In a weird bit of news, a Doritos ad has been beamed to a nearby star known to have orbiting planets.
Doritos had a contest for the public to make and vote on the best ad for the chips. A good idea, and a clever one. But then someone had the idea to take the commercial, encode it into a radio signal, and then use a radio telescope to send it to a nearby star.
The star, 47 Ursa Majoris, is about 45 light years away, and has at least two Jupiter-like planets orbiting it. The planets are actually relatively far out from the star (2 and 3.7 times the Earth-Sun distance), leaving some room for smaller, Earthlike planets closer in, where it’s warm enough to support life as we know it.
There’s an obvious question. Assuming there are planets there, and one or more is Earthlike, and life has evolved there, and and and… will they actually like Doritos?
And I have a more important question… but first, watch the winning commercial.
So let’s say you’re a denizen of 47 Ursa Majoris d, a hypothetical terrestrial planet. 45 years from now, you sit down to watch TV, and an astronomer from your world is happily describing a transmission they have received from a star just like your own, though just a hair less massive and a bit cooler. The Doppler shift and other characteristics of the signal indicate it came from a similar planet as your own, on a similar orbit. Fantastic news!
The astronomers say they have decrypted it, and the news cuts to the animation above. You see apparently semi-sentient creatures, triangular in shape, performing some arcane alien ritual. But then some huge beast, apparently also sentient, comes along and eats one!
Obviously, the life on this planet poses a threat. The only logical course of action is to mount a fleet and invade. Good thing the scientists on your planet have created a starship drive that can propel you at almost the speed of light!
In my scenario, we have 90 years to live, or to mount a defense. We’d better start soon.
And I’ll tell you something else: Frito-Lay better fund this. If they can engineer such delicious chips, they should be able to engineer some vicious ships.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Well, you’ve got a good, very active imagination, I’ll give you that.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Will the signal make it that far?
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that our radio signals would fade out before getting to even the closest star to us. Putting and end to use constantly sending out TV and radio signals out in space. has something changed?
June 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
This is even worse than them receiving episodes of the original Star Trek with the Shat’s over acting! Seriously, we want some junk food company speaking on behalf of the human race?
June 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
You don’t know that. They could show up in 90 years and demand chips and dip.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Not to worry. Apart from their inherited million-year old physics and technology, aliens are pretty wimpy. Our pro wrestlers have scared most of them off long ago. And if not that, I feel safe knowing that our TV evangelist transmissions will likely scare the bejeezus out of any sentient life form. Especially Tammy Fae.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Screw it. I’ll probably be dead in 90 years, nothing to worry about.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I see a different scenario unfolding…
ALIEN SCIENTIST: We have good news and bad news. The good news is we have just received a message from another world. A world populated with intelligent life not very much unlike our own. We finally have the answer to the question, “are we alone?”
The bad news is they’re spammers.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
We should totally rickroll a few planets this way.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I gotta give the PR people behind this credit: they are relentless. I wrote about this back in March, and ever since I have been getting email from them touting the stunt. Sheesh.
Jim D.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Are you going to add this possible revenge from aliens in 90 years time in your Death from the Skies? It would be a nice injoke lol hahaha
June 12th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
They will arrive in 90 years, but due to a dramatic miscalculation of scale their entire battle fleet will be devoured by a small dog.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Never mind whether they like Doritos. What if they *are* Doritos and we’re snacking on their kin? Then you can bet on invasion.
(Camera pans vast fleet of Manhattan-sized chip bags traveling in formation toward Earth)
Stentorian voice: Giant Bags from Ow-ter Spa-aayce!
June 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
If they can engineer such delicious chips, they should be able to engineer some vicious ships.
Maybe the aliens will send us a new, pun-pree BA?
June 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I have a solution…Why don’t we just continuously beam them all our commercials and television shows. That way, they’ll lose the motivation to do anything significant. They’ll turn into the alien equivalent of couch potatoes.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
>> I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that our radio signals would fade out before getting to even the closest star to us. <<
I believe that is true for our omnidirectional “terrestrial” broadcasts, but signals beamed out from a radio telescope (along with radar, etc) can be detected by similar equipment dozens of light years away (someone with a more precise answer feel free to correct me).
June 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Isn’t the real question – where will 47 Ursa Majoris be in 45 years? Aiming directly at stars is pretty silly….
June 12th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
hah!
BA, this has got to be one of the funniest posts that you have put up in a long while. You should have labeled this NSFW cuz I got some pretty funny stares from my co-workers when I burst out laughing.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
This reminds me of an Arthur C. Clarke short story called “History Lesson”. Told from the point of view of a Venusian scientist (don’t laugh, it was written in the 40’s) pondering over a remnant of a scrap of movie film found on a desolate future Earth. It ends:
“Then many years of research by the creatures of Venus followed during which they found out about the extinct inhabitans of Earth and tried to figure out what they looked like and how they lived. But it wasn’t until they found a tiny metal box in a cairn, covered with ice and stones, that knowledge about the history of this planet and its former inhabitants really improved. Thousands of copies of the document within the box were made and distributed. Thousands of scientists learnt all they could about this wonderful, remote race by looking at this document again and again. “But all this labour, all this research, would be utterly in vain. … Millions of times in the ages to come those last few words would flash across the screen, and none could ever guess their meaning
“A Walt Disney Production”
June 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Too funny! Aliens come to save the chips! Ah, but what if the aliens find out just how tasty the creatures are they are here to save? All part of Frito-Lay’s diabolical plan, I’m sure.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
These aliens – they don’t necessarily want to fight all of us “beasts.”
Instead they will try to located the Dorito population and determine if they’re at risk and who poses the greatest risk to them.
They will remove the Doritos to a safe area where they can be under guard at all times. These gentle creatures have been exploited, tortured and murdered for far too long!
Meanwhile… eschelons of aliens will then seek out any hostile threats.
They may pick off some humans from a distance but when they make close contact humans will do whatever it is that humans do when they make contact with an alien: Freak out. Call National Enquirer. Start a website. Stuff like that.
That is unless the alien fries them on the spot.
Back at the Dorito Ranch… The aliens are puzzled. Why do these creatures not dance? It’s very strange. They open the jar of hot dip and still, no dancing. No nothing at all. They lay around despondent and refuse to perform even the most rudimentary personal hygiene tasks.
Eventually our inter-stellar invaders decide the Doritos are not worth saving. They smell like bacteria (although they don’t smell as bad as the creatures who eat them), and they won’t even make the smallest attempt to defend themselves.
It takes the aliens a very short time to realize both the Doritos and the Beasts must be eliminated. And then this planet will be theirs.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
We better develop a fleet of ships capable of carrying around 50,000 people in long-term flights through interstellar space. Also we should start grooming the secretary of education for the position of President.
Oh, and beware of handsome, charismatic scientists.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
This is a serious violation of the Prime Directive!
I am cracking up at how dumb everything about this is – the ad itself, the fact that someone thought that transmitting it was a good idea. I mean – they picked a system with a reasonable possibility of life because they thought this ad would be good first contact material?
It’s just so hysterically weird.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I wonder, if someday SETI detects a signal from space – will it be an alien entertainment? And if so, will we understand that?
Alien motives are bound to be different. Alien entertainment could be deeply disturbing or frightening to us. Or dangerous. “Today on ‘Mr. Wizard’ we’ll teach you how to make a handy and useful gamma-ray laser from common house-hold items!”
And what if our entertainment is offensive and hostile to them? It’s like a Douglas Adams bit where the word “Dorito” translates to, “We will take no prisoners!”
June 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Perhaps they are already here… some UFO reports tell of huge, tiangular-shaped vehicles passing silently over redneck towns…
Could they be anything but Doritoes from space? I think NOT!
June 12th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
It will be quite amusing if, during the intervening 45 years, we find that there is something massively dangerous in the 47 Ursae Majoris system that should not be disturbed. Oops! Too late we’ve already sent the signal and there’s no way to stop it.
All these attempts to beam signals to aliens suffer from the fact that our state of knowledge of what’s out there sentient-wise is pretty much zero. Why not do a bit more observation to see what’s out there, before yelling into the darkness? Especially if the aim is some stupid stunt like this.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
John Walker has a comparable SF story on his site.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Phil,
You’ve just outlined the basic premise of the book, The Killing Star. Although, in this novel, the impetus for destroying Earth isn’t a TV commercial – its something far, far more sinister.
-S
June 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I, for one, welcome our new cheese flavoured overlords.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
If the two jovians of 47 UMa are in 2 and 3.7 AU orbits, isn’t that going to play havoc with the stability of obits for inner planets? Might it even have prevented the formation of anything bigger than Ceres?
June 13th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Darn! shane beat me to the “I, for one, welcome our new [insert current alien] overlords” line!
BTW, that Doritos ad was the winner?! I’d hate to see how bad the losers were.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:06 am
>> Never mind whether they like Doritos. What if they *are* Doritos and we’re snacking on their kin? Then you can bet on invasion.
(Camera pans vast fleet of Manhattan-sized chip bags traveling in formation toward Earth)
Stentorian voice: Giant Bags from Ow-ter Spa-aayce! <<
Ahahahahaha!
June 13th, 2008 at 6:35 am
We won’t be laughing when the Third Fleet of the Eternal and Just Galactic Empire arrives to fairly but sternly punish us, with their countless 5-billion gigawatt plasma cannons, for the heinous crime of Advertising.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:28 am
don’t you guys know that the aliens just want To Serve Man?
June 13th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Well, let’s see… just by picking up the Dorritos commercial, they’ll be able to get some idea of the Earth’s orbit and rotation, from the doppler shift.
Unfortunately, thanks to the stop motion, they probably won’t be able to deduce the Earth’s gravitational feild.
They’ll get a basic idea of what we look like, although our motion will seem odd… (maybe they’ll think our visual sense operates on a very low frame rate…LOL)
They’ll probably think that we’re in some kind of symbiotic relationship with the tiny triangle life forms… they supply us with ritual sacrifices, and we give them hot tubs of salsa.
No doubt, they will come away from viewing this, with fear and revulsion, not unlike something from an H.P. Lovecraft story. Who knows? Perhaps they will have to lock this information away from their people, because the horrific vision of these monsters from a distant world, would drive anyone who sees them into madness…
June 13th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I’m thinking a lot like Joe Meils…when you take a step back, this looks like the Chippians, their cruel master having stepped out for a moment, took the opportunity to send a brief SOS to a nearby system. “Help! Save us!” their wiggling, bee-like dance communique implores. Then their cruel overlord returns, and the Chippians rush to hide. But upon opening the Jar of Red 9purpose unknown) he is mightily displeased at their actions. He metes out swift punishment by eating the stray Chippian, perhaps to serve as an example to others!
What barbarism!
June 13th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I love this blog and I love the commenters…..
Can’t stop laughing XD
June 13th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I was going to make an Alien Legacy joke before I remembered that it’s more than likely no one would get a joke based on a computer game released in 1995 that wasn’t made by id. So instead…
Great. We’ve just given the Irken Armada the best reason possible to make us a priority target for Operation Impending Doom II.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I think we should thank Frito Lay for saving us. The aliens will look at those Doritos, and decide there’s nowhere to insert the anal probes, so it’s not worth visiting us.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Take us to your leader!
June 13th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Great… I thought nothing could be worse than that finnish music fan who sent music to the stars. I mean, who wouldn’t send over an armada to stop that noise? And now this.
On the upside, I don’t think US citizens will have anything to fear. Don’t you know that japanese chips are preferable?
… What was that you said? Intel? But that’s not the Sharp-est chip in the lot. BWA HA HA… h-hrrm.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:41 am
At least this wasn’t broadcast toward Omicron Persei
June 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Let’s just hope they don’t decide that this unfashionable part of the galaxy needs another bypass.
keep your towels handy, and drink plenty of beer.
kid cool
June 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I’m imagining the movie “contact” if this was the video retransmitted to earth.
June 14th, 2008 at 6:14 am
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June 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am
if that spastic uncentered non informational commercial is the first thing they see about us , i bet they think we are all a bunch of mindless buffoons that will be easily taken over…wait , thats already happened , bush cheney 9-11
June 15th, 2008 at 9:53 am
dave on 12 Jun 2008 at 1:42 pm :
What? Tammy Fae Baker ain’t sentient!
Oh you mean scared by Tammy Fae -now you’re talking!
I was going to say three words for y’all :
Omicron Persei Eight
but someone beat me to it so I won’t!
Beaming the beatles ‘Across the Universe’ across the universe is okay ..
but sending chip ads 45 ly across the gulf of space – puh-leeze!
To (mis?) quote Monty python :
“I sure hope there’s intelligent life out there in the cosmos ‘coz there’s sod all down here on earth!”
June 15th, 2008 at 10:03 am
# Cory Albrecht on 12 Jun 2008 at 8:25 pm
Perhaps, although I don’t think we can be 100 % sure, it seems that’s likely.
The ‘habitable zone’ (HZ) around 47 Ursae Majoris would also be further out and thus more likely in that danger given that stars brighter, hotter and larger than ours – a G0 yellow dwarf star with 1.1 solar masses and is possibly, I think a bit younger than our Sun and thus less likely tohave evolved intelligent species anyway. Let’s hope.
Whatever the case I agree with those who would say this is avery dumb thing to be doing – & I hope nobody else copies it because otherwise we’re giving our solar system a very bad name!
Therefore I suggest we all boycott those chips – & tell them why! ;-P
June 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Nope from the link the stars actually a couple of billion years older than us – and, as stars brighten with increasing age, if life had begun on a planet there it may well have gone extinct already and thus missed that dumb ad :
Source : Press release via the 47 Ursae Majoris link at the top of this page : http://exoplanets.org/esp/47uma/47uma_announceframe.html
June 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Anyone know if the COROT telescope has since checked out this star for more earth-like planets in that gap?
__________________
UMa 47? Who’s she?
June 16th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I think our location has been revealed to some neighbor years ago, as we are being cooked already…
June 18th, 2008 at 9:13 am
The bunny seems to be all for more private enterprise in space.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:15 am
When the Aliens put in their order and Doritos can’t supply,
will this create an intersteller incident?
July 5th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I’m thinking, with how fast technology doubles per year, and how much faster technology will be doubling in years to come, that we’ll either be dead in 90 years or be in an excellent position to say “bring it on, mother ________”. We get home court advantage, tech a thousand times more powerful and dangerous than our military is RIGHT NOW, and we haven’t had to deal with the hardships inherent in maintaining a workable population and equipment on a generation ship. I think we’ll be the ones snacking on them.
Not that this is a good idea, since at best what alien food probably would be edible but without much nutritional value, and at worst would be really toxic.