn't even recognize radio or television signals. It's almost impossible for us to even conceive of a life form that doesn't have some similarity to those we are familiar with.