SETI.ORG - Beyond Disclosure Day: The Real-World Protocols

[Gary C]

Contrary to the characterizations of believers, working scientists do think about these questions and put some effort into planning for the possibility of discovering an NHI.

At a Glance:

• What: The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has ratified updated protocols governing how scientists evaluate, verify, and announce evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
• Why it matters: The guidelines are the first major revision in more than 15 years and address today's realities of social media, AI-generated misinformation, deepfakes, and 24-hour news cycles.
• Led by: Professor Michael Garrett (University of Manchester), Chair of the IAA SETI Committee, with contributions from an international team of experts.
• Key change: Any potential detection must undergo rigorous independent verification before a public announcement is made.
• Expanded scope: The protocols now reflect modern SETI research, including searches for technosignatures across the electromagnetic spectrum and other emerging detection methods.
• Researcher protections: New provisions acknowledge risks such as online harassment, doxxing, misinformation campaigns, and intense media scrutiny.
• No Reply policy remains: The protocols reaffirm that no response should be sent to an extraterrestrial intelligence without broad international consultation, including through the United Nations.
• What's next: The updated Declaration will be presented to the global scientific community at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Türkiye later this year, and the IAA will establish a permanent Post-Detection Sub-Committee to address legal, ethical, and societal implications of a confirmed discovery.
• Full Declaration: https://iaaspace.org/wp-content/uploads/iaa/Scientific Activity/iaasetideclaration.pdf

Link to the PR - https://www.seti.org/news/beyond-disclosure-day/

 

[FatPhil]

[*]Key change: Any potential detection must undergo rigorous independent verification before a public announcement is made.

Am I the only one who detects a contradiction in that statement?

I'm not saying that I disagree with their assumptions about how many aliens can dance on the head of a pin, but for complete balance I eagerly await equivalent protocol announcements from the bigfoot and faerie hunters.

 

[Gary C]

I suppose the difference comes down to SETI.org knowing it's membership while the requirement for becoming a fairy hunter is an internet connection.
Maybe.

 

[John J.]

Any potential detection must undergo rigorous independent verification before a public announcement is made.

Am I the only one who detects a contradiction in that statement?

Maybe not a contradiction, I think the IAA is suggesting that the hypothetical discoverers ask other observatories (or whatever) to independently check their observations/ data in confidence, and that this should be done before any public announcement by any of the parties involved.

It might be questionable whether this would happen in the way the IAA authors hope it would. I doubt that IAA has many sanctions available, or legal authority, to prevent leaks or individual scientists/ teams doing what they want. To some, going down in history as the person/ team who divulged the discovery of ETI to the world might outweigh the risk of having their IAA membership cancelled.

I quite like the IAA 2026 Position Paper, but in the real world the IAA's influence and authority is probably very limited.
If, say, a Chinese radio astronomy team detected a candidate signal, they might feel compelled to inform the political authorities who would then determine the course of action, which might or might not align with IAA advice.

 

[MapperGuy]

Am I the only one who detects a contradiction in that statement?

I'm not saying that I disagree with their assumptions about how many aliens can dance on the head of a pin, but for complete balance I eagerly await equivalent protocol announcements from the bigfoot and faerie hunters.

Maybe not a contradiction, I think the IAA is suggesting that the hypothetical discoverers ask other observatories (or whatever) to independently check their observations/ data in confidence, and that this should be done before any public announcement by any of the parties involved.

It might be questionable whether this would happen in the way the IAA authors hope it would. I doubt that IAA has many sanctions available, or legal authority, to prevent leaks or individual scientists/ teams doing what they want. To some, going down in history as the person/ team who divulged the discovery of ETI to the world might outweigh the risk of having their IAA membership cancelled.

I quite like the IAA 2026 Position Paper, but in the real world the IAA's influence and authority is probably very limited.
If, say, a Chinese radio astronomy team detected a candidate signal, they might feel compelled to inform the political authorities who would then determine the course of action, which might or might not align with IAA advice.

And SETI is actually operating in a rather narrow specialized framework. Radio communication that appears to be from aliens. With emphasis on the APPEARS part, since the potential for spoofing by clever humans would have to be investigated.

SETI's main focus, while they may not want to say so, is making very sure that they don't make an announcement only for fakers to then reveal the trick.

 

[FatPhil]

And SETI is actually operating in a rather narrow specialized framework. Radio communication that appears to be from aliens. With emphasis on the APPEARS part, since the potential for spoofing by clever humans would have to be investigated.

SETI's main focus, while they may not want to say so, is making very sure that they don't make an announcement only for fakers to then reveal the trick.

Then don't announce to the public your conclusion, instead just release your data. If there's only one possible conclusion, everyone will reach it, and you're golden. Don't Pons & Fleischmann.

 

[John J.]

SETI's main focus, while they may not want to say so, is making very sure that they don't make an announcement only for fakers to then reveal the trick.

Hoax signals are probably an important consideration for anyone involved in SETI. Incidental noise from terrestrial sources at least as much.

The discoverers of LGM-1 (pulsar PSR B1919+21), the first pulsar detected, 1967, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1919+21) thought that

Due to its almost perfect regularity, it was at first assumed to be spurious noise, but this hypothesis was promptly discarded.

I've always thought this interesting. I'd guess there are many more radio sources now than in 1967, but on receiving a regular repeated signal the assumption was that it was terrestrial in origin. There was awareness that it could be artificial, "LGM-1" is from "Little Green Men".

Before the nature of the signal was determined, the researchers, Bell Burnell and her PhD supervisor Antony Hewish, considered the possibility of extraterrestrial life:
"We did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem – if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe, how does one announce the results responsibly? Who does one tell first?"

Wikipedia, as above. Maybe Bell Burnell's words had some influence, directly or indirectly, on the IAA's thoughts on the matter.

There was no public announcement until further observations found similar signals from another point in the sky, and it was realised the findings were consistent with theoretical models of rotating neutron stars. No leaks, no News of the World front page, no dramatic press conference. No government or MiB involvement, just a group of grown-ups making a discovery, considering hypotheses, looking for further data and acting responsibly.
I wonder if contemporary researchers would be so guarded.

The "Wow" signal" detected in 1977 (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal) was a strong signal very close in frequency to the hydrogen line, 1420.406 MHz, which had been proposed as a promising frequency for SETI in 1959 (Wikipedia, Hydrogen line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line).
The "Wow!" discoverer, Jerry R. Ehman wondered if it might have been a terrestrial signal reflected off space debris, later saying this was improbable, space debris was unlikely to have the necessary characteristics. But it's good that he was considering various possible causes IMO.

The hydrogen line is a protected frequency reserved for astronomical observations, prohibiting deliberate terrestrial transmissions, but

... a 2010 study documented several instances of terrestrial sources either interfering from adjacent frequency bands or illegally transmitting within the spectrum.

Wikipedia, as above. Also in the Wiki article, in 2024 a team using 2020 observations from the Arecibo dish proposed that the signal was caused by a hydrogen cloud being energized by stellar radiation. If this is a recurrent phenomena it might cast doubt on the use of the hydrogen line as a preferred communication frequency. In 1966 Russian physicist Pyotr Makovetsky proposed (1420.406 x pi) MHz as a frequency which ETI might choose as a clearer indication of an artificial signal compared to the hydrogen line (1420.406 MHz).

Though not directly connected to SETI, radio astronomers at the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia were researching fast radio bursts (the first FRB detection was made there. Not well-understood, discussions of potential FRB causes have mentioned ETI).
Over 17 years, they received occasional anomalous signals.
It was eventually realized that they were from microwave ovens in the observatories' kitchen, the signals caused whenever the microwave's door was opened while it was running.
"Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radiotelescope", Petroff, Keane, Barr et al. 2015, Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 10 April 2015, PDF https://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.02165v1,
also "'Strange Signals' From Microwave Oven Puzzled Astronomers For Decades", Science Alert website, 07 May 2015, Katie Silver https://www.sciencealert.com/strange-signals-from-microwave-oven-puzzled-astronomers-for-decades

China's FAST telescope detected possible artificial signals in 2022, again probably terrestrial radio pollution (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence)

SETI is not a centrally coordinated endeavour, but various relatively small groups using (usually) radio telescopes which are often mainly used for other research. Some SETI efforts have been brief research projects. I don't know if the IAA specifically maintains contact with SETI projects as a distinct subgroup of astronomical research.

 

[Ann K]

@Gary C

• What: The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has ratified updated protocols governing how scientists evaluate, verify, and announce evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

This policy concerns an official body making official statements. But I would be willing to bet that by the time they've carried out their investigation, (1) the original story will already have been available to the rest of the world for perhaps a year or more on TikTok or other public platform, and (2) the inevitable lag time for investigation will be decried by dedicated amateur* UFOlogists as evidence that "they're hiding the truth from us".

* Is amateur the right word? Or does that presuppose that "professional" UFOlogists exist, people who presumably "have studied the subject without having anything to study"?

 

[JMartJr]

Would this apply to announcing that the next interstellar comet is a spaceship (like the last ones)?

If so, I wish them luck getting compliance.