From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Oct 03 1999 - 02:24:46 MDT
Allen Tough currently serves as a member of the International Academy
of Astronautics SETI Committee, and a member of its Subcommittee on
Issues of Policy concerning Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelli-
gence. For a complete biography and bibliography, please visit:
http://members.aol.com/AllenTough/cv.html
In this post, I wish to emphasize Tough's innovative, even radical, ideas
concerning the future of SETI, the expansion of its scope and a broad
revision of our concepts of the nature and location of the object of the
Search. This paper is currently published as "Fresh SETI strategies"
in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. What follows is an
extensive abridgment of the original paper which can be read online at:
http://members.aol.com/AllenTough/strategies.html
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
THE ARRAY OF SEARCH STRATEGIES
by Allen Tough
Any extraterrestrial intelligence that we detect is likely to be far ahead
of us in knowledge and technology, perhaps 100,000 years or more.
Sending a very smart probe to monitor us could well be as easy as pro-
ducing a bottle of champagne is for us. If ETI exists in our galaxy, then,
there is a reasonably good chance that its probe has already reached
Earth.
This means that we should vigorously pursue and support these three
promising strategies for detecting near-Earth ETI:
(1) implement several of the eight ways of searching for
physical evidence of an alien object in the solar system
or even on our planet;
(2) invite contact through invitations on the World Wide Web;
(3) Become sufficiently prepared for contact, thus encouraging
ETI to respond.
We should also pursue the most promising strategies for detecting evi-
dence from many light-years away:
(4) Try to detect astroengineering projects, high energy use,
byproducts, or other distant evidence of a technological
civilization.
(5) radio and optical searches.
In addition to the five particularly promising strategies, several other
possibilities have been suggested by various scientists. For example,
perhaps a highly advanced technology can use neutrinos, quantum
entanglement, gamma rays, tachyons, gravitational waves, or some
other particle or technique to communicate across vast distances.
Perhaps some intelligence even embedded messages in the human
genome or genetic code millions of years ago. Or in microbes designed
to survive in an extreme environment, such as the deep hot zone of
Earth. Or in the DNA of organic material that reaches our atmosphere
from space. Perhaps routine monitoring by security and intelligence
agencies will detect a probe or some other relevant phenomenon.
Perhaps signs of alien meddling in our society could be detected if
we looked far enough beyond the mundane forms of intervention that
we might readily expect. If we let our imaginations roam even further,
we could look for people whose minds are controlled by ETI or who
are actually artificial life forms manufactured by ETI.
The SETI field is united by its common aim of detecting irrefutable
scientific evidence of genuine extraterrestrial intelligence. The wisest
policy for achieving this noble goal is to encourage and support all
five of the most promising strategies, while simultaneously continuing
to assess the potential value of other strategies as well.
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================
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