Coast-to-Coast AM: SETI, Proxima Centauri, and Recent Sightings

 

We’ve talked about the SETI program of searching for intelligent signals from other planets in the past. We’re not necessarily looking for a message directed out into the cosmos, but any electronic signal that is not natural, though some sort of message would be a bonus. On Earth, we’ve been beaming these radio waves out for about a century and a quarter, meaning that scientists on worlds 125 light years radius of Earth might be able to detect a signal sent from here. That incorporates a lot of space because this is a bubble around the planet, not just a linear distance.

We’ve talked about the WOW Signal that was detected in 1977 that has not been explained as either a natural signal or interference from all the electronic devices in use at the time. You can read more about that here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/03/wow-signal.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/05/new-theory-on-wow-signal.html

There have been other examples, none quite as famous, and we just learned about the Chinese detection that has now been explained as some of that electronic interference.

There are other examples including a detection of a signal coming from Alpha Centauri C, better known as Proxima Centauri, which is not all that far from Earth. Just 4.2 light years. There is information suggesting this too, might be electronic interference from Earth, but there are important points to be made. There are two planets circling Proxima Centauri, one of them in the Goldilocks Zone, meaning it is warm enough for liquid water, and it is a rocky planet about one and a half times the size of Earth.

Proxima Centauri as seen through the Hubble Telescope.

There is another aspect that affects the Barney and Betty Hill abduction, or rather the identification of Zeta I and Zeta II Reticuli, as the home world of the grays. Remember, Marjorie Fish, using the information that Betty Hill had provided on the Star Map shown by the leader, attempted to determine the alien’s home world. She created a three-dimensional model of our section of the galaxy, looking for the same pattern among the stars.

Here's the problem. Fish rejected putting red dwarf stars into her models because there are so many of them, and she could think of no reason for the aliens to visit red dwarf star systems. However, if Proxima Centauri has planets, including one in the Goldilocks Zone, then that suggests that there might be something of interest there. The latest estimates that there are 1.5 planets for each star. This means, frankly, that Fish elimination the red dwarf stars was a mistake. It means that her identification of the Zeta Reticuli system is flawed and we should reassess this. You can read more about this here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2009/12/betty-hills-star-map.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-hillfish-star-map-revisited.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/hill-star-map-badly-out-of-date.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/03/revisiting-hill-star-map.html

Getting back to Proxima Centauri, if the signal recently detected is from an alien race, it means that our galaxy might be teeming with life, and if so, then that increases the possibility that some UFOs are alien visitors, though not necessarily from Proxima Centauri.

My thinking here is if the star closest to the Earth (other than the sun) had intelligent life on it, then it provides a good case for life throughout the galaxy. That doesn’t mean that every star system that has planets in the Goldilocks Zone will have intelligent life, but it certainly suggests that intelligent life will not be overly rare.

So, while SETI searches for radio signals and other electronic emissions, there are still important UFO sightings such as the one from Lamoni, Iowa, on March 26 of this year. According to MUFON’s Cases Management System and the Iowa MUFON Assistance State Director Jason Moran, the witnesses, a man and his wife, had been observing strange lights in the late evening and early morning for a number of years.

On March 26, the lights were spotted about midnight and remained in sight for about two hours. They moved slowly, mostly in an east west path but often stopped to hover for short periods. The objects emitted a sparkling star-like light of various colors. The lights were observed through a telescope and the witnesses took pictures through the telescope, using a cell phone. Moran closed the case as an Unknown Aerial Vehicle.

I’ll note here that such cases, of repeated observations, usually result in the identification of a terrestrially based source or some astronomical object just as Venus. However, in this case there are photographs that do not resemble anything in the area, and both the observations by the witnesses and the photographs tend to rule out many astronomical objects especially since it was viewed and photographed through a telescope.

In another report that is also part of the MUFON Case Management System, Florida MUFON State Section Director Vincent Maynard, reported on a sighting made on April 14 of this year in Davenport, Florida. The witness was taking a photo of a sunset and when reviewing the picture later, spotted a triangular-shaped UFO that he had not seen at the time. Maynard, who labeled the case as an Unknown Aerial Vehicle wrote, “…there is no way on Earth this [object could be confused] with anything terrestrial… it is either a craft from another world, dimension, time, deep within the planet or from light years away or something made… on Earth that the government owns and is it secret.”

The dark triangular-shaped UFO with a blunt nose and no visible surface features, resembles sightings made of such craft for the last several years. David Marler has cataloged many such sightings. This does not appear to be an artifact from the digital camera or some sort of lens flare or internal reflection.

I will note here that the photographs from both cases appear in the latest issue of the MUFON Journal.