Keith’s note: On this day in 1997 the film “Contact” hit theaters etc. I wrote something in 1997 about a visit I made to West Virginia, Green Bank, hanging out with Jill Tarter, and driving around radio telescopes in a diesel taxi cab. I am posting this from a climber’s hostel in New Hampshire which seems appropriate. “Going Off Source: Time Away With SETI In West Virginia“.

SETI Institute: “Frank Drake 1930-2022: So many scientists at the SETI Institute and around the world, were inspired to follow their careers because of Frank Drake. Frank not only left his mark on the fields of Astronomy, Astrophysics and SETI, but he left his mark on all of humankind. He dared to pursue one of the most profound, compelling and inspiring questions in all of science and indeed, all of philosophy. NASA’s third science question: ‘Are We Alone?’ might well have been something else were it not for Frank’s pioneering.”

Keith’s note: Bill Nelson was on CNN just before 8:00 pm EDT Sunday night to talk about the UAP/UFO report released by the Pentagon Friday evening. Nelson said “I have seen the unclassified and classified version of the report. It says what we thought. We do not know what the answer is to what those navy pilots saw. I have asked our scientists if there is any kind of explanation. […]

Contacting aliens could end all life on earth. Let’s stop trying, Op Ed by Mark Buchanan, Washington Post “More alarming is the possibility that alien civilizations are remaining out of contact because they know something: that sending out signals is catastrophically risky. Our history on Earth has given us many examples of what can happen when civilizations with unequal technology meet — generally, the technologically more advanced has destroyed or […]

NSF begins planning for decommissioning of Arecibo Observatory’s 305-meter telescope due to safety concerns “Following a review of engineering assessments that found damage to the Arecibo Observatory cannot be stabilized without risk to construction workers and staff at the facility, the U.S. National Science Foundation will begin plans to decommission the 305-meter telescope, which for 57 years has served as a world-class resource for radio astronomy, planetary, solar system and […]

One Of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog “We present Breakthrough Listen’s “Exotica” Catalog as the centerpiece of our efforts to expand the diversity of targets surveyed in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). As motivation, we introduce the concept of survey breadth, the diversity of objects observed during a program. … As far as we are aware, this is the first object list in recent times with the purpose […]

NO SIGNAL: Growing Up in Green Bank, West Virginia, Observer (scroll down to page 36) “I grew up in Green Bank, West Virginia, at the center of the federally mandated National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ), where interference like cell phones, wireless internet, and other devices are legally regulated. My hometown feels like another planet, full of opposites and tucked away from the world in a quiet spot. I grew up […]

The 2019 Breakthrough Discuss Conference: “Migration of Life in the Universe” is being held on 11-12 April. A live webcast starts at 800 am PDT/1100 am EDT at http://www.youtube.com/breakthroughprize. Details on the event can be found here. Live tweeting will be done at @Astrobiology

Technosignatures Workshop: Looking at Searching for Life Beyond Earth, NASA “In April 2018, new interest arose in Congress for NASA to begin supporting the scientific search for technosignatures as part of the agency’s search for life. As part of that effort, the agency is hosting the NASA Technosignatures Workshop in Houston on Sept. 26-28, 2018, with the purpose of assessing the current state of the field, the most promising avenues […]

Going Off Source: Time Away With SETI In West Virginia “20 years ago I made a trip to West Virginia to hang out with SETI researcher Jill Tarter and see how she searched the skies for evidence of life elsewhere. The region is very familiar to me since my wife and I have spent a lot of time there rock climbing and camping. What unfolded was part camping trip, part […]