It seems a radio telescope turned up an interesting blurp of noise last year that has garnered some interest in the SETI community. It's being compared to the 1977 "Wow!" signal. Story. I'm thinking that we'll have positive proof of alien intelligence sometime before I die. Call it the next 50 years or so.
Not to shit all over you, because I'd like nothing better than for this to be ET, but apparently things like the "Wow!" signal aren't terribly uncommon. What they all lack, so far, is repeatability. Though, it might turn out to be something like this:
The amount of energy in the signal suggests to me that it's some natural phenomena we can't identify yet. The numbers I saw said that if the signal was radiated out in all directions, it would have a strength equivalent to that of the entire star itself. If it was directed straight at us, it would still have a strength equal to all the solar energy falling on a planet. Problem with it being directed straight at us is that the most recent observations they could have of Earth would have been of us in the 1820's, long before we had started transmitting anything for them to know we would be able to pick a signal up. Definitely worth more observation, but I'm not getting too excited.
Oh, it's almost certainly some natural phenomenon or other. Maybe a CME, maybe something big collided with the star, maybe ET farted. But we won't know til we check it out, and when you see something out of the ordinary you check it out. That's how we learn things.
I would think that if we were able to detect an alien civilization from over 200 light years away, that our assumption would be to send them a signal, regardless of what their technological levels might be, hoping that by the time the message reached them, they could figure it out.
If there are aliens out there, there are some things I do wonder about. Do they have mailboxes, do they have chili cheese dogs, do they have forums with favorite whipping boys, do they have Taco Tuesdays, do they watch porn?
Killer Klowns from Outer Space. http://www.people.com/article/clowns-reported-luring-kids-apartment-greenville-south-carolina
