BMBF - Wissenschaftsjahr 2023

Ausschnitt einer Galaxie.

2013: The Lone-Signal

Crowd funding for an extraterrestrial Twitter

Lone Signal was a crowd-funded SETI project aiming to send interstellar messages from Earth to a possible alien civilisation. It was founded by businessman Pierre Fabre and supported by other entrepreneurs. Lone Signal was based at the Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, California.

The project began continuous operation of its transmitting station on 17 June 2013, transmitting short, 144-character long messages from Earth to the red dwarf star Gliese 526, located 17.6 light-years from Earth in the constellation “Boötes”. The Lone Signal team hoped to raise up to 100 million US dollars through fundraising activities in order to build an entire network of satellite dishes on the surface of the Earth that could send messages to many regions of the Milky Way.

Foto von einer großen Satellitenantenne im Sonnenuntergang
© Michael Misof, Pixabay

The Lone Signal message consisted of two key components: a background hailing component and a more complex message component. The hailing component was designed by planetary scientist Michael W. Busch; it used a universal binary code system and generated coherent mathematical statements about the laws of physics and the Earth's position in the galaxy.

The hailing component was designed to be easily decoded by an extraterrestrial civilisation. It repeated an average of three times to allow the receiver to decode it any time the observation begins. Some parts repeated more often than others. The hailing component was intended to serve as a "Rosetta Stone", so to speak, for understanding the more complex message component. This consisted of short, 144-character long statements. These messages were posted in different languages and with different content from the Lone Signal website.

Individuals who signed up to the website to send messages with Lone Signal were allowed to send one message for free and then had to buy "message credits" worth US$0.25 per message sent to fund the operation of the project. However, the project ceased operations shortly after it began due to a lack of funding.

What is SETI?

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a scientific endeavour to discover extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe. SETI researchers look for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life by analysing radio signals from space. Their aim is to find signals that indicate conscious communication or technological activity beyond Earth. Using powerful telescopes and advanced signal processing techniques, SETI is trying to find answers to one of humanity's biggest questions: Are we alone in the universe or are there other intelligent civilisations out there?

In addition to searching for indicative signals, researchers in the past have deliberately sent messages and signals from Earth into space for possible extraterrestrial intelligences to receive. The active sending of these SETI messages is also known as METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence). METI is a controversial topic; the main argument against METI being that it may attract the attention of intelligent and potentially hostile extraterrestrials.