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US Navy Was Ordered To Listen For Martian Broadcast

Posted by samzenpus on from the roaring-extraterrestrial-20's dept.

MarkWhittington writes "It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars."

9 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Transmission was heard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They did catch a radio transmission, which said "Yvan eht nioj".

  2. Not Mars by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope
    Earth.
    Yip yip yip yip yip yip.
    Huh! Look. Aaaawwwwww. Radio.
    Radio.
    Yip yip yip yip yip.
    Radio
    Uhuh, uhuh, Radio. Yipyipyipyipyip.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
    1. Re:Not Mars by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

      For your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qxWGr8VhzQ

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  3. This is good science by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is good science. In 1924 we didn't have any strong reasons to think that there wasn't intelligent life on Mars. If anything, the evidence seemed to favor the other direction. Moreover, simply having ships listen in wouldn't have cost that much money. So this was an experiment with potentially very high pay-off compared to the resources it took. This does lead to some interesting ideas for a scifi story in which they do find signals. NaNoWriMo anyone?

    1. Re:This is good science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is good science. In 1924 we didn't have any strong reasons to think that there wasn't intelligent life on Mars. If anything, the evidence seemed to favor the other direction. Moreover, simply having ships listen in wouldn't have cost that much money. So this was an experiment with potentially very high pay-off compared to the resources it took. This does lead to some interesting ideas for a scifi story in which they do find signals. NaNoWriMo anyone?

      Sadly this coincided with the great Martian radio strike of '24. All martian DJs were marching picket lines at the time.

    2. Re:This is good science by tverbeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's easy to forget just how new most of our knowledge about the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere is. A mere fifty years ago, just throwing a dog or chimp into orbit was tricky business, and all we knew of other celestial bodies was seen through a glass darkly, from the murkey depths of our atmosphere. So... damn right there coulda been people on Mars in 1924. Just like in the 1960s we "knew" that it was utterly barren... but now aren't quite so sure. I can certainly see why some members of our society might find this rapid evolution of "what we know" unsettling, so they cling to a system of belief that promises not to change. But I think the roller coaster ride of Science is great.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  4. LHC by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Message received: "This is the Large Hadron Collider from the future. Do not attempt to [static.......] last warning."

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  5. Specifically... by tjstork · · Score: 5, Informative

    It wasn't until the 1950s, I believe, that scientists began to realize that Venus and Mars were both utterly inhospitable. Indeed, the first Mariner photographs of Mars, that showed it to be almost moonlike, blasted with craters and seemingly ancient and dead, came as something of a shock to the academic community.

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Specifically... by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is kind of disappointing to think about how our society would have evolved from that point on had it turned out that Venus, Mars, and/or the moon were habitable and had their own native flora and fauna, even if they weren't sentient.