Matt Kilty

So Doug brings this idea to the SETI board.

One SETI researcher at Berkeley went on record saying that, quote, 98% of astronomers and SETI researchers, including myself, think that this is potentially dangerous and not a good idea.

It's like shouting in a forest before you know if there are tigers, lions, bears, or other dangerous animals there.

We've already been beaming out our TV and radio episodes for decades.

So he got together a bunch of other like-minded researchers and they started METI.

Are you like rival siblings?

How would you describe it?

Now, when I heard about Doug and Maddie, I wasn't as much worried about the dark forest problem, but I was more like, who is this guy, Doug, who wants to speak for all humanity?

And what kinds of things does he even want to be beaming out there on our behalf?

So in 2017, Doug and his team did it.

They encoded a message into a radio signal.

It was a mixture of math and electronic music.

and they beamed it out from a giant radar antenna eight miles southeast of the Norwegian city of Tromsø.

The target was, as you obviously can see right here, it was a star called GJ273, or Leutn Star, and its planets, which include at least one so-called super-Earth.

It's a little over 12 light years away, which means the message is actually still on its way over there.

It'll arrive in 2029 or thereabouts.

And then best case scenario, or I guess worst case scenario if you're afraid of them, best case scenario, if there are beings out there and they are sentient enough to receive our message and have the technology to be able to respond and they decide they want to do that right away, the earliest we would hear back

is the early 2040s.

And in this case, a hope that there is someone out there listening.

Thank you very much.