In 1973, following a mysterious photograph of a UFO taken by the Concorde, journalist Michel Chevalet asked astrophysicist Jean Claude Pecker about the possibility of the existence ofextraterrestrials. Cautious about his answer, the director of the Institute of Astrophysics remained very evasive.
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The researcher simply replied that he believed 'extraterrestrial life is very likely, but communication with extraterrestrial life seems very unlikely'. But water has flowed under the bridge since 1973. Research has evolved and France now has its own research institute responsible for analysing and identifying 'unidentified aerospace phenomena' called GEIPAN.
Against the advice of Professor Pecker, other researchers have taken an interest in the question of communication with extraterrestrials. What would this famous 'encounter of the third kind' lead to?
Founding an interdisciplinary centre for the question
To answer this tricky question, a new international research centre has been set up by scientists at St Andrew's University in the United Kingdom. The aim is to coordinate global expertise to prepare humanity for the possibility and respond accordingly. This centre, called the SETI Post-Detection Hub, will serve as a focal point for the various analyses and possible responses to contact with another civilisation.
This will be done in all fields: social sciences, physics, history, psychology, etc. All of this will be done to design the best possible response. According to Professor John Elliot, a researcher at the School of Computer Science at St Andrew's University, it is 30 years since humanity updated its first contact protocol! He explains:
Science fiction is awash with explorations of the impact on human society following the discovery of, and even encounters with, life or intelligence elsewhere
Studying on the basis of a probable language structure
Professor John Elliot adds:
But we need to go beyond thinking about the impact on humanity. We need to coordinate our expert knowledge not only for assessing the evidence but also for considering the human social response, as our understanding progresses and what we know and what we don’t know is communicated. And the time to do that is now.
Indeed, while there is a scenario for asteroid attacks set up by the UN, there is no plan for a radio signal from extraterrestrial life. John Eliott says:
Scanning signals of assumed extra-terrestrial origin for structures of language and attaching meaning is an elaborate and time-consuming process during which our knowledge will be advanced in many steps as we learn ‘Extra-Terrestrial’
This is indeed the challenge. How can we develop an answer based on a language structure that is still unknown? We have a long way to go before we find an answer, but at least we now have a place to think about it!
This article was translated from Gentside FR.
Sources used:
-Studyfinds: How do we talk to aliens? New research hub will finally update humanity’s response to extraterrestrials
