So what three television shows would you broadcast to the universe?

[shadowkat]

This just has to be shared...

Seven New Earth Sized Planets with Water Have Been Discovered in the Trappist-1 System and May House Alien Lifeforms.

Trappist by the way stands for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile, which initially detected three of the planets in May 2016.

Now this is the part made me laugh...and got me pondering...and feel the need to share with everyone.

If advanced intelligent life has evolved in the TRAPPIST-1 system, they could already have detected our radio and television transmissions. Our broadcasts of Happy Days, Three’s Company, and Charlie’s Angels are arriving there now. Our own SETI (the Search for Extra- terrestrial Intelligence) has monitored the TRAPPIST-1 system for any artificial radio signals but so far has not detected any alien transmissions. Further surveys however, will be conducted in the future.

While a great many Earth-sized extra-solar planets (exoplanets, for short) have already been catalogued, this discovery brings us another step closer to answering one of the big questions in the universe. Are we alone?

Okay, admittedly they probably did this back in the 1970s, but they couldn't have found anything better to broadcast than Happy Days, Three's Company and Charlie's Angels? I mean come on...there had to have been something...what about Star Trek? Granted I'm not sure Twilight Zone, Doctor Who, or Six Million Dollar Man would have been a good idea.

Anyhow this got me to pondering..."What three television series would I broadcast out into space? Keeping in mind that this may be the only information that an alien race in the universe receives about my species?"

It also inspired me to add a conversation about Charlies Angels to my sci-fi novel. While working on solving a technical issue, an alien and a human engineer discuss Charlie's Angels.

"Who is this Charlie?" asks the alien.

"He's a billionaire who hires three woman to work as his investigative team."

"Yes, I gathered that. But why would beautiful women work for a guy who just calls them on the phone and never appears face to face?"

"He pays them lots of money, you'd be surprised what people used to do for money."

"Actually, no. We sort of counted on that. How do you think we managed to invade and conguer your planet successfully. And while puzzling, the billionaire worship does explain your choice of Donald Trump as President. We had wondered about that. Not that it would have mattered. We would have invaded regardless. But back to Charlies Angels - why are they called Angels?"


I still need to work on that. But it does inspire all sorts of delightful sci-fi fiction dialogue doesn't it? I mean can you imagine what an alien race would make of Happy Days, Charlies Angels and Three's Company? They must think we're terribly sexist.

Also, if you had to choose three television serials to broadcast into space to alien worlds, which would you pick? I mean this is your job and you have to do it. Choose three, and think about the consequences. (Ie, I don't think the Walking Dead, A Handmaid's Tale, American Gods or Game of Thrones would be a good idea. Then again, they might scare off the aliens...so who knows.)

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

They must think we're terribly sexist.

So completely accurate then. Three's Company is particularly bizarre because that show wouldn't even make sense today. Am I correct in assuming that all 3 were ABC shows? Maybe it had something to do with securing rights to them.

[shadowkat]

The responses below interpreted it differently, and think that maybe they broadcasted a lot of things into outer-space via SETI and this information is just now being perceived. But still, they couldn't have found something else?

Three's Company is particularly bizarre because that show wouldn't even make sense today.

Exactly. Although it was a top-rated show at the time. The social satire would confuse today's audience.

Am I correct in assuming that all 3 were ABC shows? Maybe it had something to do with securing rights to them

Hmmm...good point and yes, I think they were all ABC series.

[rahirah]

I thought they meant a general 'our,' just that that era of shows are the ones reaching that system now from earth, not that SETI broadcast them. But that's a very cool article. It made me wonder how common tidally locked worlds are as opposed to rotating ones...

[shadowkat]

In re-reading the article, I think you might be right. Although why they chose those particular shows...

It does rise various new questions regarding the type of planetary systems and worlds are out there.

Particularly liked this bit:

Three of the planets orbit within their star’s habitable zone – the distance from a star that’s not too hot or too cold – where water, if present, could exist in a liquid state on a planet’s surface. Never before have so many planets been detected within the habitable zone of a single star. In fact, it’s possible that liquid water might exist on all 7 planets if the atmospheres of these worlds have the right conditions.

Finally, the distance to the system is only 39.5 light-years – putting future study of the planets’ atmospheric compositions within reach of the next generation of telescopes. Detection of oxygen and other biologically-generated gases could reveal an alien eco-system.

That's not that far - 39.5 light years...the sci-fi writer/reader/fan in me is jumping up and down with glee!

[questioncurl]

Isn't it that all TV and radio broadcasts are slowly making their way out into space, and right now the shows from that era would be reaching this particular system? In that case, they're also getting a lot of useful farming information from India—we had Krishi Darshan, meant for farmers at the time, along with a lot of ads promoting national integration and telling people not to waste water and electricity. Though I wonder how intelligible those old recordings are now...

[shadowkat]

I didn't know that India had sent farming information. That's rather fascinating and informative.

Not sure if it's all television broadcasts and radio broadcasts...or just the ones that SETI intentionally started sending in the 1980s. I looked up SETI on google and it's not clear what they did. Nor is it in the article. The article appears to presume that they broadcast those shows.

And good point on how intelligible the old recordings are...

[cjlasky7]

Planet Earth, Cosmos, and....

Gilligan's Island.

The aliens would be fascinated by the variety of flora and fauna on our planet. They'd get a good laugh out of what we think is going on in the universe. And they'd get all sorts of information about human society and what we think is funny from GI. They'd have a million questions:

"Why doesn't the scientist create a simple null-grav engine from the indigenous plant life? Why do they not eat the sea captain for his bountiful nutrients? And why does no one see that Mary Anne is so much hotter than Ginger?"

[shadowkat]

I was pondering how much information we'd want to send out. Although the other's responding to this thread pointed out that we may not have been intentional and it may just be going out there randomly. In which case...oh dear. That's a lot of info. Although how intelligible it would be after being spread across 39.5 light years....

GI? The big question on that one...is how did they get lost on a three hour tour of a bunch of islands in the Pacific? And why weren't they ever rescued? And how come they couldn't build a boat from the indigenous plant life on the island? (Let's face it Gilligan's Island makes no sense.)

And why haven't Mary Anne and Ginger hooked up yet? Or why isn't the tree and the Professor having a fling? For that matter why haven't the plants eaten the weird bi-pedal humans? Where are the dolphins in this story?

[dlgood]

Here I was thinking we'd send "Cheers" out into space.

[shadowkat]

That would have made more sense. Particularly after doing a bit of research and discovering they didn't intentionally start sending stuff until Carl Sagan got involved in the 1980s.

Cheers at least was good. I'd have sent Cheers out. It's innocuous and well written.