SETI article - Is the Latest Crop Circle a Message from E.T?
Crop circles. Undoubtedly you're aware of these intricate patterns carved in the wheat fields of (mostly) England. But could they be signals from visiting aliens? Despite the fact that many of the circles are known to be the work of pranksters, interest in crop circles has enjoyed a recent revival thanks to a pair of new patterns that appear in a field next to the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire, England. One is of a face, and many say that it looks like the archetypal "gray" alien so often seen in films and television. The second is a modified version of the 1974 Arecibo message, broadcast in the direction of the globular cluster M13 in November of that year.
The Arecibo message, which was designed by Frank Drake (who was then Director of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and is now Chairman of the Board of the SETI Institute) together with his Observatory staff, was a simple graphic consisting of 73 rows of 23 "bits" per row. This number of rows and columns was chosen because each is a prime number. Prime numbers could be easily guessed by any recipients, and that would help them to decode the graphic. The message was sent by simple shifting of the signal between two frequencies in the 2,380 MHz band. It took three minutes to send the message.
The message itself gives the kind of information that any culture would want to learn about us: where we are located (at least within our solar system), what we look like (a crude stick figure), a simple drawing of the telescope used to send the message, and something about our biological construction (DNA and some of the building blocks of our biochemistry.) This message was sent as a "demonstration" to commemorate the upgrading of the 1,000 foot diameter Arecibo telescope with a new, more accurate reflector surface.
The crop circle found in Hampshire looks very much like the one broadcast in 1974. But there are some differences: the Hampshire pattern has replaced the Arecibo Telescope with another graphic that is reminiscent of a space satellite with solar cells. The diagram that depicts our solar system has been replaced with another that still has nine worlds, but planets 3 through 5 are offset, and the last is drawn larger than the others (or perhaps this is a depiction of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter). Finally, the graphic of the human has been modified by a stick figure that, while humanoid, has a far larger head.
Good fun, and a nice example of grain graffiti. But some folks think that this crop circle (and at least some of the more than a thousand other circles that have appeared in the last decade) are truly signals from visiting aliens. The aliens, in this view, have borrowed an idea from Carl Sagan's "Contact," and initiated communication by returning one of our own signals to us (albeit, somewhat modified.)
This is highly improbable. There is no evidence to suggest an other-than-earthly origin for these graphics. Some of the reasons why we are skeptical that this is a "signal" from afar are as follows:
- The aliens, if
they've received this signal, would obviously be aware of our capability
to send and receive high-frequency radio. After all, they would only
know of the 1974 transmission by receiving it. And, of course, they've
made a point about radio by leaving their message next to a radio antenna.
So why would they resort to an extraordinarily crude method of "replying"
- carving simple messages in our wheat? Why don't they use radio? The
wheat graffiti only conveys a handful of information - roughly the equivalent
of a few sentences of any text. They could convey far more, in a matter
of seconds, by radio. If radio isn't their thing, why don't they simply
leave a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica on the doorstep of
either the farmer or the radio observatory? They could arrange for a
radio blast sufficiently powerful to reach every FM or TV set in a hemisphere,
which would quickly convey far more information, and to everyone at
once. After all, if they're carving wheat, they're clearly visiting.
If they're not fond of radio, they could leave information on paper,
as a CD, or in whatever form is convenient. Any such scheme would
convey orders of magnitude more information than a wheat carving. Surely
aliens who can come to Hampshire are sophisticated enough to offer us
more information bits than one can find on a fortune in a Chinese cookie.
- How come they look
like us? Hollywood aliens always look pretty humanoid, but this is an
anthropocentric conceit. Visit the local zoo, and you'll find critters
that share 3.5 billion years of evolution and a lot of your DNA. But
they don't look like you - they look like fish, or alligators, or…
- A very important
point if you think this is a returned message: The 1974 signal was aimed
at the cluster M13, which has hundreds of thousands of stars. Of course,
M13 is 25,000 light-years distant, which means that the message will
not reach its target for another 250 centuries. Clearly, the crop circle
can't be a response from any of M13's inhabitants; they haven't gotten
the message yet. But what about a random, Milky Way star that might
be in the "beam" of the Arecibo message? Couldn't they have overheard
the transmission, and offered this clever carving in reply? No. The
Arecibo beam at 2,380 MHz is about 2 arcminutes, which is roughly 1/15th
the diameter of the full moon. That's an extremely narrow beam. Imagine
shooting an arrow through a giant space in which ping pong balls are
hung by threads. The ping pong balls are many miles apart. How long
would the arrow have to travel before it accidentally hit one of these
balls? This is analogous to the situation of the Arecibo message, moving
in its tightly focused beam through the spaces of the Milky Way. The
chances that it has hit another solar system in the 27 years since its
broadcast are… one in 50,000, approximately. If you make the reasonable
assumption that the aliens cannot travel faster than the speed of light,
then they must lie within 13-1/2 light-years to have received this message
and responded. The chances of a star system within the volume of space
filled by the beam out to this distance is closer to one in a half-million!
In other words, it's highly, highly unlikely that any
star system has yet been exposed to the Arecibo message. This is an
important point, as it is quantitative and not dependent on any other
assumptions about this crop circle: no other star systems could have
yet received this transmission. And incidentally, the odds that a nearby
probe could have intercepted it are even smaller!
- The biochemistry
information in the crop circle is the same as the Arecibo message, although
the DNA seems to have an extra strand and a somewhat different number
of nucleotides. It has also been noted that silicon is now indicated
as part of the biological construction kit, although this element, while
popular in science fiction, is rather poor at making the complex molecules
required for life. Still, it's remarkable how similar the aliens' biology
is to ours, even to the point of sporting a helical DNA molecule. They
also use the same number of sugars and bases that make up human DNA
to construct theirs. But it's remarkable (but undoubtedly a sign of
a boo-boo on the constructors' part) that the silicon mentioned above
doesn't figure into the formulae of any of these alien DNA components
(this point was made by Randy Wiggins.) In addition, keep in mind that
of the hundreds of possible amino acids, only 20 are used for earthly
life. In other words our biochemistry is somewhat specific. How curious
(and unlikely!) that theirs would match ours so closely!
- Finally, the whole
matter of crop circles fails the baloney test, as Sagan would put it.
They can be easily made by people interested in creating a stir (you
can read a nice description of both crop circles and their construction,
as well as a claim by experts in the field, as it were, that they could
replicate the new grain graphics, at circlemakers.)
And of importance, there is a lack of convincing physical evidence that
anyone else has made them. You might also wonder why, despite its ample
supply of wheat fields, the U.S. is almost never the target of this
type of alien graphic: nearly two-thirds of all crop circles are in
England. We also note that Chilbolton was the location of other crop
circles in 1999 and 2000. Why would aliens resort to a signaling system
that conveys so little information and can only be used during the two-month
growth season, and then only at night? We are also informed by Chilbolton
that these recent glyphs appeared (as so many do) after a weekend.
Bottom line? The crop
circles are decorative, impressive, and provocative, but not informative.
We can expect better from true extraterrestrial intelligence.
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This is a message for ths skeptics, perhaps this repley is not from the M13 region of space but intercepted by some other intelligent life that is looking for us as we are looking for them. Also they probably after reading the primitive message don't want to send something in return that we might not understand so they keep it on the same level as the one that was sent out. Not to mention do you really think that as big as space and the universe is that we are the only living creations that exist in the galactic cosmos?? That would be nieve to think that we are it but the big picture is that you don't want to admit that we are not top dog in the universe and that someone or something else out there is far more smarter and more advanced than we are and you can't accept it. My thoughts are to get over it and realize we are not alone and try to understand that we have to accept all kinds of creations alien and otherwise. Sorry to burst your bubble but its a matter of time before they set foot on your door step and you might as well accept it.
It is not space. It is not time. It is spacetime. Think that one over. Also consider the fact that (at least some) aliens do not want to negatively affect our world more than is absolutely necessary (a thing some refer to as “ethics”). As dismissive as you are with this communication, you do know enough to realize the societal consequences of worldwide certainty of ET presence on Earth. This fact is undeniable, especially when you consider what has happened even when “encounters” were OBVIOUSLY hoaxed. Since well meaning ETs have the opportunity to communicate in a way that isn’t harmful to us, most of whom don’t care anyway, they have taken that opportunity; furthermore, there is no doubt that they will continue this dialogue if we show an interest in doing so. Another one of the reasons for not yet having made worldwide contact (at least by the well meaning ETs) is because we have not proven worthy of it as a species. To them, most humans enjoy inflicting suffering on others (often benefiting from it), are irrational, pigheaded and excessively self-centered. No one seems displeased, however.
The end of this age begins 1335 days before the end of 4120 days after the destruction of the image of the financial system.
Dissappointing analysis by SETI. First of all, the message was formatted in the exact same way as the 1974 message, if it was formatted any other way or in greater detail, we wouldn´t recognise it as a response. Perhaps what makes aliens so much smarter than us is their knowledge that simplicity is awesome. Secondly, it wasn,t sent by radio because they,re not communicating with you because maybe they don´t trust you. Why do you think they did it right next to a radio tower. Its their way of letting you know that they could radio it if they wanted to but they understand the message would probably never reach the public which is who the message is really for. This way they ensure mankind gets its answer. Maybe you know this aswell! So their dna is similar, look at humans and apes, 99 or so percent identicle and apes sort of look humanoid too. Why would they send us back a diagram of our own solar system (with four gailean jupiter moons)? thats obviously their system. And finally the 1974 message could easily have been intercepted by one of the many bizarre things floating around above our atmosphere which NASA likes to airbrush out of footage or photographs made public. You dont need to travel far when you're already here. again, iconic message in field = we´re talking to the people. Dont mean to offend anyone, but I found the given analysis a little narrow sighted an unappreciative whether the response was alien or by man, either way, its brilliant and very creative
Yeah. They're a 16-bit game like you are.
Time's an illusion with a game genie.
Ha.
I'm creator and I'm lonely.
P.S. World burns soon, like bible says.
there are aliens on earth...and we are them. the reason for no circles in the usa is because the usa is already under control.
or not... who cares even!
my point is that whatever causes crop circles; you either have an open, generous heart or you dont. be cool to each other and everything else.
who cares if we die in a 2012 Planet X Apocalypse ?? we are not our bodies.. we are souls!! be better than cool, be awesome to each other and everything else.
peace and love and no lying or stealing :)
well i can see seti isn't really serious about the search for the others this message and all the crop circles aren't proof enough.Thought you guys would be truthful and analytical bout this but i see that this might be to frightening for release.maybe you guys should find other work your more comfortable with.after all everyone else has accepted it including a astronaut, you going to call him a lair?goggle full disclosure for the years past you will see.you guys are hiding something!give up the work you aren't serious.unless you like the money of course.
Plenty of flawed logic in this article. The arecibo message was also rebroadcast in 1999 and who knows how many other times so the fact only M13 residents would or could reply is erroneous.
Also why does it have to be space aliens? What about other string dimensions, spacetime pathways or any other phenomemon that the average person is not capable of wrapping their minds around.
I respect SETI, I was even a participant in project Argus, but these conclusions and statements are obviously a political position to not be lumped in with kooks so they can allegedly gain more credibility.
Oh my. I am surrounded by idiots. First, the crop circle is a mirror image of the Arecibo message that was sent to space. The same mirror image erronously printed in a book on the subject. Next, silicon is added as part of the construction kit. Yet, not actually depicted as part of the construction kit. If "they" could figure out the message without reading the book, "they"'d be smart enough not to make the mistakes "they" made. If "they" received the message AND read the book, they'd have known the message is a mirror image and not make that mistake. I'm not even gonna go into more details about some alien satelite that's 13km accross and "them" being intelligent enough to decode this message, yet stupid enough to think that making some of the pixels slightly smaller might indicate that their sun is smaller than ours. People, get real. There are no scientific evidence that this message was made by aliens. Plenty of flawed logic in the comments. The message sent in 99 would/should have been different. The original message indicated world population in 1974. Shouldn't someone have updated that figure in 1999? Hmmmm. Idiots.
BLA BLA BLA Mr idiot you dont have a clue what you are saying,,, only what you beleive..You dont know anything because you never studied what the true meaning of a genuine circle is or what the defienition is, thats ok most researchers are wrong and dont have a clue, of the true or real meanings, but you are stuck on earth and never ever looked to or through the stars then you would know that you are the idiot.
at least someone mentioned the possibility that maybe there other ways of perceiving time and space in the universe, or maybe that there are other dimensions where are differents ways of 'being', for me its absolutely pointless to look for radio signals to prove that extraterrestrials exist...