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Megachannel Extraterrestrial Assay Candidates: No Transmissions from Intrinsically Steady Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2017

T. Joseph W. Lazio ,
Jill Tarter  and
Peter R. Backus
T. Joseph W. Lazio
Affiliation:
Naval Research Laboratory, Code 7213, Washington, DC, 20375-5351 USA; [email protected]
Jill Tarter
Affiliation:
The SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Dr., Mountain View, CA 94043 USA; [email protected]; [email protected]
Peter R. Backus
Affiliation:
The SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Dr., Mountain View, CA 94043 USA; [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract

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This paper reports new, more sensitive observations of nine of the eleven extrastatistical signals in the Megachannel Extraterrestrial Assay (META). These extrastatistical signals had all of the expected characteristics of extraterrestrial transmissions, except that they did not repeat. Cordes, Lazio, & Sagan (1997) showed that this lack of repeatability could be explained by interstellar scintillation of intrinsically steady sources. We use their methodology and our observations to exclude the scintillation hypothesis at a confidence level of at least 97.8% (for the case of an intrinsically weak source) to a level in excess of 99% (if the source strengths are comparable to that favored by Cordes, Lazio, & Sagan 1997). We also demonstrate that gravitational microlensing cannot account for the initial detection of these candidates nor is microlensing likely to play a role in future SETI programs. We conclude that the META candidates do not reflect a large population of powerful beacons.

Type
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 213: Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the stars , 2004 , pp. 433 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

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