In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the Arecibo Observatory was said to have beamed a digital stream towards Hipparcos 34511, 33277, and 43587.[45] The transmission consisted of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag "#ChasingUFOs" (a promotion for one of the channel's TV series).[46] The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.
What an inane, embarrassing "response", if the original was any attempt to communicate. (Sounds like it probably was not, but still...)
For context (since this reply seems to be getting downvoted into faded-text status at the time I am seeing it, perhaps in part because these days people might be seeing this as a political viewpoint for...reasons):
In Carl Sagan's "Contact" the first message we get from another civilization is a rebroadcast of a Hitler rally in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic games.
In the story, as one of the early examples of broadcasted television this rally happened to be the first broadcast from us that was detected by the civilization at Vega, and they rebroadcast it back to us as part of their larger signal inviting us to come say hi.
Effectively a coincidence that it happened to be fascist in nature, but causing some amount of panic in the story from people who read into this as the aliens being pro-fascist.
I'm hoping that any aliens that may or may not exist respect my contextual integrity and don't dox my Twitter.
But to be more serious: it is absolutely embarrassing we've gone from a world where a Russian and an American sit down at the science center to talk about their work and take questions to... this.
Keep in mind WHY collaborating on space was so big -- because the same technology that can put a man on the moon can put a missile anywhere on earth.
Comments
What an inane, embarrassing "response", if the original was any attempt to communicate. (Sounds like it probably was not, but still...)
Who's to say that the original message was any less ridiculous?
Following tradition the message has to be video of a fascist rally.
For context (since this reply seems to be getting downvoted into faded-text status at the time I am seeing it, perhaps in part because these days people might be seeing this as a political viewpoint for...reasons):
In Carl Sagan's "Contact" the first message we get from another civilization is a rebroadcast of a Hitler rally in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic games.
In the story, as one of the early examples of broadcasted television this rally happened to be the first broadcast from us that was detected by the civilization at Vega, and they rebroadcast it back to us as part of their larger signal inviting us to come say hi.
Effectively a coincidence that it happened to be fascist in nature, but causing some amount of panic in the story from people who read into this as the aliens being pro-fascist.
"The Message From Vega":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRD-tO7jV9U
I'm hoping that any aliens that may or may not exist respect my contextual integrity and don't dox my Twitter.
But to be more serious: it is absolutely embarrassing we've gone from a world where a Russian and an American sit down at the science center to talk about their work and take questions to... this.
Keep in mind WHY collaborating on space was so big -- because the same technology that can put a man on the moon can put a missile anywhere on earth.