SETI is the acronym for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.  www.SETI.org

Explain the diagrams on the gold record above please, without doing any research at all. It was sent into space in 1977 by NASA in collaboration with SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, as part of the Voyager 1 Program, which cost some $254,000,000.

Was that a prudent use of American tax dollars? After more than 60 years of considerable scientific research, SETI, established in 1959, says, "Nothing yet. More funding please!"

Please read the hieroglyphics above. You can't? Nobody else could either, until the Rosetta Stone was found. It has Egyptian hieroglyphics at the top, Demotic text in the middle and ancient Greek at the bottom.  It was discovered in July, 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard near the town of Rashid, Egypt.

If humans couldn't even understand the language of other humans, how could we possibly hope to learn communications of extra-terrestrials millions of miles away?

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From my book, Brilliant Creations - The Wonder of Nature and Life

"We are alone in all the world, in all the Universe.           

 Mine is not suspicion, nor even a supposition of our solitude, but rather confidence - a near certainty.  There is no evidence of life, much less intelligent life, anywhere else but here on Earth.  We have been unable to find even a single extraterrestrial bacterium.  Some astronomers would like us to believe that virtually multiplying up large numbers of stars guarantees a plentiful supply of intelligent aliens whom we only need to signal, somewhere, somehow.  Some assumptions may sound reasonable - even plausible.  If we start with a large enough number of stars, multiplying them many times by tiny fractions will still leave us with some finite number, someone to talk to, some “alien” company to teach us incredible things.  It is, however, a fallacious line of reasoning, as so carefully explained in The Privileged Planet - How our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards

 Another siren song beckons us - the attempt to communicate with extraterrestrials. Except, unfortunately, it is an exercise in futility for these reasons, among others: 

1.    We are alone.  But even if we were not:

2.    Most (meaning FAR more than 99.99%) of the Universe lies outside our communication range.

3.    Most of the time (>99.99%) spent on Earth by homo sapiens was without highly technical communication abilities.  We can reasonably infer that if anyone else is out "there," our communication systems are utterly incompatible with theirs.  Either they or we are the technological equivalent of Indians sending smoke signals to a distant mesa.

4.    Even if signals are received a scant 500 light-years from Earth, which is less than a trillionth of one percent of the Universe's volume, the turn-around time of 1,000 years to send a signal and receive a response would be compounded by,

5.    The number of send-receive iterations required to learn a common language,

6.    The differences in our physical, technical, and social problems, and,

7.    Assumptions of mutual curiosity, benevolence, technology, etc., which are more than likely incorrect.

 If we humans cannot control our kind and prevent crime and war after thousands of years of our best efforts, why should we expect more of  imaginary creatures?  They might treat us as we do cattle, to be herded and eaten.  Recent savagery in Africa and Yugoslavia arose from subtle differences among closely related clans of the same species.  How much greater might the brutality be when differences are unimaginably compounded?

 No amount of wishful thinking or scientific creativity can overcome the probability against life on other planets so clearly documented by the utter lack of a shred of evidence for it despite six decades of effort at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.  “SETI – A Waste of Time!” by Frank J. Tipler, 1993)

 If you believe in extraterrestrial life, and I do not, you might think searching for such life forms is a wise investment.  However, how many billions of dollars might we spend during 500 more years of sending and receiving signals attempting to find extraterrestrial life only to find that either (A) There is not a whisper of a response, (B) Other beings have progressed to a far higher level of communication which we cannot begin to decipher, even if we could receive it, or (C) Other beings have blown themselves up with nuclear weapons, or something even more complex. 

 Few of our own Earth civilizations have lasted as long as 500 years.  Yet, throughout parts of the world, "civilization" is not the first idea that comes to mind.

 Toward that end, some "visionary" scientists ask us to imagine the capacity - the power of a hypothetical civilization a million or even a billion years more advanced than our own, and the benefits such a (presumably) benevolent society would confer upon us.  To do this same exercise, one can easily imagine God or at least a very close approximation.  Yet, the denial of a supreme supernatural is the antithesis of contemporary scientific orthodoxy.  At some sufficiently advanced stage, technology becomes indistinguishable from magic.

 Suppose we were to travel back a mere thousand years, landing before kings and sages in a helicopter.   We might step out, light a butane lighter, and video record our audience for instant replay. Would they not think of us gods?  Which technological gains could be possible for intelligent beings who have advanced beyond us 1,000 or 1,000,000 more years?  A more realistic assessment is that future technological advancements would be more than offset by social limitations and stupidity.  We humans have become quite proficient at using modern science to conquer and destroy and kill.  Nor does there seem to be any end in sight to widespread evil that a few people can accomplish, such as Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong-un.  Thus the benefits of technology are tempered by misuse, mistakes, abuses, and evil.

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"The Carl Sagan Center for Research is home to more than 100 scientists, a tally that is steadily growing." www.SETI.org

$210,749,384 Revenue for 2023:

Executives' Compensation:

Public Universities' Donations Wasted on SETI

In 1974, Enrico Fermi, 1938 Nobel Prize winner in physics, famously asked, "Where are they?"

There is an axiom in poker that is applicable here:  "Don't throw good money after bad."