(July 14, 2025 at 6:15 pm)Ravenshire Wrote:(July 14, 2025 at 4:05 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Earth’s Airports Are Basically Lighthouses for Aliens
According to researchers from the University of Manchester, for several decades now, we may have been accidentally blasting directions into space that aliens can follow to find us here on Earth, and these signals have been coming from an unlikely source: airports.
New research out of the University of Manchester, led by astrophysics PhD candidate Ramiro Caisse Saide, shows that the electromagnetic noise from global airline and military radar is leaking into space, and aliens up to 200 light-years away could hear it. These signals aren’t just random background static. Their patterns are so specific and regular, they’d appear “clearly artificial” to any E.T. with a decent telescope and a physics degree.
That means, if there’s an alien race out there looking for radio signals from deep space, they would know that our sounds weren’t just the usual creeks and squeaks of the universe. They would know these were sounds made by intelligent creatures.
Military radar beams, in particular, are sweeping space in concentrated bursts that would stand out like a lighthouse to anyone watching from a nearby star system.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/earths-a...or-aliens/
How could aliens up to 200 light-years away detect signals (radar) that weren't broadcast until the 1930s?!? Even if you count all the way back to the first radio broadcast ever, you only get to the the closing days of the 19th century, Dec. 23rd, 1900.
Our radio transmission bubble is just 125 light-years in radius, at a maximum. Due to signal attenuation, the effective detectable bubble is likely considerable less than that.
Even given an antenna that could pick up those very first radio signals, it'll be Dec. 2100 before they'll even reach an ET 200 light-years away.
I don't think the point is that putative aliens may have already detected us at 200 ly, I think the point is that they may well do so going forward. Because if their tech is sufficiently advanced, these signals will be available at least from the 1950s (and the advent of NORAD or its Soviet counterpart) up through today. Even that bubble, 140 ly across, encompasses what is clearly a lot of planets suitable for life even if we haven't found any life itself so far.
It should be remembered too that reception is a bit easier than transmission.
