Seth Shostak: ET is (probably) out there — get ready
July 6, 2012
Dr. Seth Shostak participates in the search for extraterrestrial life at the SETI Institute. He heads up the International Academy of Astronautics’ SETI Committee, and hosts a weekly radio show, “Big Picture Science”. Shostak has published more than 400 popular articles on science, and his most recent book is Confessions of an Alien Hunter, A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Life (National Geographic). Shostak is also an accomplished photographer. His photos have been featured on the cover of Time magazine.
Video Source: TED
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Seth Shostak: ET is (probably) out there --- get ready
Comments (17)
by Cybernettr
Good speaker. Interesting to know that SETI is also subject to the LOAR!
by Quizical
at the very end, with the audience standing up and applauding, right in the middle…is that a wizard?
by Chrispium
Looks a bit like Dumbledore doesn’t it :)
by Bri
Too many of the reports are credible! Remember when they buzzed the white house? A whole bunch of them just hopping and skipping around Washingtons skies! We scrambled fighter jets up to take a look. The UFO s let the jets get close enough to take a look through the cockpit, and then would zoom off at right angles, or impossible speeds! The ancient Egyptians said the gods were from sirius, the preuvians in ancient times, would make a fire , and contain it with three stones. They said it was the stars of Sirius, where the gods were from. The Doogan tribe in Africa now all about the invisible nuetrons star in the Sirius system, they learned it from space travelers. The Vedas regularly talk about space flying machines, and whole civilizations that live up there. The space ship is described as circular, and hovers like a butterfly, in a bobbing, weaving manner. I have friends that live by shoreham. They say they see alien space craft all the time, checking the place out. The fermi paradox is a tough one. Very counter to the general beliefs of our time. Me I’d bet on the aliens! Boy that would be a blow to our egos. We get into space and find out, we’re already late to the picnic!
by DrDubious
It would seem easier to detect a black hole than ET activity and the first candidate for the former was only discovered in 1972.
Unless these advanced civilizations are doing really BIG things, why is it so surprising that we haven’t detected one yet?
On the other hand, perhaps some of the phenomenon we have already observed is not really natural.
by Telekinetic
Extraterrestrial ships have been seen by thousands on earth, including myself. I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe me, but you SHOULD believe the testimony of 120 retired military men with the highest security clearance possible. They were responsible for guarding nuclear missile silos and witnessed highly advanced craft hovering above and electronically disarming the nuclear missiles. Look it up.
by Editor
The reports seem credible; where’s the evidence of ET origin? How could that hypothesis be tested and falsified?
by jerry t. searcy
Dear Alex Ivanov, the galaxy is a big place, unless e.t. is within 100 l.y. or so they have received none of our transmissions. If wormholes, space drives, etc prove impractical (or impossible) reaction drives might be the only way to get around the cosmos. Perhaps they are unaware of us, at least that is one possibility.
by alex ivanov
So we can communicate, but we can’t visit each other. That’s sad. :-(
by alex ivanov
There is a solution. We can build stargates/teleports on both sides. Then we will transfer the information how to reassemble ourselves on the other side. We don’t need to send spaceships for that. I am pretty sure they have matter assemblers already.
by jerry t. searcy
At 04:47 It sounded like he said “..over the course of the next 2000 years we’ll able to look at a million star systems.”
Is this really something to brag about? SETI can only examine 500 stars per year! Did I misunderstand something? Feel free to reply.
by Percival
@Jerry
He said, “…over the course of the next TWO DOZEN YEARS…”
by Marcos Marin
except that this places us on the cusp of the singularity, right? (according to Kurzweil).. how can there even be a few 1000s, let alone a few millions(9:14), years ahead of us civilization? how many universes would be “waking up”(sic) by then?! so, dear Ray, why aren’t our corner awaken yet? perhaps it is (or is being), and if not, i doubt we could detect any signal we would not confuse for “natural”, even our “primitive” cryptography is entirely based on how pseudo-random your “signal” look like!
by jack kaczur
they are too far away and too long ago
by Will Truth
How can he give a talk on this topic without mentioning the Fermi paradox? If there are thousands of highly advanced Alien civilisations in the galaxy that have been colonising the galaxy for millions or more of years then we should have seen some sign of them by now. Why are they so hard to find?
by Ed Reifman, DDS
That was a great lecture, Dr. I recall hearing about Drake’s equation years and years ago, but one of his variables was answered by you, that there are probably a billion planets within our own galaxy, hopefully within what they call the ‘goldilocks zone’.
Anyways, I sure hope we’ll ‘find ET’ within the next decade.
Thanks again for enlightening me!
Ed
by alex ivanov
There are two assumptions in the video. First – the ETs are thousands or millions years ahead of us. Second – as soon as we make the contact with them they will share their advanced technologies with us. This sounds logical. I will try now to look at it from the other side. If they are far ahead of us then they already found us. If they found us why they are hiding from us and don’t share their technologies?