Mars calling: ‘Alien message’ to help humans prepare for close encounter

Researchers seeking signs of life beyond Earth yesterday awaited an “alien message” from Mars.

The signal is part of an experiment by the Seti Institute that will help humans prepare for contact with an extraterrestrial civilisation.

The institute was founded in California in 1984.

Trace Gas Orbiter, a European spacecraft orbiting Mars, was scheduled to send an encoded message to experts at the institute, which they hope the public will try to decode.

“Receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilisation would be a profoundly transformational experience for all humankind,” said Daniela de Paulis, the artist behind A Sign in Space.

The project offers humans the opportunity to prepare for contact through global collaboration, she said.

Three radio astronomy observatories on Earth will detect the message.

They are the Seti Institute’s Allen Telescope Array near San Francisco, the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station observatory, which is near Bologna in northern Italy.

The artist and her team hope that the public will contribute to decoding the message.

Findings, thoughts and artistic and scientific inspiration can be submitted using a form on the project’s website.

Astronomers have looked for evidence of extraterrestrial life for decades, but none has yet been found.

Sightings of unidentified flying objects are today routinely reported to government and aviation authorities.

In July lst year, the US government launched the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force after a series of observations by military pilots of unknown aerial objects.

They were reported to be capable of great speeds and manoeuvrability that defied the laws of physics.

There is also a team at Nasa dedicated to studying the phenomena.

“The limited number of high-quality observations of unidentified anomalous phenomena makes it impossible to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events,” Nasa said on its website.

“Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform Nasa what possible data could be collected in the future to shed light on UAP.”

While no signs of intelligent alien life have yet been discovered, Nasa has sent rovers to Mars to look for signs of ancient life, such as water, which would demonstrate that the Red Planet was once capable of supporting life.

The transmission will provide the public with an idea of how contact with aliens might be established