The following article from the Daily Mail is of interest, in as much, a BBC "trustee" seems to have upset high ranking staff when wanting to find out if a "newly discovered planet" had any signals from Alien life forms. In case you have not come across information about the "Wow" signal before here is a YouTube that explains what was behind Brians idea.
A brief clip from our recent special "A Message From Space", celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Was Stanley Kubrick scooped on "2001: A Space Odyssey"? For a moment there, he sure thought so.
Stargazer Live presenter poked fun at Corporation for their cautious approach to significant discovery
Recalled time when one BBC employee asked 'if there would be a prize' for discovering life on Mars
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The quest to discover life on other planets knows no boundaries. Apart from BBC health and safety guidelines, that is.
Professor Brian Cox has told how corporation bosses blocked his plans to try to make contact with a newly discovered planet – just in case some aliens happened to answer back.
The physicist and TV host claimed they were worried the experiment, to be staged live on air during his hit BBC2 show Stargazing Live, might pick up a signal from ‘an alien civilisation’ – which is apparently a breach of corporation guidelines.
He had hoped to point a radio telescope at Threapleton Holmes B, the planet discovered by amateur stargazers during a project publicised on his show.
The telescope, based at Manchester University’s Jodrell Bank Observatory, picks up radio emission from planets.
But the experiment never went ahead for fear it would breach health and safety regulations, Prof Cox claimed yesterday in a radio interview on BBC6 Music.
‘We decided that we’d point the Jodrell Bank telescope at the planet that had been discovered by these two viewers and listen because no one had ever pointed a radio telescope at it and you never know,’ he recalled.
‘The BBC actually said, “But you can’t do that because we need to go through the regulations and health and safety and everything in case we discover a signal from an alien civilisation”.
‘(I said), “You mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you’re worried about the health and safety of it?” It was incredible. They did have guidelines. Compliance.’
Click source to read FULL report from Eleanor Harding
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