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Fringey Mini: Transmission Undeliverable · Journey to the Fringe

• 0:00
  Okay, Chelsea, I'm not giving you an option today
• 0:03
  because I'm not going negative with it. This
• 0:06
  should actually be a pretty fun topic. You already
• 0:09
  chose what you knew I was going to choose, is
• 0:12
  what you're telling me. Yes, exactly. And as
• 0:14
  soon as you hear it, you'll know too that you
• 0:19
  would have picked this one. I always do, for
• 0:22
  the most part. Okay, tell us. This one comes
• 0:24
  from USA Today, written by Eric Legata. March
• 0:29
  11th, 2026. Article title. SETI thinks it could
• 0:32
  have missed calls from aliens. Here's why. Were
• 0:36
  we screening? We might have been. I'm getting
• 0:38
  ahead of myself. We need to listen to the article.
• 0:40
  We had that thing on where you had to do a two
• 0:44
  -factor authentication to get through. Yeah.
• 0:46
  And they weren't smart enough. Okay. That sucks
• 0:50
  for them. I just don't think they cared enough.
• 0:52
  Oh, that's true. Like, if it's like you're trying
• 0:54
  to set up a first date, are you really going
• 0:56
  to put in that much more effort if you don't
• 0:58
  even know if they're not catfishing you? And
• 1:00
  we are catfishing them. It's true. It's like
• 1:03
  one of those, I didn't really want to talk to
• 1:04
  him anyway. This is too much work. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:07
  I get it. That's the article, right? We can just
• 1:10
  end the meeting. Sorry, that was actually, that
• 1:13
  banter, it seemed like banter, but it was actually
• 1:15
  just us reading the script. For decades, humanity
• 1:19
  has scoured the cosmos for any sign that we aren't
• 1:22
  alone in the universe. NASA spacecrafts like
• 1:24
  the Twin Voyager probes launched in the 1970s
• 1:27
  bearing the iconic golden record. Exoplanet hunting
• 1:30
  missions and ground telescopes here on Earth
• 1:32
  have searched far and wide for any indications
• 1:35
  that extraterrestrials are out there. The only
• 1:38
  answer we've gotten in return? Radio silence.
• 1:41
  But now, researchers at the SETI Institute are
• 1:43
  wondering if the reason first contact is yet
• 1:46
  to be made with alien life is because we simply
• 1:48
  aren't getting their messages. I hope they're
• 1:50
  not saying we need to set up, like, a Earth -size
• 1:53
  voicemail. Because who's going to check that?
• 1:55
  It's not going to be me. Not me. No. Yeah. I
• 1:58
  do not check voicemails. Could space weather
• 2:02
  be messing with calls coming from advanced extraterrestrial
• 2:04
  life that's diluting the radio signals into something
• 2:06
  scientists on Earth tend to ignore? New research
• 2:09
  published by scientists at SETI suggests it's
• 2:12
  definitely possible. And SETI is Shortened Version
• 2:15
  of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
• 2:17
  We've talked about them quite a bit in the past,
• 2:20
  but I feel like it's actually been a couple of
• 2:21
  years since we've talked about them. I think
• 2:22
  it's many more than a couple of years now. I
• 2:25
  think time has just flown doing the thing that
• 2:28
  we love. Yes. Yep. I actually think it's closer
• 2:31
  to like five years ago. I think we did. It might
• 2:35
  have been in the second year the last time we
• 2:37
  talked about it. I think it's... might have been
• 2:38
  in a you see an alien who do you report to episode
• 2:41
  and i think we did that in year two yeah it was
• 2:44
  a long time ago yeah here's everything to know
• 2:46
  about seti's new research and how solar winds
• 2:48
  and other factors could be interfering with alien
• 2:50
  messages If aliens are trying to make contact
• 2:53
  with us here on Earth, new research suggests
• 2:55
  that commonplace space weather could be interfering
• 2:58
  with those radio signals. The study, published
• 3:01
  in March in the Astrophysical Journal by researchers
• 3:03
  at the SETI Institute, suggests radio signals
• 3:06
  from extraterrestrial intelligence could be harder
• 3:08
  to detect if solar activity in other solar systems
• 3:11
  gets in the way. For instance, if, say, aliens
• 3:14
  are attempting a transmission from an exoplanet
• 3:16
  beyond our solar system, space weather could
• 3:18
  broaden and scatter an otherwise ultra -narrow
• 3:21
  signal intended just for Earth. Spread across
• 3:23
  more frequencies, the technosignature would be
• 3:26
  far less likely to be detected in traditional
• 3:28
  narrowband researchers, SETI said in a press
• 3:30
  release. Such distortion could be caused not
• 3:33
  just by solar winds, but coronal mass ejections,
• 3:36
  bursts of plasma, and charged particles from
• 3:38
  the sun in other star systems. According to the
• 3:40
  researchers, the effect would be most common
• 3:43
  among planets orbiting low -mass M -dwarf stars,
• 3:46
  which are not only possibly habitable, but exceedingly
• 3:48
  common in the Milky Way. Quote, by quantifying
• 3:51
  how stellar activity can reshape narrowband signals,
• 3:54
  we can design searches that are better matched
• 3:57
  to what actually arrives at Earth, not just what
• 4:00
  might be transmitted. End quote. Study co -author
• 4:03
  Grace C. Brown, a research assistant at SETI,
• 4:06
  said in a statement. The research team at the
• 4:09
  Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI,
• 4:11
  why would you define it here in the article?
• 4:15
  You already defined it, don't they know? I did.
• 4:18
  There's only three or four paragraphs left. Why
• 4:21
  are you doing this? Oh no, there's actually quite
• 4:25
  a bit. No, where am I? I got lost because I got
• 4:27
  really thrown off by that. Have for years famously
• 4:32
  used radio telescopes to search for signals in
• 4:34
  outer space that could originate from intelligent
• 4:36
  life beyond our world. In September 2024, SETI
• 4:40
  took their work beyond our Milky Way galaxy,
• 4:42
  beginning the complex task of searching for signs
• 4:44
  of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in
• 4:46
  other galaxies. Using the Murchison Wide Field
• 4:49
  Array, MWA, In Western Australia, researchers
• 4:53
  began to hunt for extragalactic civilizations
• 4:55
  in more than 2880 galaxies, which SETI hailed
• 4:59
  as the first attempt to search for signs of alien
• 5:01
  technology in galaxies beyond our own. SETI's
• 5:04
  work remains ongoing to also search for signs
• 5:06
  of alien technology in the TRAPPIST -1 star system,
• 5:10
  home to several terrestrial planets similar to
• 5:12
  Earth. Of course, many people believe aliens
• 5:14
  are already here. Public interest in aliens and
• 5:17
  UFOs remains high across the U .S. and amid a
• 5:19
  series of high -profile congressional hearings
• 5:21
  in which military officers and other witnesses
• 5:23
  have testified about what they've seen. The hearings
• 5:26
  have been filled with astonishing claims of strange
• 5:28
  objects outmaneuvering U .S. aircrafts and shadowy
• 5:31
  government programs to retrieve not just downed
• 5:33
  alien spacecrafts, but the extraterrestrial pilots
• 5:35
  themselves. Well, almost all of the claims...
• 5:38
  I'm just... I need to skip... No, that's it.
• 5:40
  There was one more paragraph, and I... So they
• 5:45
  identified the problem, but they didn't tell
• 5:48
  us how they're going to overcome it, which is
• 5:50
  really bugging me a lot. You know, I think there's
• 5:52
  a lot of problems with SETI. The fact that they
• 5:56
  think that somebody's aiming right directly for
• 5:59
  Earth to send us a message. I just think the
• 6:02
  odds of that out of everything else are very
• 6:05
  small. Well, the problem is, is how are you going
• 6:08
  to see it otherwise? Like, that's the whole point
• 6:11
  of SETI is like, if we're trying to contact somebody,
• 6:15
  this is what we do. So we're going to watch for
• 6:17
  that. Yeah. And I mean, I guess that's all you
• 6:20
  got. But you got to speculate at least a little
• 6:23
  bit. Otherwise, you got to think out. Outside
• 6:25
  the box a bit. Exactly. Not just what we would
• 6:27
  do because not everybody's going to be us. In
• 6:30
  fact, the odds of somebody else being us are
• 6:33
  very small, I think. Yeah, unless you listen
• 6:35
  to David Wilcox when it's just humans out there
• 6:38
  and that's it. It's true. In maybe a really racist
• 6:41
  kind of way. that's true and i had more points
• 6:46
  to make than this i don't know i feel like that
• 6:49
  was a poorly written article that only half addressed
• 6:51
  the issue they addressed the issue and then just
• 6:54
  left it there i think we addressed the issue
• 6:56
  better than them Yeah, we defined people better
• 7:00
  than them. Exactly. I might not be using USA
• 7:03
  Today anymore. And all my ideas have left my
• 7:07
  head for some reason. I think I made enough points.
• 7:09
  Yeah. I got 48 hours. Well, you do. But I just
• 7:12
  want to address one issue I have with this website
• 7:14
  too, now that I'm just realizing it. This article
• 7:17
  was published on March 11th on USA Today. And
• 7:21
  we're recording this on March 15th. And I feel
• 7:23
  they should only be able to have articles on
• 7:25
  their website from March 15th today. Because
• 7:28
  it is USA Today, not USA March 11th. That's the
• 7:32
  problem. Maybe. I think we figured out the problem.
• 7:34
  The quality just drops off the day after. The
• 7:38
  day after it updates and becomes very shitty
• 7:40
  quality. You got to believe if it was March 11th,
• 7:44
  it was impeccable. And that's why all the ideas
• 7:50
  left my head. It's because this episode is being
• 7:53
  recorded. It's deteriorating badly as time goes.
• 7:57
  Yep. This episode comes on on a day that's not
• 8:00
  today. Therefore, all my thoughts are gone. Yeah.
• 8:03
  Hey, you guys got 48 hours. See how much you
• 8:05
  deteriorate in that time. It happens. Trust me.
• 8:08
  Bye.