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The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

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Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a story of a famous observatory that, iirc, kept on seeing really powerful intermittent signals that they couldn't quite hone in on. It seemed everytime they tried to zoom in on the source they couldn't find it again. Signal was quite elusive. They finally traced it to people using the microwave in the break room in a very specific way. Some people liked to open the microwave door before the timer went off. T…

even when my microwave is closed, the interference it generates while running blocks my bluetooth headphones

I lived in a pretty cheap cluster of apartments. I could already hear when my neighbor got home each day, but could also determine the exact time they microwaved their TV dinner each evening by watching the WiFi drop out

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What papers? Give me something solid to go on here. What is the practical difference? If it's so obvious it should be straightforward to point it out! Edit: let me put it more bluntly. If God had created the universe 6000 years ago and just made it seem older, how could you tell the difference from the creator of a simulation doing exactly the same thing?

Let me be blunt. If you have to ask "What papers?" you're almost certainly talking about what you imagine the simulation hypothesis to be, and not the simulation hypothesis. (I acknowledge that even 'believers' have often not read any papers on it.) Both a google search or a look at the Wikipedia page would get you started. But you can find Bostrom's philosophical argument here: https://simulation-argument.com/simula…

You seem to be confusing the Simuluation Argument with the Simulation Hypothesis.

https://simulation-argument.com/faq/#faq-2

The latter is absolutely insane creationist nonsense. Bostrom even says it can be proven by a pop up announcing we are in a simulation, which sounds like exactly the sort of thing you'd maybe expect God to do to prove the truth of the bible.

Wikipedia attributes the simulation hypothesis as having origins as far back as the "Butterfly Dream" of Zhuangzi from ancient China, not Bostrom's paper.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#273
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…

HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…

They are already amongst us.

Our understanding of reality is flawed, and it won't be disseminated because who knows what might happen if people would change dimensions whenever they see fit.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#274
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…

HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…

[deleted]

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if there's a pattern like that it would change things. This signal seems to have been a single pulse though

Yep. It's wildly unlikely that this was any kind of deliberate signal. Whatever caused it, it only happened once -- which isn't what you'd expect from aliens hoping to make contact. We only recorded the fact of the signal's existence, without enough resolution to make out any pattern within it. If the aliens were hoping we'd decode it, they were banking on us happening to catch their signal at a very specific instant…

> it only happened once -- which isn't what you'd expect from aliens hoping to make contact.

Actually it’s exactly what we did with the Arecibo message, our only attempt to make contact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One guy I know had one of those UFO pics. When I saw it I knew instantly it was an iridium flare. I knew it because I was dead set on seeing a good one with several apps on my phone to track them. I showed him exactly where he was standing on a map, the time of day, and which satellite it was and when he could see it again by time/date/location. He had none of that. He became totally mad at me. I was kinda sad as I w…

> I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude. They are absolutely beautiful! I was lucky enough to once see a meteor (presumably) bounce off the atmosphere. Was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. For an instant (and not any longer) it was almost like day and there was a green ripple that quickly dissipated. Seen nothing like it before or since. The world is full of ama…

I was sitting with my dog in my yard one night and a green meteor lit up the evening sky like the day. It also made a sizzling noise (or maybe crackling).

I found out that the green was probably nickle content and the sizzling sounds also has an explanation which I don't recall.

What amazed me was that until I understood what I saw was a natural phenomenon, it seemed absolutely mind blowing and still stands out as one of the coolest things I've experienced yet no one I talked to saw it, there was no mention of it on the city subreddit, etc.

This was before the age of everyone having dashcams and doorbell cameras but something that remarkable happening over a densely populated suburban area at around 9pm not even being noticed by a single person I knew or was in contact with on socials suprised me.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#278
post #170

I had a theory that it was someone walking across the field with an electronic device, like a flashlight. So I looked up the duration of the signal, size of the field, and average walking pace. It matched perfectly.

There's a story of a famous observatory that, iirc, kept on seeing really powerful intermittent signals that they couldn't quite hone in on. It seemed everytime they tried to zoom in on the source they couldn't find it again. Signal was quite elusive. They finally traced it to people using the microwave in the break room in a very specific way. Some people liked to open the microwave door before the timer went off. T…

Believe me, I'm as angry about this as you will be, but TIL that the correct term is "to home in," which makes sense, but nowhere near as pleasing, or visual, as "hone in."

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 questions. Are we capable of generating something like that particularly when that happened? and was there ever an attempt to respond in some sort?

It's a pretty easy signal to generate, even back then. I believe they've made efforts to scan the stars in that direction, but given the distance to them it would be decades or centuries until they'd see a response from us.

Right so to my understanding of what you just said, This means that it most likely wasn't from earth because of the origin location correct?
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