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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that decodes history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lousier, and today we're looking at humanity's first

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Speaker 1: earnest attempt to get in touch with an alien. The

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Speaker 1: day was November sixteen, seventy four. Scientists at the r

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Speaker 1: CEBO Observatory in Puerto Rico sent the first message intended

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Speaker 1: for alien life forms. The broadcast was part of a

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Speaker 1: ceremony held to mark the completion of a major upgrade

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Speaker 1: to the observatory's radio telescope. Early that afternoon, the observatory's

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Speaker 1: powerful one million watt transmitter beamed the message into outer space.

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Speaker 1: The so called r CEBO message was written in binary code,

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Speaker 1: and when translated, it formed a series of symbolic pictures

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Speaker 1: that expressed key information about the human species. Although the

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Speaker 1: planet Earth has been haphazardly emitting radio signals since the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, the r c BO message was the

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Speaker 1: first deliberate transmission to extraterrestrials. It was mostly intended as

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Speaker 1: a symbolic act, a way to show off the considerable

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Speaker 1: power of the newly installed transmitter and the extensive range

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Speaker 1: of the telescope's dish antenna. However, many people, including those

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Speaker 1: who wrote the message, treated it as a sincere attempt

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Speaker 1: at first contact. Others took the message seriously as well,

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Speaker 1: but advised against sending it since there was no way

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Speaker 1: of knowing who might receive it or whether or not

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Speaker 1: they'd be friendly. The contents and format of the message

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Speaker 1: was developed by Frank Drake, a professor of astronomy at

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Speaker 1: Cornell University, with input from other scientists including Richard Isa Kman,

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Speaker 1: Linda May, and James C. G. Walker. Drake and his

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Speaker 1: team had a difficult task ahead of them. Not only

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Speaker 1: did they have to decide what to say to any

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Speaker 1: potential aliens who might be listening, they had to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to say it in a way they would understand.

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Speaker 1: Spoken languages were ruled out right away, as there was

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Speaker 1: little chance of an alien civilization knowing any of them.

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Speaker 1: Numbers and equations seemed a bit more promising, math being

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Speaker 1: the language of the universe, and all but the symbols

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Speaker 1: we used to express numbers are strictly a human invention.

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Speaker 1: The arbitrary nature of words led Drake to consider a

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Speaker 1: more universal medium pictures. He and the other researchers created

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Speaker 1: what's known as a bit map, a pixelated image where

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Speaker 1: each part corresponds to a different string of binary numbers.

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Speaker 1: You can think of it kind of like a paint

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Speaker 1: by numbers kit. The message was transmitted as a string

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Speaker 1: of ones and zeros, with each of the ones representing

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Speaker 1: a shaded square on a grid and each of the

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Speaker 1: zeros representing an unshaded square. So in order to decode

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Speaker 1: the message, the recipient has to organize that string of

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Speaker 1: numbers into a grid and then fill in the correct

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Speaker 1: squares to see the picture. If that's done correctly, then

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Speaker 1: you have a symbolic image twenty three rows wide and

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Speaker 1: seventy three rows long picture the graphics from an old

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Speaker 1: Atari game like Space Invaders, and you're not far off.

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Speaker 1: So assuming an alien could decode the message, what exactly

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Speaker 1: would they see, Well, Drake and his team wanted to

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Speaker 1: include basic information about the human species and what we

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Speaker 1: know about the universe, but of course they were constrained

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Speaker 1: by what they could easily depict through shaded squares and

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Speaker 1: empty spaces. They eventually settled on including the numbers one

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Speaker 1: to ten, the atomic numbers for common chemical elements like

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Speaker 1: hydrogen and carbon, a representation of the double helix structure

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Speaker 1: of human DNA, A map of our solar system and

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Speaker 1: looting Earth's position, a drawing of the r c BO

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Speaker 1: radio telescope, the number of people on Earth four billion

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Speaker 1: at the time, and last, but not least, a stick

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Speaker 1: figure drawing of a human being. Admittedly, there was still

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Speaker 1: some doubt as to whether an alien civilization would be

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Speaker 1: able to decode and interpret the message. Drake decided to

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Speaker 1: test the translatability of the message by sending it to

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Speaker 1: his friend and colleague, astronomer and author Carl Sagan. Sagan

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Speaker 1: had no knowledge of what the message contained, but was

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Speaker 1: able to quickly determine nearly all of its contents. The

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Speaker 1: one exception was the chemistry section, but that was only

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Speaker 1: because Sagan didn't know much about the subject. Drake also

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Speaker 1: sent the message to some biochemists he knew, and they

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Speaker 1: had no trouble at all decoding that part. So Frank

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Speaker 1: Drake and his team moved forward with the project, satisfied

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Speaker 1: that their message could be understood by any aliens, at

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Speaker 1: least as intelligent as Carl Sagan. The next up was

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Speaker 1: to choose a destination, a point somewhere out in deep

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Speaker 1: space to transmit their message to. After an extensive review

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Speaker 1: of star charts, Drake decided to beam the signal in

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Speaker 1: the direction of M thirteen, otherwise known as the Great

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Speaker 1: Cluster in Hercules, that collection of more than three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand stars and potentially just as many planets orbits the

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Speaker 1: center of the Milky Way galaxy, roughly twenty five thousand

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Speaker 1: light years from Earth. The clusters immense size provides plenty

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Speaker 1: of opportunities for the message to be received by any

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Speaker 1: life forms who might be tucked away out there. But

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Speaker 1: more important than its size was its location. The center

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Speaker 1: of M thirteen was set to be directly within the

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Speaker 1: telescope's beam during the designated time of the ceremony. The

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Speaker 1: transmission of the r CBO message began at one pm

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Speaker 1: on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy four. It consisted of one thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred seventy nine bits of information, which took about

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Speaker 1: three minutes to send. The method used was similar to

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Speaker 1: how a dial up computer modem sends binary code over

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Speaker 1: a phone line, and just like in that process, you

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Speaker 1: could audibly hear the message being sent thankfully, it was

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Speaker 1: much less annoying than a noisy modem. In fact, Frank

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Speaker 1: Drake thought it sounded like bird warbling. Take a listen

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Speaker 1: and decide for yourself. At the time of recording, it's

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Speaker 1: been just forty eight years since the r C Bow

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Speaker 1: message was broadcast. In that time, moving at the speed

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Speaker 1: of light, the message has traveled less than three hundred

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Speaker 1: trillion miles, a tiny fraction of the distance still left

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Speaker 1: to go. In other words, it'll be a very long

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Speaker 1: time before the message actually reaches its destination, about thousand

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Speaker 1: years in fact. Once it does arrive, who knows if

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Speaker 1: anyone will be there to receive it, and if they are,

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Speaker 1: whether they'll be able to decipher it. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that either way, the message will keep right on going,

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Speaker 1: and millions of years from now it'll reach distant galaxies

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Speaker 1: where it will have all new opportunities to make contact

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Speaker 1: with whatever might be living there. But even if no

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Speaker 1: one ever replies, it's still kind of comforting to know

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Speaker 1: that some marker of our species will still be bouncing

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Speaker 1: around out there, trying to introduce itself for all eternity.

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Speaker 1: I like to imagine that EON's from now, some highly

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Speaker 1: developed species will find the r c EBO message and

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Speaker 1: solve it as easily as a crossword puzzle. Then they'll

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Speaker 1: smile with their four interior mouths and stick the drawing

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Speaker 1: to their quantum refrigerator. A weird little eight bit postcard

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Speaker 1: from those dummies on Earth. I'm gay, Bluesier, and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history

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Speaker 1: and see the r CBO message for yourself by following

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find us

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Speaker 1: at t d I h C Show. You can also

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Speaker 1: rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or you

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Speaker 1: can get in touch with me directly by writing to

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Speaker 1: this Day at ihart media dot com. Thanks as always

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Speaker 1: the channeler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in history class