China evacuates 9,110 people because of...aliens?!

China has served "evacuation" notices to over 9,000 rural villagers because of aliens. Villagers have been offered a one-time cash payment as compensation while China builds the largest radio telescope on the planet dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial communications.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Chinese officials have served notice to 9,110 rural villagers in Guizhou province, telling them they must leave the area soon. In addition to the hasty evictions, villagers are being offered 12,000 yuan, (about $1,800). The Chinese officials are referring to the forced migration as an "evacuation."

Villagers are being told to depart is because the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope is near completion. The new telescope will be the largest radio telescope on the planet, once construction is finished in September 2016.

The reason villagers must be cleared out of the area is because the radio telescope will be extremely sensitive. A person using a microwave oven, even far from the telescope, could interfere with reception. Such incidents have caused false alarms before.

The new dish will listen to the heavens in hopes of detecting an intelligible signal from an alien civilization.  So far, this remains the best means we have of surveying the skies for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

However, one cost of the program is the displacement of 9,110 people. These people may not feel they are receiving a sufficient compensation and for them to find new homes may prove difficult, even with $1,800 in hand.

Perhaps if aliens certainly existed and we could learn something of value from them, the displacement could be worth the trouble, but the present search is almost certain to be fruitless. Even if the universe teems with life, there is no reason to believe alien communications are close enough and powerful enough to be detected in the radio spectrum. There are also billions of possible frequencies that will need to be searched, a difficult task even for a 500-meter radio telescope. An advanced civilization may even communicate by means we can't even imagine yet. Radio waves are fine for terrestrial communication, but interstellar communication with radio waves would take years to centuries.

Astronomers hope the next-generation James Webb space telescope will make the search for life easier by studying the light that passes through the atmosphere of distant planets. Such a search could help discover life long before a radio did picks up a signal -assuming there is a signal to be heard anyway. Best of all, since that telescope will be launched into space, it will not displace people from their homes.

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