The Search for ET

The Search for ET

By: Willow Lawson, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/

Summary: Jill Tarter scans the skies for radio signals, hoping to detect signs of intelligent life

As a little girl, Jill Tarter took nighttime walks on the beach with her father, who taught her the map of the sky. She remembers looking up at the stars, thinking that somewhere out in the universe, the tiny points of starlight she saw were burning bright as someone else’s sun.
More than five decades later, Tarter is the director of research at SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Mountain View, California. SETI scientists use a complex network of telescopes and computers to scan the skies for radio signals elsewhere in the universe, hoping to detect signs of intelligent life-forms.

more here

This piece brought some amusing reactions over at UFO Updates.

Craig Beasley said.

“Ufology may not have enough proof to “convince” anyone. SETI is
even more barren. In either case, it doesn’t invalidate the need
to look at either field of study. The SETI hard-cores refuse to
see that simple truth. They are so eaten whole by the
competitive nature of establishment science that Ufology is seen
as a threat, when it is nothing of the sort.

I have a great respect for Dr. Tartar, as she has never rested
on her laurels. It’s just so damned frustrating to see such a
smart person willingly nurse such a massive blind spot.”

Massive blindspot? Ms Tarter has chosen to concentrate on the hard sciences, not the woo-woo UFO stuff. What’s wrong with that? She mentions that no evidence –I.E.
“I don’t have any proof. There’s no evidence that would convince me as a scientist.”
I don’t see that as unfair, only to the people standing around with their hands in their pockets, anxiously waiting for SETI to validate their pet beliefs. There is no evidence *thus far* that would convince her, I suspect some evidence would ultimately convince her, why else would she be a director at SETI? Just because none in the UFO field can produce evidence that will convince her is not a reason to discount her out of hand.

In the interview, Tarter repeats her story about flying in a light aircraft, thinking she’s seeing a UFO and suddenly realizing that it’s just the moon. The object of this tale is to say “look! I too see things that I can’t explain but, I also look for more prosaic explanations over and above the fantastic.” This puts her at loggerheads with the believer community, some of them never met an ordinary explanation they liked.

>My question then… Shouldn’t Jill – as a pilot and an
>astronomer – be embarrassed by her elemental lack of knowledge
>as to where the Moon would be?

Ah, but you see, not every person is attuned to the SETI spin-
machine as we are, so Dr. Tartar took a gamble.

1. She knows what you know, but expects others to miss the
inconsistencies. (and they call us “inconsistent”?)

2. She convinces herself that she means what she says, as an
unconscious aid to her mission to discredit Ufology.

Either way, she, and SETI by extension, continues to howl at the
moon and bark up the wrong tree.

J. Craig Beasley

My beef is with these two pilots who appear to be rattling
around in the sky with no apparent knowledge of compass
direction [disastrous in itself], the Moon’s position and of the
cloud cover or meteorological information. This is exacerbated
by Jill Tarter’s being a astronomer with no knowledge of the
Moon’s mechanics.

Don Ledger

Stan Friedman describes this concept much better, when he
illustrates this by saying, “It can’t be so there for it
isn’t…”

Some worship at the alter of so-called main stream science, but
the truth is that ‘main stream science’ is filled with
closed-minded folks who are unwilling to look beyond their own
pre-conceived notions of reality and life.

Robert Gates

Anyone who can say this either doesn’t know how science works,
or is confusing it with religion.

– Larry Hatch

Here here! At least SOMONE got a couple of brain cells to rub together! As I recall, Tarter was not actually piloting that night and in any case, its’ real easy for these self described experts of everything to know exactly what the Moon is going to look like at precisely this or that instant at whatever altitude with any random cloud cover. Not being an expert (but having flown in light aircraft many times) I can say with some confidence that things don’t always look like we think they should look up in the sky. But it remains according to these people that Ms Tarter MUST be lying.

She doesn’t believe in aliens…See? That proves it!

And last but certanly not least! , My special fan-pal Al Lehmberg

>Anyone who can say this either doesn’t know how science works,
>or is confusing it with religion.

I know how science works. It won’t remotely consider that which
can’t be measured, repeated, or predicted, and it eliminates,
altogether, the observation that falls outside the narrow limits
of its perceivable probability.

Funny Al! You just described how science doesn’t work! But that is how religion works. Bzzzzz! Thanks for participating! Try again!

It might be that anyone who gives their science such a carte-
blanche _is_ confusing it with religion.

That which falls outside science’s 2% of purview might be
considered, still, forgetting some handy presto-digitations with
regard to gadgetry that has brought the planet to the brink of
mass extinction and encouraged some of the most egregious
behaviors man can remotely visit on his fellow man.

Science be not proud.

And…

Translated to those who can’t read Lehmburgees;

“She’s smart but she’s not very spiritual, she don’t mean squat to a fat-assed old fart like me!”

Ok, Al; be good now and take your meds…. That’s a boy!