High Strangeness
Aliens could get in touch tomorrow and we must know what to say to them, scientists have warned, as they launched a new research hub to prepare humanity for first contact.
The University of St Andrews has joined forces with the UK SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Network to establish protocols and procedures if aliens are found.
The team warn that although there are measures in place for dealing with threats posed by asteroid impacts, there is no agreed response if a radio signal were picked up from another intelligent lifeform.
The Seti Post-Detection Hub will bring together experts from around the world to decide how to decipher methods, enact space law and anticipate societal impacts.
Dr John Elliott, honorary research fellow in the School of Computer Science at St Andrews and coordinator of the Hub, said: "Will we ever get a message from ET? We don't know. We also don't know when this is going to happen.
"But we do know that we cannot afford to be ill prepared - scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless - for an event that could turn into reality as early as tomorrow and which we cannot afford to mismanage.
"We need to coordinate our expert knowledge not only for assessing the evidence but also for considering the human social response, as our understanding progresses and what we know and what we don't know is communicated. And the time to do this is now."

In the film, Carlos De Sousa describes seeing the UFO rocking and jerking around in the sky before crashing to the ground.
Seven days later, two sisters aged 14 and 16, and a 21-year-old friend spot a tiny, frightened alien with big red eyes, crouching by a wall. They run screaming back to their mother.
The Brazilian police and military capture at least two aliens, one of which scratches an officer, infecting and ultimately killing him, before dying along with its extraterrestrial comrades. The US Air Force confiscates the alien bodies and takes them to an unknown location. A vast cover-up by the Brazilian military, enforced with death threats, lasts for 26 years.
But if it's all made up, it is one of the greatest works of science fiction in history. Most everyone who hears the witnesses tell their story a quarter century later is convinced they are telling the truth.
NASA announced the 16 people who will spend the next nine months studying unidentified aerial phenomena, also known as UFOs.
Using unclassified data, the team will "lay the groundwork for future study" of UFOs by examining how the data is gathered by the public, local government and other sources. The goal is to have a roadmap for NASA's data analysis on the flying objects, and determine what events are natural or not.

A graphic shows the location and dates of the several reported UFO sightings, mainly in the Pacific Ocean, that occurred in August and September of 2022.
A series of strange UFO incidents over the Pacific Ocean this summer were captured on video and in air traffic control recordings after sightings by dozens of pilots.
Experienced captains and one former F-18 pilot told DailyMail.com they saw bright lights moving in elongated circles or 'race tracks' for hours high in the sky while they flew on routes from Japan and Hawaii towards the US West Coast in August and September.
The incidents were reported to the FAA, and a researcher obtained dramatic audio of the pilots calling in the strange sightings to Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC).
The skies over Kyiv are swarming with unidentified flying objects (UFOs), according to a new report from the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Of course, given that Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a months-long war that relies heavily on aircraft and drones, it's likely that many of these so-called UFOs are military tools that appear too fleetingly to identify, a U.S. intelligence agency has speculated.
The Black Vault says that, since April 2020, it has been attempting to get all videos of UFOs (also called unidentified aerial phenomena) possessed by the Navy via a FOIA request.
After receiving several rejections in which the Navy would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the videos, the group says it received a response denying the request for the "sensitive information."
According to its website, the creature was spotted twice this summer -- once on July 5 and then another time on Aug. 2.
The first sighting was reported near a powerline cut, which the report says is common for Bigfoot sightings. The area is near Clover in York County. A professional forester reported hearing a knocking noise and a strange smell in the area. He also said he found a large area of grass that was compressed "as if something large is sleeping there regularly."
Comment: Explore Beaufort SC reported further:
See also:In a follow up report, BFRO researcher and star of the hit Travel Channel show 'Expedition Bigfoot', Matt Moneymaker said that, "the witness who reported the sighting is Dr. Bob Frady, a retired forensic psychologist from Georgia. The other two witnesses are also retired professionals. They are not making up a story. All three saw the Sasquatch briefly at close range, in full daylight."
It's not the first time that someone says they saw a Bigfoot in Beaufort County. There have been numerous occurrences of people on social media saying they've seen monkeys crossing the roads on Hunting Island, and there is another report from a resident in Bluffton that was filed with the BFRO in October of 2008.
"I was part of a government cover-up for 17 years. I was the officer in charge of photographic instrumentation at Vandenberg Air Force Base from 1963 to 66." Bob Jacobs said in an October 2021 press conference.
He was in charge of a 100-man unit responsible for photographing and videoing top secret intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Stationed in what is now Vandenberg Space Force Base near Los Angeles, California, his boss Major Mansmann asked him to install a new super long-range video camera system north in Big Sur.
The new theodolite, or telescope, could "see with clarity at 160 miles! (257km) It was incredible," Jacobs described.
Lieutenant Jacobs did as ordered. He took his team to Big Sur, a picturesque national park near Monterrey in Central California, and set up the massive new device. It proved much more capable than the previous system.
As first reported by researcher Douglas Johnson, a draft bill approved unanimously by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence rebrands UFOs as "unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena." Expanding the definition to include objects in space and under the oceans significantly broadens the scope of a muscular new office tasked by Congress with investigating UFOs.
The revised definition of "UFO" also includes "transmedium" objects which, according to lawmakers, "transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water."
In short, members of a key national security-focused committee believe that objects of unknown origin are demonstrating remarkably advanced technology by moving seamlessly between space, air and water. A report accompanying the legislation notes that "transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially."

The Calvine photo, taken in August 1990, had disappeared for 32 years before resurfacing. This photo is a copy of one of the original prints, kept by former RAF officer Craig Lindsay.
For 32 years that image, dubbed the "Calvine photo," disappeared from the public eye, becoming the object of speculation, theories and myths. But now, the groundbreaking image has finally resurfaced thanks to the efforts of British journalist David Clarke.
After 13 years of research, Clarke — who has worked as a curator for Britain's National Archives and is currently an associate professor at Sheffield Hallam University — found that former Royal Air Force (RAF) press officer Craig Lindsay had held on to a copy of the last remaining original print, waiting for someone to enquire about the mysterious image.
Comment: From Black Vault's announcement: Some fruits of their labor: