The Search For
Extraterrestrial Short Humour
Above is a photograph of
the radio telescope used by the SETSH
experiment, the Search for Extraterrestrial
Short Humour.
This project is based in
Cambridge, England and is the successor to the
Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from
Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations (SERENDIP),
launched by the University of California,
Berkeley in 1979.
The American research
employed the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto
Rico to listen for signals from other intelligent
life in the Universe.
It was not until late 2007
that the fatal flaw in their research strategy
became apparent.
Their error lay in mostly
listening for extraterrestrial messages. Little
systematic attempt had been made to either elicit
such messages or to provide contact details
should members of the extraterrestrial community
have wished to communicate.
It was realised that this
was the equivalent of purchasing a mobile phone
in San Francisco, not revealing the number to
anyone and then awaiting a call from a stranger
in Beijing.
The Cambridge team decided
to address this issue by providing active
encouragement for extraterrestrials to make
contact for a specific reason, and with an
identified person.
The Short Humour Site
was greatly honoured to be chosen as the
incentive for such contact, and the Cambridge
radio telescope now beams stories from the Writers’ Showcase of the Short Humour Site
towards neighbouring galaxies, together with site submission details.
So far there has been just
one submission. This came from Gliese 581g in the
Gliese 581 system. It was cleverly written as if
a warning that armies from that planet would
shortly be invading Earth. Sadly, the piece was
greatly in excess of 500 words and so had to be
returned without wider publication.
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