Scientists in Britain have founded the United Kingdom Seti Research Network (UKSRN) which held its first get-together at this week's National Astronomy Meeting and pledged to concerted effort to seek alien life in the cosmos. Under the patronage of The English Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, UKSRN is requesting funding agencies donate about £1m a year to support listening time on radio telescopes and for data analysis and any "new" ways of discovering Extra-Terrestrial life.
While most Seti work is done in the US and funded through private donation, UKSRN co-ordinator and University of St Andrews researcher Alan Penny said there was important expertise in Britain keen to play its part. "If we had one part in 200 - half a percent of the money that goes into astronomy at the moment - we could make an amazing difference. We would become comparable with the American effort."
British researchers and facilities have had occasional involvement in Seti projects before, most significantly in 1998 when they used Jodrell bank, and its Lovell radio telescope, in Project Phoenix. It was ultimately fruitless. Now Jodrell has been updated, linking it via fibre optics into a 217km-long array with six other telescopes across England. Known as eMerlin, this system would be a far more powerful tool to scan the skies for alien transmissions.
Jodrell's associate director Tim O'Brien said Seti work could be done quite easily without disturbing mainstream science on the array. "...if the telescopes were studying quasars, for example, we could piggy-back off that and analyse the data to look for a different type of signal ... something in the noise that one might imagine could be associated with aliens. There are billions of planets out there. It would be remiss of us not to at least have half an ear open to any signals that might be being sent to us."
Dr Penny argued Seti could make a strong case for funding, and that his group would try to get research council backing. "The human race wants to explore, wants to find things out, and if we stop trying we're on the road to decay," he said.
Conversely, the actions of the British Astronomers were universally condemned by UNETIDA who warned against encouraging belligerent Extra-Terrestrial species towards the Solar System. "The reckless behaviour of these buffoons living in a misguided world of awe and wonder of the universe without calculating the dangers is beyond belief," said UNETIDA/UNPASID Director of Intelligence, Colonel "Whopper" Creedon. "I would urge any sane-minded individual or body in a position to potentially fund this blatant disregard for the safety of the planet to reject any and all proposals from this UKSRN."
It is widely suspected by conspiracy theorists and amateur bloggers that SETI and similar efforts throughout the years have been deliberately sabotaged by UNETIDA counter-intelligence efforts.
Source: BBC News
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