Stuck on Futile Methods, SETI Tribe Ignores Promising Leads

 Those who call themselves SETI scientists should not be called SETI scientists.

Such people are indeed scientists, but the kind of work they do is not  best described by the acronym of SETI, which stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. SETI is an extremely general-sounding term. A scientist engaged in SETI would be interested in any and all activities that might have a chance of showing signs of the existence of any type of intelligence at all existing outside of the surface of planet Earth. The scientists who call themselves SETI scientists are not that type of scientists.

Instead the scientists who call themselves SETI scientists seem to have a much more narrow interest: an interest only in discovering intelligent life existing on other planets. So we would be using a more accurate acronym if we called these scientists SETILOOP scientists. SETILOOP is an acronym standing for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Living On Other Planets.

The scientists who call themselves SETI scientists are addicted to fruitless methods of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their main method is to use giant radio telescopes to search for radio signals coming from other planets. This method has been used for 60 years, and has not produced any promising results. The same scientists use optical telescopes to search for signs of optical radio beacons or signs of engineering by super-advanced civilizations. Such methods have also failed.  

Such methods have been used fruitlessly to a gigantic extent. An article in Scientific American has a headline of "Alien Supercivilizations Absent from 100,000 Nearby Galaxies."  Below are some of the failed searches:

• The SERENDIP project, surveying a large portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 4 of the paper here, a project which a Sky and Telescope article tells us surveyed "many billions of Milky Way stars."
• The Southern SERENDIP project surveying a large portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 2 of the paper here.
• A SETI project surveying a significant portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 2 of the paper here. 
• The all-sky SETI survey discussed here, which operated continuously for more than four years. 
• The two-year southern sky SETI search discussed here, which observed for 9000 hours and "covered the sky almost two times."  
• A recent failed search of 10 million stars using the latest and greatest technology. 

If there were a SETI monthly magazine, I imagine it would look rather like this:

Meanwhile, there have been many other techniques employed by humans that seemed to have turned up promising potential signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. But the kind of extraterrestrial intelligence suggested by such techniques is not necessarily intelligent life living on other planets. Such extraterrestrial intelligence could be some extra-dimensional intelligence. Or it could be some spiritual intelligence living in some mysterious realm we do not understand. Or it could be some non-localized intelligence not limited to one particular location. 

Let us look at some of these techniques. As you read over this list, keep in mind three things:

1. There is no logical basis for assuming that we can know what beings from another planet would be like, or in what way they would choose to interact with us. SETI enthusiasts often say that extraterrestrials could have evolved many thousands or millions of years ago. The nature or behavior of beings so advanced would be unpredictable. We cannot know whether they would have shed their bodies altogether. Perhaps (as suggested by Arthur C. Clarke) they might have transformed into beings of pure energy. They might have moved out of our dimension into some other dimension, or maybe even created some other dimension. So there is no clear demarcation between such super-advanced beings and some other beings that might be called spirits, angels or deities.

2. The term “extraterrestrial intelligence” applies to any intelligence at all existing outside of our planet, regardless of whether such intelligence arose on some other planet. If we imagine some realm of the dead beyond our planet, an intelligence existing in such a realm would seem to qualify as an extraterrestrial intelligence, even if such an intelligence originated on our planet.

3. Communication through interstellar radio signals is an extremely imperfect form of communication because of the limitation that such radio signals can only travel at the speed of light. For example, it would take forty years for a radio signal to travel from some planet forty light-years away to Earth, and it would then take forty years for a reply from Earth to travel to such a planet. Because of all the drawbacks of interstellar radio communication, extraterrestrials might prefer to communicate through some other way (perhaps some spiritual way we don't understand).

Promising Lead #1: Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)

EVP means mysterious unexplained voices that appear on tape recordings or audio recordings.  Since the phenomenon was first discovered in 1959 by Friedrich Jurgenson, many claim to have got inexplicable voices or messages through such a method.  Skeptical claims that the voices merely come from stray earthly radio signals could be tested by some method in which every radio frequency is listened to, in search of a radio transmission matching some voice mysteriously appearing on a recording.  Another method is to test whether such voices can be recorded in a room shielded against any possibility of radio waves transmitting into it. There has already been one paper published that claimed to get a positive result in such an experiment. In a room doubly shielded against electromagnetic interference, a mysterious voice was recorded that could not be accounted for. The failure of self-described SETI researchers to investigate this topic is puzzling, particularly given their expertise in related scientific areas such as radio transmissions. 

Promising Lead #2: Direct Voice Phenomenon

In parapsychology, what are called direct voices are audible mysterious voices that appear from no known earthly source, often at meetings called seances.  There is a great amount of evidence suggesting the reality of such a phenomenon, which I discuss here.  Why have our self-described SETI researchers failed to investigate this phenomenon? Perhaps because such voices often either claim to be from those who have died, or because such voices have often spoken details that seemed to be known only by those who have died. But since "extraterrestrial intelligence" can be any intelligence at all beyond our planet, there would seem to be no reason why a real SETI researcher would not investigate such a phenomenon (other than the researcher being scared of finding some evidence of spirits).  Of course, if the researcher was merely a SETILOOP researcher, he might have no interest in such a thing. 

Promising Lead #3: Automatic Writing

In parapsychology what is called automatic writing is typically when a person goes into a kind of trance, and then produces writing, perhaps not remembering anything that he wrote. The literature of parapsychology contains many cases of such writing seeming to show information that should have been unknown to the person writing it.  So we have evidence to suggest that automatic writing is a means by which some unearthly intelligence can mysteriously communicate with earthly minds.  So why have our self-described SETI researchers failed to investigate this phenomenon? 

Promising Lead #4: Ouija Boards

Although sometimes linked to evil events by cheesy horror movies that have little basis in fact, there seems to be little or no good evidence basis for regarding ouija boards as anything to be feared. In the literature of parapsychology there are many cases of astonishing output being produced by persons using ouija boards. Pearl Curran produced a great wealth of astonishing novels and superb poems (often with a high moral tone) using such a device, and published the results under the name of Patience Worth because she claimed these literary works were not her own.  Many examples of her output are given in this book, which describes her astonishing case. Given that they might have spiritual or psychic or mental capabilities thousands or millions of years more advanced than ours, it is possible that intelligences beyond our planet could somehow leverage an ouija board to send messages to humans. Why have our self-described SETI researchers failed to investigate this phenomenon? 

Promising Lead #5: UFOs

There have been innumerable reports of UFO sightings, but our self-described SETI researchers seem to show no interest in such sightings. Such a factor is another reason for thinking that such researchers are merely SETILOOP researchers interested only in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Living On Other Planets, but not researchers interested in the possibility that extraterrestrial intelligences may have traveled to our own planet. 

Promising Lead #6: Massively Repeating Orb Patterns

Mysterious inexplicable patterns can arise very massively when ordinary falling water drops are photographed, with very dramatic unexpected pattern repetitions occurring in almost all of hundreds or thousands of consecutive photos.  This mystifying phenomenon is massively documented in the very long E-book you can read online here, which includes a huge abundance of photographic examples.  Such a phenomenon suggests the action of some mysterious unfathomable intelligence capable of manipulating matter with great precision.  Further investigation could conceivably reveal some kind of code by which information is being transmitted by some intelligence not of earthly origin. But our SETI researchers have given zero attention to such a promising lead. 

A  pattern from October 13, 2020 resembling mysteriously encoded information

Inexplicable face-like pattern photographed Dec. 5 2019

Promising Lead #7: Near-Death Experiences

In near-death experiences, people often claim to come into contact with some mysterious superhuman intelligence that is often described visually as some bright light. In near-death experiences there are also a wide variety of reports of coming into contact with various intelligences not living on our planet, which may be described as spirits or beings of energy or deceased persons or some type of superhuman or otherworldly minds. But our so-called SETI researchers do not investigate such experiences, and thereby act like  they were merely SETILOOP researchers interested only in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Living on Other Planets.  

The Investigative Timidity of Our Self-Described SETI Researchers 

Why are our self-described SETI researchers so reluctant to pursue any of the leads I have discussed?  Why do they cling to research methods that have never produced any promising results?

Perhaps such researchers are people who abhor the idea of discovering any evidence that might suggest the existence of any such things as spirits or a deity or life after death. So they limit themselves to searching for radio signals from beings on other planets, or searches for signs in the sky that beings exist on other planets.  They may regard such searches as some kind of "safe zone" that will never provide the type of evidence they do not wish to discover. 

This does not make any sense. Besides the simple fact that such searches have produced no promising results (in contrast to the methods I have discussed that have produced promising results), there is the fact that such a "safe zone" is really no such thing. 

Consider radio signals picked up through giant radio dishes. There is no reason why signals received from beyond our planet would have to be from extraterrestrials living on some other planet. Such signals could be sent by some deity. Such a possibility was actually the plot of a movie made many years ago. Or, radio signals received by radio telescopes could be sent by denizens in some other dimension, possibly a realm of deceased beings.  So radio messages received by radio telescopes are not at all some "safe zone" in which a materialist can be sure he will only get proof he yearns for of beings living on other planets in our galaxy.  Any radio message received from the stars would probably be permanently controversial, for reasons I discuss here.  Some would say it was faked; others might say it was a message from God; others would say it was a messge from the devil; and EVP enthusiasts would probably say it was a message from the Other Side rather than some other planet. 

Rather than trying to confine themselves to such a "safe zone" that is not really any such thing, those who call themselves SETI researchers should start acting like true SETI researchers rather than mere SETILOOP researchers only interested in finding intelligence living on other planets.  A good rule for a true SETI researcher is to pursue any and all leads suggesting any type of intelligence at all outside of our planet.