Listening for Aliens | StarTalk

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We're all hoping that there's some intelligent aliens trying to talk to us, sending us signals. But just because we want it to be true, doesn't mean every radio signal from space that we can't immediately understand must be some intelligent alien giving us recipes or something.

So it requires sort of sensibility when you analyze these signals. There's a signal recently that everyone got excited about, especially the press, because we did not understand it. And we have to remember that just because there's something you don't understand, doesn't mean the explanation is something extraordinary. They don't go together.

You see a light in the sky moving, and you can't explain it; that does not mean it's an intelligent alien coming from another planet, that's in a flying saucer observing us. These are not equivalent statements. Just say I don't know what it is and hang out with the U in the UFO. What does it stand for? Unidentified. I don't know what it is, you're done. End of conversation.

You want to speculate? Fine, but don't believe. Don't think your speculation has greater meaning and greater truth the less you know about the light that you've seen. No, no. So it requires some sensibility about how quickly you'll leap to a conclusion.

Think of all the objects in the sky that we couldn't explain in the past that we ultimately ended up explaining, and none of those explanations were it's an alien visiting from another planet, or an alien signaling. We discovered a new kind of star that was giving radio waves that, at the time, we didn't understand.

Is it little green men? No, it was a new kind of star. That's how this works. So if they're really intelligent, they'll figure out a way to know how to talk to us in our own language. The hey, we're over here, look left, here we are.

You know, good luck with the Patriots that year. You know, they'll be like totally in our culture, and they would know how to talk to us. I have no doubt. I'm ready for ET to phone home or to phone us. I'm ready; we'll be there.

But I bet you the day aliens want to talk to us, we'll know. It's not gonna be some farmer in his backyard. It's not going to be some lone person who saw an image.

We will all know. I have no doubt. Because if they managed to come here or talk to us, they're going to be able to do it in a big way, with technology far beyond anything we've been able to muster.

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