"white noise" monitoring?

The movie "White Noise" appears to have generated a lot of attention to this
phenomenon lately. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I have
read of several people hearing messages that have an unidentifiable language
and are believed to come from elsewhere in the Cosmos. I really wonder
about this phenomenon and whether or not it is real? Are astronomical
instruments like radio telescopes, etc able to listen to white noise the way
an apparent noisy tape recorder does? The way the supposed messages are
received almost seems too simple and contradicts, IMO, what radio telescopes
and the like have been trying to accomplish for many years now: the
determination of life outside the solar system. Is this broad white noise
wavelength something that should be monitored on a regular basis
professionally, or is this all someone's great fantasy and doesn't deserve
any more attention than it already has?

Like to read what others think. Personally, I can't say either way as I
have never conducted any white noise experiments myself, but I don't feel
very confident especially when you compare with the enormous sensitivity of
radio scopes which, to my knowledge, have never received any signals
representing intelligence elsewhere.

Thanks,
Bob

Like to read what others think.
The recordings I've heard all seem to be in modern English ;-) Odd ?
jc

--
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/jc_atm/

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 07:30:13 GMT, "Bob Cruise" wrote:

The movie "White Noise" appears to have generated a lot of attention to this
phenomenon lately. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I have
read of several people hearing messages that have an unidentifiable language
and are believed to come from elsewhere in the Cosmos. I really wonder
about this phenomenon and whether or not it is real? Are astronomical
instruments like radio telescopes, etc able to listen to white noise the way
an apparent noisy tape recorder does?

White noise is noise with an equal power over all frequency bands. Such a thing
doesn't exist (it would have infinite power) but the term is used also for noise
with equal power over a specified bandwidth. White noise is fundamentally, by
definition, random. Anything that somebody hears in this is purely a product of
their own brain.

Radio telescopes are often trained on objects which produce a distinct energy
spectrum. The signal itself is noise, but the energy isn't uniform over all
frequencies- it has "color". If not pointed at a source, the signal from a radio
telescope is close to white noise. Noise, by definition, carries no information.
When a radio telescope is used to search for intelligent signals, the spectrum
is monitored for characteristics which _deviate_ from pure noise.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 07:30:13 GMT, "Bob Cruise"
wrote:

The movie "White Noise" appears to have generated a lot of attention to
this
phenomenon lately. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I have
read of several people hearing messages that have an unidentifiable
language
and are believed to come from elsewhere in the Cosmos. I really wonder
about this phenomenon and whether or not it is real? Are astronomical
instruments like radio telescopes, etc able to listen to white noise the
way
an apparent noisy tape recorder does?

White noise is noise with an equal power over all frequency bands. Such a
thing
doesn't exist (it would have infinite power) but the term is used also for
noise
with equal power over a specified bandwidth. White noise is fundamentally,
by
definition, random. Anything that somebody hears in this is purely a
product of
their own brain.

Radio telescopes are often trained on objects which produce a distinct
energy
spectrum. The signal itself is noise, but the energy isn't uniform over
all
frequencies- it has "color". If not pointed at a source, the signal from a
radio
telescope is close to white noise. Noise, by definition, carries no
information.
When a radio telescope is used to search for intelligent signals, the
spectrum
is monitored for characteristics which _deviate_ from pure noise.

Yes, I was aware of the differences in spectrum covered by white noise and
radio scopes.

You say the white noise messages are "purely a product of their own brain".
How do you arrive at this conclusion? Do you think the messages on tape and
other recording mediums are just faked or is the subconscious somehow
placing the messages there? I know, I know, stretching the topic here, but
I'm just curious.

Bob

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"John Carruthers" wrote in message
...
Like to read what others think.
The recordings I've heard all seem to be in modern English ;-) Odd ?

One of the white noise investigation websites features recordings in unknown
languages where an analysis was done and the language didn't match with
anything human. Sorry, I can't recall the site but a Google search may find
it.

My whole point is that I wonder if white noise is worth monitoring like the
normal radio spectrum is... or whether the former is just a bunch of
fabrication.

Bob

jc

--
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/jc_atm/

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:13:56 GMT, "Bob Cruise" wrote:

You say the white noise messages are "purely a product of their own brain".
How do you arrive at this conclusion? Do you think the messages on tape and
other recording mediums are just faked or is the subconscious somehow
placing the messages there? I know, I know, stretching the topic here, but
I'm just curious.

I think that the human brain seeks out patterns, and is perfectly capable of
inventing them (consciously or otherwise) if they don't exist. Thousands of
experiments have shown just that over the years.

Noise is noise- by definition devoid of informational content. When you can put
two people in different locations, feed them the same noise source, and have
each detect the same message, I'll re-evaluate my thoughts on this. Until then,
it is much easier to believe in neural processing errors (or outright fraud)
than it is in messages transmitted in noise.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Bob Cruise wrote:
The movie "White Noise" appears to have generated a lot of attention to this
phenomenon lately. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I have
read of several people hearing messages that have an unidentifiable language
and are believed to come from elsewhere in the Cosmos. I really wonder
about this phenomenon and whether or not it is real? Are astronomical
instruments like radio telescopes, etc able to listen to white noise the way
an apparent noisy tape recorder does? The way the supposed messages are
received almost seems too simple and contradicts, IMO, what radio telescopes
and the like have been trying to accomplish for many years now: the
determination of life outside the solar system. Is this broad white noise
wavelength something that should be monitored on a regular basis
professionally, or is this all someone's great fantasy and doesn't deserve
any more attention than it already has?

Like to read what others think. Personally, I can't say either way as I
have never conducted any white noise experiments myself, but I don't feel
very confident especially when you compare with the enormous sensitivity of
radio scopes which, to my knowledge, have never received any signals
representing intelligence elsewhere.

Thanks,
Bob


Hi Bob!
It's time to do some science!
Unplug the antenna or cable from your telesvision and turn it on.
Turn the sound up. Listen for an hour or so and take notes. Provide a
transcript of any voices or conversation you hear. Alternately, you may
wish to record the white noise and post it to alt.binaries.astronomy.
We'll be most interested in your results.
Good luck!
Uncle Bob

I should add that if people are getting "messages" from white noise on their TVs
or radios, the explanation may be much simpler. No TV or radio can be tuned to
unallocated spectrum- what people call static or white noise is almost certainly
a signal, albeit with a very poor signal-to-noise ratio. A bit of discernable
image or sound from time to time is to be expected.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Like to read what others think. Personally, I can't say either way as I
have never conducted any white noise experiments myself, but I don't feel
very confident especially when you compare with the enormous sensitivity of
radio scopes which, to my knowledge, have never received any signals
representing intelligence elsewhere.

Thanks,
Bob




HI Bob:

The concept has been around for a long, long time. Before TV/Video, people were
trying to pick messages out of the Great Beyond from radio static. Being a fan
of old time pulp magazines--Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, The Shadow, etc.--I
was amused to find the "White Noise" plot prominently featured in an issue of
Doc Savage Magazine from 1938. There truly ain't nothin' new under the sun! :-)

BTW, Doc did not COMPLETELY pooh-pooh the idea, though the "spirit receiver" in
the story turned out to be a hoax.

What do I think? You can see the results of the Big Bang in that snow. But I'm
skeptical about anything else. ;-)

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

Spread spectrum signals can be broadcast at extremely low levels and
they don't alter the spectrum enough to be detectable without tremendous
effort. A receiver with the proper chipping sequence can extract the
signals from what appears to be random noise.

On the subject of anomalous detection, how do you suppose all of those
wild animals detected the imminent tsunami danger last month? Even
though they were immersed in environments full of sonic/subsonic "white
noise", their senses were able to detect the pattern of the oncoming wave.

Now I'm not saying that dead people regularly communicate with us
between AM radio channels, but it appears that sometimes noise is NOT
just "noise".


Chris L Peterson wrote:

Noise is noise- by definition devoid of informational content. When you can put
two people in different locations, feed them the same noise source, and have
each detect the same message, I'll re-evaluate my thoughts on this. Until then,
it is much easier to believe in neural processing errors (or outright fraud)
than it is in messages transmitted in noise.