Talking to aliens 'an OH&S risk', BBC TV presenter told
WHAT if aliens really do exist?
The thought is too much for BBC bosses to handle.
The media behemoth shut down a TV presenter's plan to point a radio telescope at a newly-discovered planet out of fear that aliens might answer back.
Professor Brian Cox said the BBC was concerned the experiment, to be staged live on air during his show Stargazing Life, broke the corporation's health and safety rules.
"We decided that we'd point the Jodrell Bank telescope at the planet (Threapleton Holmes B) that had been discovered by these two viewers (in January) and listen because no one had ever pointed a radio telescope at it and you never know," Mr Cox said on BBC radio.
"The BBC actually said, 'But you can't do that because we need to go through the regulations and health and safety and everything in case we discover a signal from an alien civilisation'."
"(I said), 'You mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you're worried about the health and safety of it?'
"It was incredible. They did have guidelines. Compliance."
Don't worry BBC. Just get Matt Smith on standby.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
It seems like a silly worry by and large, but in hindsight one never knows what the repercussions may be if they actually got a genuine response. I don't think in earnest that it lies in our best interests at the present time that we make contact with extraterrestrials. We haven't yet learned how to deal with one another for pity's sake, let alone a (possibly) more advanced intelligent species. The many changes which could ensue could take us in a wholly negative path rather than fowards. I know that many would love it if we woke up tomorrow and found out that we have space brethren somewhere out there, but there is an appropriate time for everything and this happens not to be the time IMHO. Just my very low 0.02¢.
Omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium.
Dude, what? The damn planet orbits a star at least 600 LY away ; By the time we get any response that could be called a contact (if it happens at all!), we'll be living 1200 years in the goddamned future.
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
You know, I can see an argument for not wanting to drop a bombshell like that in the middle of a live broadcast, especially not a live broadcast where Jonathan Woss is playing a key role!
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
PeZook wrote:Dude, what? The damn planet orbits a star at least 600 LY away ; By the time we get any response that could be called a contact (if it happens at all!), we'll be living 1200 years in the goddamned future.
Man, I would have thought that they would have targeted something much closer than that, like say fifty lightyears or so. It sounds like a big waste of time in that case.
Omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium.
PeZook wrote:Dude, what? The damn planet orbits a star at least 600 LY away ; By the time we get any response that could be called a contact (if it happens at all!), we'll be living 1200 years in the goddamned future.
We don't need to wait 1200 years if we're only going to listen to what's already 'transmitted'.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
PeZook wrote:That's not contact. That's voyeurism.
And the difference if we get artificial signals is? The point is, it will be a historic day when we have confirmation that life is out there. Not just that we can contact them.
"The BBC actually said, 'But you can't do that because we need to go through the regulations and health and safety and everything in case we discover a signal from an alien civilisation'."
"(I said), 'You mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you're worried about the health and safety of it?'
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
But for it to cause upheaval, panic, interstellar war or whatever we'd need actual contact to happen
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
Considering the level of stupidity of which most humans seem to be possessed, I reckon that just the knowledge alone might upset some social systems. Heck, just think of how the stock markets would react taking into account their fragility to just about...everything. Religion, politics--namely everything--would likely be changed in some way.
Omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium.
Dunno, it's one of those things that aren't easy to predict, but at worst I think the upheaval would be short-lived. As I said to someone else, both everything would change and...nothing at all, because the aliens live so far away that you'd be having conversations over dozens of centuries.
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
PeZook wrote:Dunno, it's one of those things that aren't easy to predict, but at worst I think the upheaval would be short-lived. As I said to someone else, both everything would change and...nothing at all, because the aliens live so far away that you'd be having conversations over dozens of centuries.
Interesting fact - Orson Welles did a broadcast of the war of the worlds on radio back in the day. Tuning in the radio people heard him saying "The Martians have landed" or something along those lines. This became one of the biggest "hoaxes" in history as people did believe it was fact and not fiction leading to panic. So who knows what will happen. It could very well cause panic.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
PeZook wrote:Dunno, it's one of those things that aren't easy to predict, but at worst I think the upheaval would be short-lived. As I said to someone else, both everything would change and...nothing at all, because the aliens live so far away that you'd be having conversations over dozens of centuries.
Interesting fact - Orson Welles did a broadcast of the war of the worlds on radio back in the day. Tuning in the radio people heard him saying "The Martians have landed" or something along those lines. This became one of the biggest "hoaxes" in history as people did believe it was fact and not fiction leading to panic. So who knows what will happen. It could very well cause panic.
It's pretty well known and only total morons who don't understand the words "This is a work of fiction" being broadcast every 5 minutes bought into it.
We pissing our pants yet?
-Negan
You got your shittin' pants on? Because you’re about to Shit. Your. Pants!
-Negan
He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.
-George Bernard Shaw
Plus, these morons heard the Martians were invading, which is a far cry from "Scientists have picked up signals that may or may not be artificial, coming from a star 600 light years away"
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
If this system were inhabited and lies 600 lightyears away from us, we will all be dead long before the return signal ever reaches Earth. Because of the scale of time involved here, it makes it impractical to establish and maintain neighborly relations between two interstellar civilizations. This raises the question of what the point is of ever hoping to do so besides the sheer knowledge that we are not alone in the universe. Unless we develop a way of feasible superluminal communication and transportation, I think that SETI and everyone else trying to make contact with aliens is just wasting his/her time and energy on an exercise in infutility. Obviously our current understanding of physics hasn't given us any way of doing such things--YET--but that may change hinging upon future discoveries.
Omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium.
Where does it say that they want to send a signal to that star/planet? All I can see is that they wanted to listen for radio signals originating from there.
Boeing 757 wrote:If this system were inhabited and lies 600 lightyears away from us, we will all be dead long before the return signal ever reaches Earth. Because of the scale of time involved here, it makes it impractical to establish and maintain neighborly relations between two interstellar civilizations. This raises the question of what the point is of ever hoping to do so besides the sheer knowledge that we are not alone in the universe. Unless we develop a way of feasible superluminal communication and transportation, I think that SETI and everyone else trying to make contact with aliens is just wasting his/her time and energy on an exercise in infutility. Obviously our current understanding of physics hasn't given us any way of doing such things--YET--but that may change hinging upon future discoveries.
You're assuming aliens have nothing worthwhile to tell us, even if the "contact" will only be one way and the civilization which sent the signals is long dead by the time it reaches us.
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
I think it should be pointed out, this whole story is a load of rubbish.
They did this, live, last year, on the same show.
Member of the Unremarkables Just because you're god, it doesn't mean you can treat people that way : - My girlfriend Evil Brit Conspiracy - Insignificant guy
