from: Scientists Seeking Life on Mars Heard a Signal That Hinted at the Future
Scientists Seeking Life on Mars Heard a Signal That Hinted at the Future
In 1924, a radio receiver built for the battlefields of World War I tested the idea that humans were not alone in the solar system, heralding a century of searches for extraterrestrial life.At sunset on a late summer weekend in 1924, crowds flocked to curbside telescopes to behold the advanced alien civilization they believed to be present on the surface of Mars...
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Scientists plotted for years to make the most of the Martian “close-up.” To aid the experiments, the U.S. Navy cleared the airwaves, imposing a nationwide period of radio silence for five minutes at the top of each hour from Aug. 21 to 24 so that messages from Martians could be heard. A military cryptographer was on hand to “translate any peculiar messages that might come by radio from Mars.”
Then, lo and behold, an astonishing radio signal arrived with the opposition.
A series of dots and dashes, captured by an airborne antenna, produced a photographic record of “a crudely drawn face,” according to news reports. The tantalizing results and subsequent media frenzy inflamed the public’s imagination. It seemed as if Mars was speaking, but what was it trying to say?
“The film shows a repetition, at intervals of about a half hour, of what appears to be a man’s face,” one of the experiment’s leaders said days later.
“It’s a freak which we can’t explain,” he added...
