There is a pretty high chance that there is intelligent life out there.  Our galaxy the milky way is about 100,000 lightyears in diameter (a lightyear is the distance that light travels in a period of a year, that’s exactly 9,460,730,472,580 kM).  No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space…  Uhh yeah, even if we were being watched I doubt any ET life will be interested in us and our failure as a race.   To add insult to injury, the online social networking site Bebo has decided it will spam the galaxy (even though it fills your inbox with crap)!

A competition was launched to Bebo’s 12 million users in which user generated content was submitted and then chosen to be sent to a planet 20 light years away.  The specific planet was chosen because it is believed that life is possible on that planet.  501 pictures, drawings and messages were sent in the data stream on 09/10/08 at 0600 GMT from a dish in Ukraine.  The messages were converted to binary beforehand to make decoding the messages easier. I don’t think aliens have a .jpg format or use HTTP (Anyone else ever wonder how every race in StarTrek use the same communication protocols?).

Since the planet is 20 light years away, it will take 20 years for the message to get there.  If there is intelligent life and they do reply, it will be at least 40 years before we see any reply at all.

Now there are huge flaws in this.  In 40 years time after we’ve gone through the ‘Greater Depression’ and people decide to actually go outside, I don’t think Bebo will exist anymore and neither will Apple Inc..  And also there’s probably a rick roll in the message stream.  The aliens will be very unhappy to find they’ve been rickrolled from 20 light years away!

This project is pointless if you ask me.  SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) have been monitoring the skies for messages for decades now and they have found diddly squat except for the time when they picked up a strong narrow band signal.

Well I say Good luck to them in the chances of achieving first contact, lets hope the aliens wont be annoyed by an invitation from Bebo..

- Cooper

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one he said…

This is not really a Tech site anymore is it?