From SETI to CETI?

[JustAGuy]

...Korpela thinks it unlikely SHGb02+14a is the result of any obvious radio interference or noise, and it does not bear the signature of any known astronomical object.

That does not mean that only aliens could have produced it. "It may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamed-of kind like I stumbled over," says Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath, UK.

It was Bell Burnell who in 1967 noticed a pulsed radio signal which the research team at the time thought was from extraterrestrials but which turned out to be the first ever sighting of a pulsar.

Ignoring, for the moment, the BBC article mentioned earlier in this thread, the first thing that came to my mind upon reading the New Scientist article was similar to Jocelyn Bell Burnell's remark. There's so much in the universe that we have no knowledge or understanding of that to say some signal they picked up in deep space is artifical in nature, i.e. alien-made, would be premature at best.

The BBC says that there's no signal. If there is, or there isn't, it doesn't really matter. The scientists would still have to figure out what it is, if there's a signal at all. Then, after that, what then? Not like we can make a 1000 light year trip out there to visit the source of the phenomena.

So many logistical problems with space travel; short-term and short-range exploration is great and all, but until some sort of Star Trek-esque faster than light drive (or universe-bending drive) is invented, any signals we receive from deep space will do nothing more than to make ignorant people scared. I sure do love science, heck I base my life around it, but people aren't ready for proof of aliens.