Private Groups To Carry Out SETI/CETI?

Does this mean anything to you?

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11111011111011111011111
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11111000000000000011111
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11000011000011100011000
10000000100000000010000
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11111011111011111011111
00000000000000000000000
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11111000001100000011111
00000000001100000000000
00100000000100000000100
00010000001100000001000
00001100001100000010000
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00000000001100110000000
00000011000100001100000
00001100001100000010000
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00100000001100000000100
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01000000000100000001000
00100000001000000010000
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00100000001000000000000
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00100001011101001011011
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10111000011100000110111
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00100000010100000111111
00100000010100000110000
00100000110110000000000
00000000000000000000000
00111000001000000000000
00111010100010101010101
00111000000000101010100
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01100110000000110011000
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00000100010100010000000
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01111001111101001111000

It's the binary code and it is much talked about by some people who have very little background information on it.  I'll let Wikipedia do its job here:

The Arecibo message is a 1974 interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth sent to globular star cluster M13 in the hope that extraterrestrial intelligence might receive and decipher it. The message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974. The message was aimed at the current location of M13 some 25,000 light years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony. The message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 450  kW. The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second. The total broadcast was less than three minutes.

The number 1,679 was chosen because it is a semiprime (the product of two prime numbers), to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns. The alternative arrangement, 23 rows by 73 columns, produces an unintelligible set of characters (as do all other X/Y formats). The message forms the image shown on the right, or its inverse, when translated into graphics, characters, and spaces.

Dr. Frank Drake, then at Cornell University and creator of the Drake equation, wrote the message with help from Carl Sagan, among others. The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down):

1. The numbers one (1) to ten (10) (white)

1. The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (purple)

1. The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA (green)

1. The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA (white & blue)

1. A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth (red, blue/white, & white respectively)

1. A graphic of the Solar System indicating which of the planets the message is coming from (yellow)

1. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish (purple, white, & blue)

1. The numbers one (1) to ten (10) (white)

1. The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (purple)

1. The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA (green)

1. The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA (white & blue)

1. A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth (red, blue/white, & white respectively)

1. A graphic of the Solar System indicating which of the planets the message is coming from (yellow)

1. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish (purple, white, & blue)

Since it will take nearly 25,000 years for the message to reach its intended destination (and an additional 25,000 years for any reply), the Arecibo message is viewed as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials. In fact, the core of M13, to which the message was aimed, will no longer be in that location when the message arrives. However, as the proper motion of M13 is small, the message will still arrive near the center of the cluster. According to the Cornell News press release of November 12, 1999, the real purpose of the message was not to make contact but to demonstrate the capabilities of newly installed equipment

This is how the image looks -the coloured version is not the original but produced to isolate the various elements.

Here is the enlarged colour version.

And here is an image of M13

This image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the core of the great globular cluster Messier 13 and provides an extraordinarily clear view of the hundreds of thousands of stars in the cluster, one of the brightest and best known in the sky. Just 25 000 light-years away and about 145 light-years in diameter, Messier 13 has drawn the eye since its discovery by Edmund Halley, the noted British astronomer, in 1714. The cluster lies in the constellation of Hercules and is so bright that under the right conditions it is even visible to the unaided eye. As Halley wrote: “This is but a little Patch, but it shews it self to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Messier 13 was the target of a symbolic Arecibo radio telescope message that was sent in 1974, communicating humanity’s existence to possible extraterrestrial intelligences. However, more recent studies suggest that planets are very rare in the dense environments of globular clusters. This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. Data through a blue filter (F435W) are coloured blue, data through a red filter (F625W) are coloured green and near-infrared data (through the F814W filter) are coloured red. The exposure times are 1480 s, 380 s and 567 s respectively and the field of view is about 2.5 arcminutes across.

ESA/Hubble and NASA - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1011a/

The idea of sending a message to somewhere that will take 25,000 years and 25,000 years more to get a response is inane.  The whole idea I understand but surely it would have then been better to send the signal out -even randomly- into other areas of space?

Our attempts at trying to contact extraterrestrial life are all rather hit-and-miss because we then have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for future humans, who may find them. The records are considered as a sort of a time capsule.

Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years' distance of the star Gliese 445, currently in the constellation Camelopardalis, in about 40,000 years.

Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Now look at the Nearest Stars as shown below.  Why has no one attempted to send the binary code message, or any other signal, towards those stars?  As discussed in UFO Contact? our radio and TV signals have now.  Since the first mass radio signals in 1922/1923 over 100 light years of space (in a sphere shape) have been spanned by our radio signals.  Our TV signals  have reached as far out as 74 light years away -50 light years away the TV series The Twilight Zone is just arriving.

A song broadcast today would take four years to reach Alpha Centauri -our closest neighbour at 4.3 light years.

So why are we not broadcasting to our nearest neighbours?  Could it be just a case of "creating jobs for life" or is it fear of what might be "out there"?

It may just be that Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Communication with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (CETI) needs to be carried out by private organisations as well as the established bodies who have, frankly, never been that clear -"We may have a signal....oh it wasn't a signal" and even, after decades, they still argue over the "WOW!" signal.

Those multi-billionairs who want to get into the history books?  Here's where you get in!