What may happen in those moments after humanity finds a signal from beyond that might implicate we’ve finally detected alien life, and who gets to decide what comes next?
That’s part of what Kathryn Denning presented at IAUS404: Advancing the Search for Technosignatures in March 2026.
About the Presenter
Dr. Kathryn Denning is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Science & Technology Studies at York University in Toronto.
Trained as an archaeologist (PhD, University of Sheffield), she has spent two decades studying how humans think, talk, and make decisions about “the Other” (whether that other is a vanished ancient society here on Earth or a hypothetical alien civilization). She has collaborated with NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and the SETI Institute, sits on the SETI Institute’s Science Advisory Board, and has served on the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) SETI Permanent Study Committee for over two decades, including its post-detection task group.
More About Denning’s Work in Advancing the Search for Technosignatures
Denning’s talk had two parts. The first covered the multi-year effort, led with Michael Garrett, Carol Oliver, and Leslie Tennen, to revise the IAA’s Declaration of Principles Concerning the Conduct of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, often called the “post-detection protocols.” First adopted in 1989 and streamlined in 2010, the declaration had not kept pace with a communications landscape reshaped by social media and deepfakes, or with technosignature searches that now extend well beyond classic radio SETI. The 2022-launched revision broadens the document’s scope, distinguishes what individual researchers versus institutions are responsible for communicating, and replaces the older Rio Scale with a commitment to updated science and risk communication practices.
Since the talk, that revision has been formally ratified. The IAA SETI Committee approved the revision by February 2026, with their Board of Trustees approving it in March. It was then turned into a Position Paper of the Academy, and officially announced as a press release this past June. This marks the first major overhaul of the protocols in more than fifteen years. It reaffirms that no reply to a confirmed signal should be sent without international consultation, and it commits to a permanent Post-Detection Sub-Committee.
The talk’s second half shifted to Denning’s home discipline. Archaeologists, she argued, are trained to resist the pull of unconstrained storytelling about people who are impossible to interview, and SETI researchers, facing a near-total absence of data, risk falling into the same trap, just in reverse: filling the current absence of alien life with speculation that may unintentioanlly imprint on how a real discovery gets interpreted.
Key Takeaways
The IAA’s post-detection protocols were renamed and restructured because the real challenge spans the entire research process, not just the aftermath of a detection.
The revised declaration, ratified in June 2026, now covers the full range of technosignatures and adds protections against harassment and misinformation aimed at researchers.
Denning cautioned that constant speculation about extraterrestrial intelligence isn’t cost-free: it becomes the lens through which an actual discovery gets read (so we should be actively aware of our own biases as much as we can).
A recurring question from archaeology applies directly to SETI: at what point does searching for evidence of another society’s activity shade into surveillance?
Denning’s talk sits at the intersection of two fields this symposium returned to often: the practical mechanics of announcing a discovery, and the deeper question of how humans narrate beings they’ve never met. Readers curious about where the protocols go next can follow the IAA SETI Committee’s full revised declaration or the SETI Institute’s new Discovery and Futures Lab, co-led by Lucian Walkowicz and Chelsea Haramia.
This video was included in the proceedings of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) symposium #404, Advancing the Search for Technosignatures, hosted by Blue Marble Space.
Thanks for joining us here with Planetary Perspectives, an editorial endeavor and science communication project from Blue Marble Space.
