What is the saying? First impressions are the longest lasting. There's an interesting article discussing previous attempts at communicating with "Little Green Men", and what kind of messages would be the right kind to send out into the cosmos. Should Humanity put its best foot forward, or lay ourselves bare, warts & all?
Given the interstellar distances, cosmic timescales, and a hell of a lot of other technobabble, the odds of a message causing a fleet of battlecruisers to appear in orbit one day is small. However, what I find fascinating about the entire issue is what Humanity thinks about itself in the type of message that may be sent. The significance of what we choose to include, or leave out can be thought-provoking.
For example, if you were an alien & one day happened to come across the Voyager Golden Records, even though there's info on human biology & sexuality, there is no evidence Gay people exist on Earth. There is also no evidence of war, poverty, or disease existing on Earth.
While it is true our radio & television signals have already been radiating out into the Universe for almost a hundred years, aliens picking up an episode of "The Brady Bunch" or "Gilligan's Island" is not as simple as having some rabbit ears... well, maybe extremely big rabbit ears.
Our television signals are diffuse and not targeted at any star system. It would take a truly huge antenna—larger than anything we've built or plan to build--to notice them.
Alien telescopes could perhaps detect Earth's strange oxygen atmosphere, created by life, and a rising CO2 level, suggesting a young industrial civilization. But what would draw their attention to our solar system among the multitudes? Deliberate blasts of narrow-band radiation aimed at nearby stars would—for a certain kind of watcher—cause our planet to suddenly light up, creating an obvious beacon announcing for better or worse, "Here we are!"
In May, SETI will begin a project to solicit from the public ideas about sending out messages, and if we do it, what should the communiques convey? Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute, argues we should tell the Galaxy our problems.
A comprehensive message to the stars should not shrink from the details. Might not an advanced extraterrestrial species, savvy in the ways of intelligent being, notice that something was missing from our description of ourselves? An acknowledgment of our flaws and frailties seems a more honest approach than sending a sanitised, one-sided story. Honesty is a good starting point for a conversation that could last for generations.
If we continue to dodge controversy, we risk sending messages that are both brief and boring. We sometimes clash in our beliefs and customs; we disagree over matters of taste and morality. In no small part this diversity of perspectives is what characterises us as a species. And it may just make us intriguing enough to the inhabitants of other worlds to elicit a reply.
There's also an argument of trust. If by some chance a species that's worked out the intricacies of Warp Drive should happen across one of our messages, and those messages presents Earth & Humanity as a bundle of roses, won't they feel like we lied to them once they show up here? On the other hand, if we're "too" honest we risk coming off as a bunch of assholes.
If they receive a message from mankind full of positive messages, perhaps they won’t trust us. Worse still, as they get to know us, they think we were hiding our human flaws, misleading them in some way. Therefore, we need to be honest up-front. We need to send the views and opinions of as many people as possible, for good or bad, so extraterrestrial civilizations know what they are dealing with; a talented, yet flawed race.
Unfortunately, that goes against human nature. What’s the first thing you do when moving into a new neighbourhood? You might throw a house-warming party, as a way to introduce yourself to the new neighbours. You probably wouldn’t tell your neighbours about your family/money/alcohol/drug/criminal problems at the party. If you did, you might find the room emptying very quickly. It’s not that you are being dishonest, you’re trying to gain their first-impression trust and interest. This principal holds true for companies trying to sell a product (I have yet to have a doorstep sales person telling me his encyclopaedia collection is actually useless when the world has Wikipedia) and to countries forming new diplomatic ties. We know there’s more to the story than just first impressions, but first impressions are the bonds that help develop the relationship in the future.
With a message, there's the question of what to say? Our "Messages In A Bottle" offer some guidance. Attached to four spacecraft currently drifting through space are time capsules with information about Human civilization. Even if "The End" should come one day from nuclear war, climate collapse, rogue black hole, gamma-ray burst, Hyperspace Bypass, or Cthulhu rising out of the sea, a little bit of our legacy will still be floating out in the Cosmos.
Aboard both Pioneer 10 & Pioneer 11 (launched in 1972 & 1973), there are 6-inch by 9-inch gold anodized aluminum plaques attached to antenna support struts, which would reveal to anyone who found 'em the location of Earth and the existence of Humanity.
The plaque was devised by Carl Sagan & Frank Drake. It's meant to convey as much information as possible with limited space. However, the plaque was not without controversy. Cultural conservatives complained about the nude depiction of Humanity, and railed at NASA for using tax dollars to launch "porn" into space. Some Feminists argued it was sexist, since the female figure seems submissive to the action of the male, and the woman is depicted anatomically incorrect.
Sagan answered some of these critiques.
The original drawings of this couple were made by my wife and were based upon the classical models of Greek sculpture and the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. We do not think this man and woman are ignoring each other. They are not shown holding hands lest the extraterrestrial recipients believe that the couple is one organism joined at the fingertips. (In the absence of indigenous horses, both the Aztecs and the Incas interpreted the mounted conquistador as one animal - a kind of two-headed centaur.) The man and woman are not shown in precisely the same position or carriage so that the suppleness of the limbs could be communicated - although we well understand that the conventions of perspective and line drawing popular on Earth may not be readily apparent to civilizations with other artistic conventions.
The man's right hand is raised in what I once read in an anthropology book is a "universal" sign of good will - although any literal universality is of course unlikely. At least the greeting displays our opposable thumbs. Only one of the two people is shown with hand raised in greeting, lest the recipients deduce erroneously that one of our arms is bent permanently at the elbow.
Several women correspondents complain that the woman appears too passive. One writes that she also wishes to greet the universe, with both arms outstretched in womanly salutation. The principal feminine criticism is that the woman is drawn incomplete - that is, without any hint of external genitalia. The decision to omit a very short line in this diagram was made partly because conventional representation in Greek Statuary omits it. But there was another reason: Our desire to see the message successfully launched on Pioneer 10. In retrospect, we may have judged NASA's scientific-political hierarchy as more puritanical than it is. In the many discussions that I held with such officials, up to the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the President's Science Adviser, not one Victorian demurrer was ever voiced; and a great deal of helpful encouragement was given.
The hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen in the upper left of the plaque is meant to be used as a unit of measurement for deciphering & understanding the other symbols.
A more intricate message is to be found on Voyager I and II (both launched in 1977) in the form of phonographic Golden Records, made of gold-plated copper with uranium-238 electroplated on the record's cover. The records contain sounds, music, and images of Earth & Human culture. The records also come with a cartridge, needle, and complete instructions telling Aliens how to build a record player.
![](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/citiprime/655px-GPN-2000-001978.jpg) |
"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."
-President Jimmy Carter
Message contained on Voyager Golden Record
"As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of the 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step."
-United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim
Message contained on Voyager Golden Record
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The records contain 115 images, natural sounds, music (
ranging from Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto" to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode"), as well as spoken greetings in 55 languages. Among the images contained on the records:
The satellite image of Earth gives the composition of gases within Earth's atmosphere.
The top image is meant to demonstrate Human "licking, eating, and drinking." The bottom describes the chemical composition & structure of Human DNA. It also gives a rudimentary explanation of Human reproduction.
In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be within 1.6 light years of the star AC+79 3888 in the Ophiuchus constellation. So get ready for that response.....