The Aricebo message
Historically, the epicenter for crop circles is in Wiltshire, UK. Sometimes they are very simple patterns such as stars or circles. Others are very complex geometric shapes.
In the 9th century, a Bishop named Abogard, in France wrote about crop circles. In 1686, Robert Plot a professor at Oxford wrote about crop circles. He described them being formed by a flash of light. Once they were formed, animals would not go near it.
Around that same time, a farmer woke up in the night and thought he saw his field on fire. When he went to investigate, he discovered a crop circle. It is known as the “Mowing Devil” in history because the farmer declared it was so neatly mowed, it could not have been done by mortal man.
John Leyland was librarian for Henry the 8th and he wrote about patterns forming in the fields overnight.
In 1937, a British science journal reported circles in a field of barley and published one of the first photos of a crop circle. They have subsequently been documented in 1945, and by the USAF in Kansas in 1952.
In 1974 a group of scientists beamed what is known as the Aricebo message into space led by Dr. Frank Drake and Carl Sagan. It was called the Aricebo message because that was the name of the telescope that transmitted it. The message, meant to be received by an intelligent alien species, described life on Earth. Written in simple binary code of 1,679 digits the message could be translated as an image.
The message starts with the numbers 1-10. This provides the key for the rest of the message.
Next are the atomic numbers for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus which are the chemical compounds for DNA. The message also includes more information about DNA such as the image of the double helix structure. Below this, is a figure of a human and the population of the earth which was just over 4 billion at the time.
Next in the message was our solar system starting with our sun moving outwards towards Pluto. The earth in binary digits is shifted up to indicate its uniqueness of life. At the bottom was an image of the Aricebo telescope.
(This is a demonstration of the message with color added to highlight its separate parts. The binary transmission sent carried no color information. Image credit: Arne Nordmann)
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Using the most powerful radio telescope on the planet and using the most powerful radio telescope on the planet, the message was broadcast to a dense cluster of stars in the constellation of Hercules. This exercise was just ceremonial; a way to demonstrate new technology in radio astronomy. Nobody was really expected to receive it. And even if they did, it wouldn't be any time soon. The nearest star in the direction of the constellation broadcast is 25,000 light-years away. So, the telescope was tuned to 2380 Megherz, aimed at Hercules, and fired up. The scientists congratulated each other, shook hands, and went on with their lives. Scientists didn’t expect a reply for a minimum of 50,000 years. But 27 years later, something very unexpected happened with that message beamed into deep space. Something replied back.
A formation formed near the Chilbolton radio telescope in 2001. From the air, the image came into clear view. It was a pictograph formation depicting an image of an elongated alien being with oval eyes. Three days later, another crop circle appeared next to it. However, this crop circle was different. It was asymmetrical in shape. At first, it appeared to be a failed design. No specific symmetrical designs. No triangles, circles or stars. No. This was completely different than all the other crop circles ever seen. A 23’ x 73’ pictogram formation, it became known as the Arecibo answer.
In Hampshire, UK, the pictogram formation matched the visual representation and most of the information inside the original Arecibo message with minor differences. SETI denounced the crop impression as a hoax, as the nearest star systems within the message's narrow radio beam would receive the message in centuries, not 27 years. Others proclaim it was a disinformation campaign pushed to the public by the CIA via SETI to discredit the discovery. But scientists knew better. The reply was real.
The crop formation is a near replica of the Arecibo message, with the same 23 × 73 grid. Most of the chemical data remains the same, with the exception that in the section detailing important chemical elements, silicon has been added as the primary element instead of carbon, and the diagram of DNA has been rewritten. At the bottom, the pictogram of a human is replaced with a figure with a large, bulbous head. A solar system with 9 planets is also depicted, with emphasis placed on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th planets of the system. The Arecibo telescope is replaced by a replica of a large crop circle that appeared in the same field one year before. Was it a machine similar to our telescope?
So what did the scientists do after they verified the message? Nothing. It absolutely freaked them out. Even some scientists within SETI began toting the hoax line. But there were a few who believed. One was Dr. Reiner.
Then one year later another formation appeared. It was a nefarious face of an alien being with large oval eyes and a bulbous head. Right next to it, was another crop circle. It was in binary code. It was the second message.
Daniel continued to explain,
“Remember, binary is a language that consists of only two things: 0 and 1. In addition, computers only communicate in 0 and 1. So, computers are reading and writing billions of instructions using binary language.
0 refers to OFF state or Low Signal.
1 refers to ON state or High Signal.
This second message was decoded by my boss Dr. Reiner using his software called ASCII. It stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange" that translates the binary code to letters.
“I’ll encode an example message”, Daniel said. He typed on the screen what appeared to be random zeros and ones.
01010111 01100101 01101100 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01000110 01110010 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110011
Now, Daniel asked. “Can you read it? Do you understand the message in the code”? The team stared at the screen silently shaking their heads no.
“Confusing, Right? Daniel said. “You can't figure it out without using a binary decoder”. When you place this code in the ASCII binary translator it decodes the message: "Welcome Friends".
What was the second message in the crop circle?
Daniel reached over and typed some quick strokes on his computer. An encrypted file came up. Daniel’s fingers danced lightly on the keyboard. He was too fast to know what he was typing. Then he hit <enter>.
“Here it is”, Daniel said. “The second message”. He stepped to the side and let the others see the screen. No one said anything as he could see their perplexed faces. He went ahead and read it aloud.
Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts and their BROKEN PROMISES.
Much PAIN but still time. BELIEVE.
There is GOOD out there. We oPpose DECEPTION.
COduit CLOSING\
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Arecibo Message was not a message from aliens, but a scientifically designed broadcast by humans to demonstrate the capabilities of the upgraded Arecibo radio telescope. It was a hoax.
Let’s clarify misconceptions about the Arecibo Message:
🛰️ 1. Myth: The Arecibo Message was meant to contact aliens and expected a reply.
🔍 Truth:
The Arecibo Message was not an active attempt to initiate communication with aliens. Rather, it was a symbolic gesture during the ceremony celebrating the upgrade of the Arecibo Observatory. The message was directed toward the globular star cluster M13, about 25,000 light-years away, and would take 50,000 years round trip for a potential reply. Its main purpose was to show what we could do technologically.
👽 2. Myth: The “response” found in the Chilbolton crop circle in 2001 is proof aliens received and answered the message.
🔍 Truth:
In 2001, a crop formation resembling the Arecibo message (with some modifications) appeared near Chilbolton, England, and was claimed by some to be a reply from extraterrestrials. However:
Crop circles can be (and have been) made by human artists and pranksters.
No scientific evidence supports the idea that it came from aliens.
The formation contains design elements that would be extremely difficult for any extraterrestrial civilization to decode, especially from a low-power message sent over 25,000 light-years away and received within just 27 years.
Conclusion: The Chilbolton crop circle is widely considered a hoax or human-made art, not a legitimate alien reply.
🔢 3. Myth: The message was a text or language aliens could read.
🔍 Truth:
The Arecibo Message used a binary code (0s and 1s) to form a bitmap image representing information about humanity, including:
Numbers 1–10
Basic chemical elements
DNA structure
A figure of a human
Our solar system
A graphic of the telescope itself
This was not a language, but a carefully structured scientific encoding intended to show intelligent design. It assumes a potential alien civilization could interpret binary and recognize patterns.
🧪 4. Myth: The message proves alien life.
🔍 Truth:
The Arecibo Message does not prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. It was simply an example of messaging extraterrestrial intelligence (METI). We haven’t received any credible reply or detection of similar messages.
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