navy pilots were shocked when they
encountered these unidentified flying
objects in 2015.
these videos soon went viral and
conspiracy theorists wasted no time in
claiming this was finally proof of
aliens does our government know more
they know a lot more road there's these
things in the sky well it's much bigger
than that but not all scientists are
sounding the cosmic alarm
so far we haven't found anything that
we've been able to recognize as that's
an intelligent alien the way we're gonna
find that out is not through grainy
footage or a couple of pixels that we
can't make out in fact the search for
extraterrestrial life may not be so much
about seeing but listening for aliens
this is a radio telescope we're looking
for radio transmissions that would be
coming from an alien civilization our
world is pretty loud detecting signals
from deep space with all that
interference is incredibly difficult
so we went to one of the quietest places
in the u.s
where scientists are trying to answer a
question that's fascinated humanity for
a long time
are we alone we have been visited on
this planet
what i'm telling you it's real when it
comes to aliens there's some things i
just can't tell you
there may be other intelligent
civilizations
this is just my work a show about
surprising solutions to our biggest
problems
and then the first thing we'll do when
we get on the dish is i have to go do
the safety thing that prevents the um
telescope from moving while we're on it
while we're on it yeah
this 1300 square mile area is the
national radio quiet zone it's home for
people who claim to have electromagnetic
hypersensitivity this uber secret nsa
outpost
and the world's largest fully steerable
radio telescope
scientists need absolute silence to
listen to radio waves coming from deep
space so in the nrqz cell phones don't
work wi-fi isn't readily available and
microwaves are scarce even the slightest
interference can drown out extremely
faint signals originating light years
away
radio waves are really just a form of
light that have a different energy than
the light that we can see with our eyes
these are what we call receivers that
take the radio waves coming from space
and they basically allow us to convert
them into electrical signals
the green bank telescope is 100 meters
in diameter which is 2.4 acres of
collecting area it's massive
but what makes this telescope so unique
is that it's fully steerable
allowing researchers to point it at
nearly every inch of the universe
the radio signals that we're trying to
pick up from space are extremely
extremely weak it's kind of like casting
a net the bigger the dish the bigger the
net the weaker the signals you can pick
up and this is important when listening
for radio waves that may be a billionth
of a billionth of a watt that's about 20
billion times less than the power of
your watch
the hope
finally answering the question if
intelligent life exists off our planet
if someone is actively speaking to us or
actively sending a message in the radio
across the universe if we didn't listen
if we didn't search for them because we
didn't find it easily the first time we
looked how much would we be
shortchanging ourselves through our own
shortsightedness this is my colleague
ethan an astrophysicist and writer at
big think for as long as humans existed
we had these enormous existential
questions if we discover that we're not
alone in the universe that would change
forever how we viewed life on planet
earth and throughout the universe so the
big questions now are taking those next
steps and right now we have three ways
at the frontiers of modern science that
we're looking for our first signs of
life that originated beyond earth
the first way is we are sending probes
throughout our solar system
the second way is we are examining these
exoplanets can we find what we call
biosignatures is it an oxygen-rich world
does it have water vapor and carbon
dioxide
and then the third way we have of
looking for life is the most ambitious
one of all it's looking for what we call
techno signatures the signatures of a
technologically advanced intelligent
alien species that is attempting to
communicate with us
radio telescopes are the best way to
listen for techno signatures perhaps the
most intriguing detection in the search
for aliens was the wow signal
in 1977 researchers discovered a low
frequency signal with no rotation that
lasted 72 seconds
it's exactly what astronomers expect
other civilizations to transmit
since then we've detected hundreds of
radio waves in space
most are naturally occurring
others still remain a mystery
ufo sightings will always capture our
imagination and while we haven't found
solid proof of extraterrestrial
intelligence researchers are becoming
increasingly convinced that we'll hear
aliens before we see them the odds of
success are
difficult to predict but we know that
they're zero if we don't even try
we've also really only looked at the
nearest few hundred star systems so the
more we invest in listening if someone's
actually out there trying to say hello
the greater the chance we have of not
missing them and we're even starting to
expand our reach into outer space beyond
just listening researchers are now
working to send our own interstellar
messages into space in hopes that
something or someone is listening just
like we are
and making contact could change life
here on earth
how many of them have held the fate of
the planet in their hands or whatever
they have instead of hands
have they overcome the problems that are
facing us today in our technological
infancy
have they overcome fighting and war and
poverty and inequality and disease
if the answer to that is yes
that has profound implications for not
only how we live our lives today but for
the possible future
that we know is suddenly available to us
if we can just get it right
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you