US Navy Was Ordered To Listen For Martian Broadcast 154
MarkWhittington writes "It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars."
Re:This is good science (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to forget just how new most of our knowledge about the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere is. A mere fifty years ago, just throwing a dog or chimp into orbit was tricky business, and all we knew of other celestial bodies was seen through a glass darkly, from the murkey depths of our atmosphere. So... damn right there coulda been people on Mars in 1924. Just like in the 1960s we "knew" that it was utterly barren... but now aren't quite so sure. I can certainly see why some members of our society might find this rapid evolution of "what we know" unsettling, so they cling to a system of belief that promises not to change. But I think the roller coaster ride of Science is great.
Re:Specifically... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is kind of disappointing to think about how our society would have evolved from that point on had it turned out that Venus, Mars, and/or the moon were habitable and had their own native flora and fauna, even if they weren't sentient.
Re:This is good science (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we can't at all. Huzzah~!
Re:Syfy (please no) (Score:4, Insightful)
Please no, The Sci-fi Channel changing their name to SyFy was bad enough. Please do not further this abomination of an abbreviation/rebranding. Call it Sci-Fi or SF, never SyFy.
Re:This is good science (Score:3, Insightful)
"A mere fifty years ago, just throwing a dog or chimp into orbit was tricky business..."
More importantly, we were trying.
Now, it seems, we can hardly be bothered. We've got all these darn poor people to take care of, and WoW to play, not necessarily in that order.