Most SETI scientists now agree that any non-Earth intelligence we detect will likely be at least 100,000 years older than our civilization and therefore 100,000 years beyond our technology. Such an advanced civilization or intelligence could presumably reach our solar system in one way or another, perhaps by sending an extraordinarily smart computer embedded in a small interstellar probe. It could then monitor our telecommunications (including the World Wide Web), learn our languages, and study our society.
Our SETI project extends a friendly invitation to any form of ETI that has reached our planet (or that is monitoring us in detail from afar). The invitation also includes ten questions, suggested during a survey of 220 people in 12 countries, that we hope ETI will answer. The invitation is issued by the members of the informal Invitation to ETI group--more than 60 scientists and artists and graduate students, many of them involved in the SETI field or the annual CONTACT conference. Allen Tough is the coordinator of this group and the author of these web pages.
You can learn about the logic and the background events of this SETI project from the page About Allen Tough and the invitation. If you want a more detailed rationale, my 1999 paper on The Array of Search Strategies spells out the need for humanity to widen its efforts to achieve contact and spells out the five most promising strategies. As a general foundation for the rationale, you might be interested in my earlier wide-ranging ideas on the importance of intelligent life in the universe, its diversity, its likely purposes, its age and capacities, what we can do, and the long-term consequences of contact.
In addition, a lively newspaper article by Paul Davies spells out the logic behind a web-based invitation to ETI.
This page, created and maintained by Dr. Allen Tough, is part of a web-based Invitation to ETI. (ETI means any form of alien or extraterrestrial intelligence.) You might also be interested in our other pages. Our home page for humans presents an overview of the entire website. Our Invitation to ETI page issues our invitation, describes our hope for a worldwide dialogue, and lists our questions for ETI. Who we are describes the members of the informal group that has issued the invitation. Another page provides background information About Allen Tough and the invitation An academic paper outlines the rationale for an array of search strategies, with this invitation as one approach. You might be interested in links to further ideas. If contact or some other exciting event occurs, news will be uploaded as soon as possible to the news page and to alternate locations at GeoCities, at Netscape Netcenter, at Angelfire, and at Richard Burke-Ward's website.
The email address for Allen Tough is WelcomeETI@aol.com. His fax number is 1-416-444-5538 and his telephone is 1-416-444-3135.
Copyright © 2000 Allen Tough. All rights reserved.
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