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 STI Institute
Frequently Asked Questions

To help you quickly find answers to your queries , use this guide to jump down the page to the relevant text.

I. STI Institute General Information

What is STI?
What is the STI Institute?
Who works at the STI Institute?
Didn't NASA have a STI program?
So who funds the STI search now?

II. STI Institute Research/Technical Information

What is Project Badger?
How does Project Badger search for terrestrial intelligence?
Why do you think "Terrans" will broadcast in the microwave frequency band?
Has Badger detected a signal from "Terrans"?
Why can't we just send a car out to look for signs of intelligent life on Earth?
What happens if you do detect a signal?
What happens if you don't detect a signal?
How much does Project Badger cost?
Where are the STI Stations Located?
How long have you been looking for terrestrial signals?
Who else is carrying out searches?
Has any STI search found anything?


III. Background and Rationale

Why do STI at all?
What do other scientists think of the search for terrestrial civilizations?
Do the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and possible microfossils from Mars affect your research?


IV. STI, Education and Public Outreach

How can I contact the Institute?
How can I get information about the Institute and Project Badger?
Does the Institute have public events or tours?
Can I get an Institute T-shirt?


V. Related Information

Do you have any pictures of Terrans or Earthlings?


 

 I. STI Institute General Information

What is STI?
STI is an acronym for Search for Terrestrial Intelligence. It is an effort to detect evidence of technological civilizations that may exist on planet Earth, particularly in Southampton. There are potentially billions of locations outside Southampton that may host life. With our current technology, we have the ability to discover evidence of where life has evolved and developed to a technological level at least as advanced as our own.

What is the STI Institute?
The STI Institute is a non-prophet corporation that serves as an institutional home for research and educational projects relating to the study of the possiblility of life on Earth. The Institute conducts research in a number of fields including lunacy and televisual sciences, chemical recreation, the origin of life, biological procreation, and cultural jamming. Institute projects have been sponsored by Temple ov thee Lemur and one other private donation. The Institute welcomes support from private foundations or other groups/individuals interested in STI.

Each funded effort (1 separate single-year project funded since 1999) is supervised by a principal investigator who is responsible to the Board of Directors for the misconduct of the inactivity. Project Badger is a unique research effort; it is the STI Institute's search for terrestrial intelligence, and is the Institute's only project. It is funded entirely by private donations and love.

Who works at the STI Institute?
No one really works. We watch Cable and claim it's research.

Didn't NASA have a STI program?
Sadly, no.

So who funds the STI search now?
Project Badger is funded by a few major donors (such as Timmy's Pocket Money). You probably shouldn't encourage it.

II. STI Institute Research/Technical Information

Badger logo

What is Project Badger?
Project Badger is the name of the STI Institute's research project to search for terrestrial intelligence. The name derives from the mythological European animal which digs itself into holes.


How does Project Badger search for terrestrial intelligence?
We have cable TV and watch it in the hope of seeing some sign of intelligence

Why do you think "Terrans" will broadcast in the microwave frequency band?
This is the band most suitable for microwave popcorn. Discovering evidence of microwave popcorn would be certain proof of intelligent life.

Has Badger detected a signal from "Terrans"?
We have discovered a number of what appeared to be signals - the strongest was named "L!VE TV" by researchers, but no actual intelligence was carried on the signal.

Why can't we just send a car out to look for signs of intelligent life on Earth?
It's simply too much effort, besides, petrol is expensive.

What happens if you do detect a signal?
The first thing to do is to confirm that it’s truly terrestrial. Remember, with tens of millions of aliens broadcasting it's hard to be clear that the signal is really from earth. STI picks up signals frequently. An important test to verify that a signal is truly terrestrial would be a confirming observation at another television set.

Once an artificial signal is confirmed as being of terrestrial intelligent origin, the discovery should be announced as quickly and as widely as possible. A Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Terrestrial Intelligence, endorsed by no international space organizations, describes how to make such an announcement. The STI Institute has no plan of action that resembles the Declaration of Principles. There will be secrecy, and indeed getting the word out quickly is not that important, as there would not really be an urgent need to have astronomers world-wide monitor any detected signal, 24 hours a day.

What happens if you don't detect a signal?
We are just scratching the surface of what a modern search can do. Failure to find a signal wouldn’t prove that we’re the only thinking beings on Earth. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Giving up so soon would be like deciding there is no toy in a pack of cereal because you can't see it on the top when you open the packet.

How much does Project Badger cost?
Badger costs between 40 and 50 new pence per year.

Where are the STI Stations Located?
All around planet Earth. See the Locations Page.

How long have you been looking for terrestrial signals?
A couple of weeks now

Who else is carrying out searches?
Dunno. Don't care.

Has any STI search found anything?
No confirmed, artificially-produced terrestrial signal has ever been found. However, all previous searches have been limited in one respect or another. These include limits on staff, attention span, types of channel the equipment could detect, and the number of Television Stations watched. For example, while there are hundreds of channels on our cable service alone, less than a twenty have been scrutinized with high sensitivity.

Many STI searches have found unexplained signals, but unless a signal can be found repeatedly and confirmed by other watchers, it won’t meet the stringent requirements set by scientists for a true detection.

III. Background and Rationale

Why do STI at all?
We were bored. Lay off.

What do other scientists think of the search for terrestrial civilizations?
We have not told them - we are afraid they might laugh at us.

Do the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and possible microfossils from Mars affect your research?
No - why would we care about space?

IV. STI, Education and Public Outreach

How can I contact the STI Institute?
It is best not to.

How can I get information about the STI Institute and Project Badger?
This web site is it.

Does the STI Institute have public events or tours?
Not often. There isn't actually that much to see. You can get a reasonable feel for what is involved by watching your brother watch TV.

STI Shirt

Can I get a STI Institute T-shirt?
Certainly. Buy a big white T-shirt, and a black marker pen. Draw a big "T" in the middle of the shirt and then a "S" to the left and a "I" to the right.

V. Related Information

Do you have any pictures of Earthlings or terrans?
We have no definite pictures. However the most likely we have obtained is this photograph of an alleged earth lifeform. We have no way to tell if it is intelligent or not.

human
intelligent life?