Could Aliens Be Using Light to Communicate? A New Era of SETI with Shelley Wright

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pique is offering 20% off for life AND a free Starter Kit with your purchase—that's a rechargeable frother and glass beaker to make the perfect cup every time. Just go to http://piquelife.com/impossible Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Are We Searching for Aliens the Wrong Way? Historically, SETI has focused primarily on radio waves because they can travel vast distances through interstellar gas and dust with minimal absorption and require less energy to transmit compared to other wavelengths. This approach dates back to the 1960s, when astronomer Frank Drake conducted the first modern SETI experiment, Project Ozma. However, in recent years, optical SETI and infrared SETI have started to gain traction. Here today to tell us everything about this new era of SETI is the remarkable observational and experimental astrophysicist Shelley Wright! Shelley is a Professor of Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Physics at UCSD. She specializes in designing and using astronomical instruments that make use of adaptive optics, with a particular focus on techniques involving integral field spectrographs. As a SETI researcher and instrumentalist, there is no one better to shed light on this topic than her! Join us in our hunt for extraterrestrial life. — Key Takeaways: 00:00 Reflections on my conversation with Eric and Avi 11:42 Intro: Shelley Wright 12:40 Shelley’s background 13:33 Drake equation and life in the universe 19:42 Instrument development 26:09 Optical SETI and Fresnel lenses 28:03 SETI vs. radio listening 31:48 Background contamination and protocols 33:50 Ethical considerations and messaging aliens 35:09 Life on Mars and the origins of life 39:09 UAP committee and conspiracy theories 50:21 Galileo Project 52:00 Final thoughts and advice 56:34 Outro — Additional resources: ➡️ Learn more about Shelley Wright: 💻 Website: https://saw.physics.ucsd.edu/ ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast — Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:00.0	Apply with £100,000 annual income or £100,000 savings or investments with HSBC UK or Premier status abroad. Just before we begin today's episode with the inimitable Shelley Wright, my colleague here at UC San Diego,
1:07.1	I want to share a couple of reflections that I had from my conversation last week's
1:11.3	podcast with Avi Loeb and my friend Eric Weinstein. And it's kind of remarkable for me because
1:18.1	Eric was one of the first guests I had on the podcast when it started in earnest in 2020
1:23.4	during the plan pandemic, however you want to call it. And he's been a frequent guest, or he was a
1:30.3	frequent guest for the subsequent three years that followed. And then something changed,
1:35.6	something happened either in our relationship or in our ability to get together and record a
1:41.3	podcast, even though we got together many times for other occasions,
1:45.1	including multiple trips to Italy and many dinners in Los Angeles at very delightful kosher
1:51.3	restaurants throughout that fair city before it was subsequently scorched this past year.
1:58.0	And something had changed and it wasn't exactly clear what had happened in the
2:02.8	last two years since I had him on for a dedicated episode. And that was actually a two-part episode.
2:08.6	And you can find that in the back catalog with one part with Daniel Green, another professor,
2:14.6	colleague of mine here at UC San Diego, and then a solo episode
2:18.7	of Eric and myself covering many topics, and it was about a year into the Ukraine invasion by
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