$100 million project to hunt for alien life releases trove of data

Link: https://www.axios.com/aliens-extraterrestrial-life-search-270087af-c508-4b2e-b531-3b650987355f.html

What's happening: The $100 million Breakthrough Listen project released almost 2 petabytes of data last week, including a survey of radio signals from various parts of our galaxy.

The project also searched for "technosignatures" emitting from the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov that came through the solar system last year, but didn't find any.

The new data includes the results of a hunt for signs of life around 20 stars that could, in theory, detect our planet in the way that scientists on Earth see other worlds.

"Because I purposely looked at nearby targets, my search was sensitive enough to locate a transmitter on par with the strongest transmitters on Earth. We can infer that there is nothing as strong as our Arecibo telescope beaming a signal toward us."

The intrigue: Only about 20% of Breakthrough Listen's total data has been analyzed so far, so it's still possible some exciting new findings could come from the raw data as scientists continue to pore over it. SETI@Home https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

Area 51 festival organizers look to hold 2020 events

Link

https://www.fox5vegas.com/news/aliens/area-festival-organizers-look-to-hold-events/article_4d35b14c-518d-11ea-bdd0-3b8e66d3abb0.html

The Little A'Le'Inn website posted that Alienstock 2020 would take place Sept. 10-12 under their events section, though additional details weren't posted. Little A'Le'Inn owner Connie West confirmed she is working to make the festival happen this year.

When asked why she wanted to do the festival again, West said, "Why not?"

West said the festival is pending permit approval. West said if the permits are not approved, she'll work to have the festival in 2021.

Area 51 fever began last summer when the Facebook event "Storm Area 51 - They Can't Stop All of Us" went viral. The page's creator, Matthew Roberts, seized the opportunity to have a music festival during the proposed weekend.

Lincoln County Emergency Manager Eric Holt said at it's peak, there were about 3,000 people camping around the Rachel area at Alienstock, as well as hundreds of people who drove out for day trips. Holt called the weekend an overall success.

"Those agencies that came in to help last year because it was a quote-on-quote emergency won't be here for free this year," said Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee. "You know what I mean, because it's not an emergency. Now this is something that they're planning for because it isn't an emergency ... I think the county was up to a quarter of a million dollars that they were out of pocket."

Roberts said he didn't mind what West plans for Rachel this year, but the name is his. He said Alienstock has two big announcements planned.

The First Alien Life We Find Is More Likely To Be Intelligent Than Not, SETI Expert Says

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/02/19/why-the-first-alien-life-we-find-is-more-likely-to-be-intelligent-than-not/#b54d0293f10b

It might seem logical to assume that the first confirmed alien life forms will be microscopic bacteria hiding out in damp Martian soils or simple organisms swimming around the hidden seas of Europa. But a leading SETI scientists says it’s more likely we find evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence before discovering alien bugs.

"There are two horses in the race to find life beyond Earth," Andrew Siemion of the University of California, Berkeley, told the Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Seattle, according to iNews. "The first is the search for chemical signatures from planets and the second is the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Intelligent life has the edge, as it can be detected across the entire galaxy."

Siemion gave a talk entitled “Hunting for Technosignatures” at the conference in the same week he announced a major data release from the...