The Rio Scale Applied to Fictional SETI Detections

TL;DR — SETI Institute scientists score movie alien contacts (Contact, Independence Day and others) on the Rio Scale for how seriously a detection claim should be taken.

International Astronautical Congress paper IAA-02-IAA.9.1.06. The Rio Scale, modelled on the Torino scale for asteroid impacts, rates claimed detections of extraterrestrial intelligence for the press and public. To show how it works, the authors apply it to fictional encounters from cinema and to some non-fiction claims.

What it is: a short conference paper, partly a teaching exercise.

Where this came from

• r/obscurePDFs post, January 2021 — “THE RIO SCALE APPLIED TO FICTIONAL SETI DETECTIONS”. Routing record: The obscurePDFs Subreddit

10 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.