Is it true that the first human aliens will see is Hitler?

[cclark777]

Hey like I said there is no need to worry he will be the second ... ok well the second visual refeince from us and up intill then all they would be hearing us speak in english. So "Felix The Cat" will be the first images that they see not hitler. I actualy fell sorry for them, but then again we would just be receving there first Broudcast's also UNLESS they were less advanved than us or any of many other factors.

 

[Naskra]

I always asssumed the aliens would have cable. They can get their fill of Hitler on the History Channel.

 

[The Yankee]

Won't they think us weird?

We are weird. But anyway, we won't know the answer for a long, long time, if ever. Unless the images have made their way over there already. After 80 years, those aliens must be pretty close.

 

[cclark777]

This is assuming that aliens exist in the first place.

Well if you mean something from another planet, ya they exist. we have evedince on earth of anchent orginisums from mars and one of jupters moons more than likely has life. well no one ever said intellagent for that you would have to use "THE EQUATION".

Were asuming they are as advanced as us now what if they were still in their Pre-WWII Tech. stage of development assuming all races go through some simular order as we did. then they would just be able to get the image or hear the sounds or else we would have been hearing them long before they heard us, that is unless they developed quicker but for the sake of argument lets say all races develop about the same pace. We had a loss and a junp in technology so I would say we are even with the normal development and could use us as an example.

then again this is all guess work and theory on my part

 

[Dutch Canuck]

Like someone else previously said, there's is no reason to assume the first transmissons from Earth that aliens pick up will be the TV coverage of Hitler's speeches. If aliens are even bothering to look in our direction, and when they choose to do so, the first signals could be I Love Lucy, or Chairman Mao's speeches, or a cheesy episode of Dr. Who (and the Daleks), or Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that Wall!", or a Star Trek episode, or a Godzilla movie on TV, or Anime from Japan, or some boring weather channel, or the world wide coverage of 9/11, or The Golf Channel, or - horrors - pornography!

Um, maybe better not dwell on it too much - I'm afraid we have too many embarassments on TV and radio...

 

[qwert]

Well, I don´t think that that broadcast wast powerfull enough in order to be received at very long distances. And even in that case they could have a really hard time triyng to diference it from simple "noyse" and not to speak about deciphering it.

As an example: todays radio telescopes could detect a human like radio- emiting civilization from a distance of more or less 200 ligth years, thats not much if we take into account that the Milky Way (our Galaxy) is more than 100000 light-years wide. So imagine how far a transmision of 1936 would reach.
There is no radio emiting civilizations in at least 40 light-years around us, probably more, so it is not very probably that they are going to see Hitlers boroadcast. (assuming that the fact that there is nobody emiting means that there is nobody listening).

Of course the galaxy is quite old, thi would mean that if there are extraterrestial civilizations out there, statistically it is more probably that they are older and because of this more advanced than us, but even taking into acount their tecnology, they could probably have it very hard in order to receive and understand it. Te only use they would make of it is to find us.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, being older than us doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. For over 100,000 years of being modern humans, we were hunter-gatherers; it is only in the last 8000 years that we developed farming, and everything else came fairly rapidly. But the development of farming came from factors out of our control, so it is quite plausible that we or any other race would have continued as such for many more thousands of years. The idea that lots of time necessarily means technological progress is not really borne out by human history.

 

[EdwardTking]

Earlier broadcasts were less powerful and might not be detected.
And even if they were detected, there would likely be signal loss.

I think that it would be much easier for aliens to assemble
picture frames than to translate an unknown language.

A very frequently repeated advertisement which would be
received many times, albeit each time with heavy loss, would
be statistically reconstructable by alien AI and is in my humble
opinion likely to be their first viewing of humananity or human art.

 

[Orthodox Warior]

Earlier broadcasts were less powerful and might not be detected.
And even if they were detected, there would likely be signal loss.

I think that it would be much easier for aliens to assemble
picture frames than to translate an unknown language.

A very frequently repeated advertisement which would be
received many times, albeit each time with heavy loss, would
be statistically reconstructable by alien AI and is in my humble
opinion likely to be their first viewing of humananity or human art.

Unless they already know about us for a long time

 

[Naval Power]

It's not like they'd know what he was saying anyway or who he turned out to be.

 

[TheDervish]

Let us pray that the aliens that find it are not a highly advanced form of Jukebox's.

In that case, we're all screwed;

 

[qwert]

Actually, being older than us doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. For over 100,000 years of being modern humans, we were hunter-gatherers; it is only in the last 8000 years that we developed farming, and everything else came fairly rapidly. But the development of farming came from factors out of our control, so it is quite plausible that we or any other race would have continued as such for many more thousands of years. The idea that lots of time necessarily means technological progress is not really borne out by human history.

True, but I was not refering to an extraterrestial inteligence, i was refering to an civilization which can receive radio signals, which necessarily means that they have some form of technology.
Not only, it is true that we only know farming since the last 8000-10000 Years, but we are speaking of the universe, which is quite old (some 15 billion Years (american billion)) while our planet is really young (some 5 billion years). That leaves a space of many years during which other planets could have developed life while our planet didn´t even exist.
Because it is very improvable that any complex species survives such long time the only way this could happen is through the development of a technological civilization.

This also leads to the following conclusions:
a) Intelligent life has only apeared on other planets recently. (statistically wery improbable)
b) Intelligent life apeared on other planets long ago but it didn´t create a civilization, which would mean they are probably extinct.
c) Intelligent life apeared long ago and has survived until today thanks to the use of technology.


As a sidenote: This last option leads to some interesting questions which deal with the existence of inteligent life in outher space known as the Fermi Paradox.