Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 492 A New Signal Has Appeared

"Professor? What's wrong?"

In a lavishly decorated villa in the suburbs of Washington, a knock on the door broke the silence of the night.

The housekeeper's knocking on the bedroom door ensured that the sound reached Lin Ran's ears directly.

"Professor, Mr. Johnson Charles, the Director of NASA's Office of Science, is waiting outside. He urgently needs you to come to NASA headquarters immediately." The housekeeper's voice rang out after receiving a reply.

Lin Ran continued, "Okay, Tina, tell him to wait five more minutes, I'll be right there."

“Okay,” the housekeeper replied.

Jenny's face was full of curiosity as she helped Lin Ran get dressed; at that moment, her journalistic instincts overwhelmed everything else.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it was the Soviets who launched a nuclear missile, because if that were the case, we would be in an air-raid shelter now, not NASA headquarters.” Lin Ran joked, then kissed Jenny on the forehead and said, “Anyway, I’ll tell you what happened when I get back.”

Johnson Charles, who was waiting outside, relaxed the moment he saw Lin Ran. He walked over, took the briefcase from Lin Ran, and led him to the NASA vehicle, saying:
"Professor, just an hour ago, the Puerto Rico Astronomical Observatory sent back the first message: they detected a signal from the universe, a clear sequence of prime numbers."

In the following half hour, our astronomical observation points in North America, Europe, and Australia successively reported that they had all observed this unusually clean signal.

The European Space Agency's observatory in Sweden, the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and even Kitt Peak in Arizona have all submitted anomaly reports because nearby radar systems detected electromagnetic overflows.

This signal was received globally simultaneously, and I think our competitors, such as the Soviet Union and China, most likely received it as well.

The Puerto Rican Observatory, which first detected the signal, has sent a report back to Puerto Rico regarding the matter.

The report shows that its beam is wide-area, extremely strong, and covers the entire hemisphere.

Observational data from astronomical stations around the world are being compiled in Washington.

According to the initial assessment of engineers on duty at NASA, this is a clear case of extraterrestrial presence.

The signals received globally in a synchronized manner prove that extraterrestrial life exists in the universe and sends signals to Earth.

The intentions are currently unclear, but it is clear that this is an event that transcends national borders and all human conflicts.

Five minutes before I left for your house, General Hartman of the Pentagon contacted me. He said that their military listening stations around the world had also received the signal and asked if it was related to us. After receiving a negative reply, they were mobilizing our radar and that of our allies to capture the signal. A detailed report will be sent to us later.

Professor, NASA urgently needs you to take charge.

In the Ford, Charles was an excellent worker, able to report the situation clearly and concisely in just a few words.

After listening, Lin Ran fell into deep thought. Isn't this exactly the kind of thing I came up with?

Of course you'll find it strange.

Because I added special effects to the signal, including a simulated Doppler shift caused by the high-speed motion of planets, you would feel that the signal is moving away from Earth at a speed of 20 kilometers per second.

There are other special effects as well. In short, judging solely from the intensity, it's set on Mars.

But if you look at all the features together, this thing comes from the edge of the Milky Way.

The main selling point is that it is indistinguishable.

"Okay, I understand. Our most important task now is to compile the report so that I can report the situation to President Nixon at the very first moment of 9:00 a.m.

The second is intent judgment and signal source analysis.

Anyway, I'll go check out the mission control center first.

In this era, NASA's mission control center is a place filled with maps and indicator lights.

Normally, this place is synonymous with calmness and professionalism.

But at this moment, the air is filled with a superposition of ecstasy and collapse.

Clearly, no one is truly prepared to deal with aliens.

The saying "Lord Ye loves dragons but is terrified of them" isn't limited to ordinary people; even professional organizations like NASA share this sentiment.

Starting at four in the morning, the phone lines here started ringing like dominoes.

The initial report came from Arecibo, but soon calls began pouring in from scientific listening points around the world and NASA's partner agencies.

"Are you sure? A sequence of prime numbers? Okay! Keep that line open!"

"What? Your Deep Space Network received it too? Completely synchronized? Send the original tape data over immediately via teleprinter!"

The phone kept ringing, with similar messages coming one after another.

The operators were completely exhausted.

From initial excitement to current numbness, everyone's hands are constantly recording discoveries from astronomical stations around the world.

"Professor, this is the location in the world where all unknown prime number sequences have been captured."

Johnson Charles stood in front of the huge map and pointed to the points circled in red.

The signal reached key allies across North America, Europe, and Australia.

Lin Ran sighed and said, "This is terrible. It means that any amateur astronomer with a bit of awareness could have noticed this unusual signal."

This will cause chaos.

Johnson Charles's face darkened. America's bureaucrats feared chaos more than anything else; they had had enough of it in the past.

Faced with the ongoing civil rights protests in Washington, D.C., white technocrats who don't need to vote can only feel disgusted: "You guys are ruining this country!"
“This is terrible,” Johnson muttered.

Standing next to Lin Ran, George M. Lowe, NASA's deputy administrator, who is responsible for overall coordination within NASA and acts like a butler, said, "Professor, the raw tape data from Arecibo and the global synchronization report have been gathered here, and top signal processing experts are working against the clock."

We have made some discoveries regarding this signal, but more importantly, we have many concerns. Would you like to have the experts explain their findings and concerns so far?

Lin Ran nodded: "Okay."

George waved towards the control center, which was filled with desks and computers.

Thomas stepped forward, followed by two other staff members who pushed the portable blackboard closer.

“Professor, Director, and Chief, please allow me to brief you on the latest developments,” Thomas said.

After Lin Ran nodded, Thomas continued, "As the analysis progressed, we concluded that this was an elaborate data trap."

Prime number encoding is perfect and is undoubtedly a smart signal.

It uses the language of the universe as we understand it precisely.

However, when we turn our analysis to the signal propagation characteristics, the whole system falls into a paradox.

We attempted to determine distance by measuring the signal delay.

In theory, the signal from a distant celestial body should be singular and clear.

But the signals we received all carried multiple echoes.

Thomas handed Lin Ran a chart with the signal printed on it.

"Professor, there are always two or three faint trailing sounds next to the main signal, and the delay of each trailing sound is different, ranging from 5 seconds to 20 seconds."

We suspect that the signal was reflected by multiple space reflectors before reaching Earth.

From a technical perspective, this means that the signal traveled through a huge region filled with scattering particles, like a comet cloud or a giant plasma cloud.

But if that were the case, the signal would have been weakened into noise long ago.

But the signal was unusually clear.

I believe these trailing sounds are artificially added to spoof the signal's propagation path and true distance. This makes it difficult for us to determine which delay to trust, thus preventing us from calculating the accurate distance.

Arecibo reported wide-area launches, which is the most disturbing feature.

We use global data for triangulation, and theoretically all observation lines should converge at a single point.

However, the results showed that the signal seemed to come from halfway up the sky, and its strength remained stable even when the antenna axis at Arecibo Observatory shifted significantly.

This is beyond my comprehension. It is absolutely beyond the capabilities of Earth's technology. At least I'm certain that the Soviet Union could not have done this, and neither can we.

This signal is not a point source, but a huge, precisely controlled emission surface.

It somehow radiates information evenly and simultaneously across the entire receiving surface of the Earth. The more powerful our telescopes are, the more it proves their ubiquity.

We cannot pinpoint a fixed coordinate; any attempt to locate it will only point to a vast and meaningless spatial sector.

We ultimately analyzed the specific characteristics of the signal, including its frequency stability.

Normally, near-Earth objects produce a small Doppler effect due to the rotation and motion of planets.

The signal carries a constant, high-speed pseudo-motion characteristic as it moves away from us.

This is a typical characteristic of distant galaxies or high-speed interstellar objects.

All our programs tell us that this is a signal from a deep-space object that is escaping at high speed.

However, its immediacy and high intensity completely negate this conclusion.

It is full of paradoxes.

From my personal perspective, I feel like it's flexing its muscles, telling us that it decides what we can and cannot see.

This is more like a warning, a demonstration of power.

Thomas succinctly summarized their latest findings, which were more concrete than the Puerto Rican discoveries, dismantling all of Lin Ran's disguises.

After listening, Lin Ran said, "Charles, starting today, suspend all projects that send signals into the universe. Before we can figure out this sequence of prime numbers, we need to maintain absolute silence with the universe."

Johnson Charles nodded, then said in an incredulous voice, "Professor, you mean the signal came from the M13 nebula, 25,000 light-years away?"

The scientists present all looked grim. If it really was an alien civilization from the M13 Nebula, combined with the Great Filter, it was hard to imagine how advanced their technology must be.

We launched it, and it hasn't even left the solar system yet, and the other side has already received it.

This is too scary.

Lin Ran shook his head and said, "No, that's not what I meant. I don't know where it came from."

I mean that we should not continue the search for extraterrestrial civilizations until we have identified them.

In the past, the purpose of all our projects that sent signals into space was to establish contact with extraterrestrial civilizations, but now that has become a reality.

Before we can clearly analyze this extraterrestrial civilization, we should remain silent.

George Lowe nodded and said, "I agree with the professor's point of view."

Even if Lin Ran said now that we should build a spaceship to advance into the M17 Nebula, George would still reply: I agree with the professor.

That's his job.

Lin Ran continued, "Next, we need to urgently call on mathematicians, semioticians, and linguists to interpret the intentions of extraterrestrial civilizations, and even sociologists and philosophers."

In addition, all the observatories around the world under our management need to be activated and ready to observe signals from the universe at any time. I don't think their signals are just this one sequence of prime numbers.

Our Arecibo project sends human DNA sequences and images of humans into space, yet they go to all this trouble to send only prime number sequences?
Finally, I'll compile all the information and prepare a report. At nine o'clock sharp, I will personally report this matter to the President.

Nixon was in a bad mood because the Vietnam War was still ongoing, the protests never stopped, the financial situation was more difficult than ever, and negotiations with China were slow to materialize. The only thing that could amuse him was the gossip about the professor and the princess; he actually laughed when he saw that.

That day, as usual, he was already in the Oval Office at eight o'clock sharp. Earlier, at seven o'clock during breakfast, the White House Chief of Staff had briefed him on NASA and the Pentagon regarding extraterrestrials. His immediate thought was: What? Extraterrestrials during my term?
While Area 51 does have some strange things, those can all be denied.

Moreover, living aliens are different from dead aliens.

This thing was captured by NASA using their own large antenna; it was a global, synchronized event, which is undeniable.

He detested everything that was unpredictable and uncontrollable.

This deep-space signal is clearly a massive bomb, like the V-shaped one, or perhaps even more exaggerated than the V-shaped one.

"This signal presents a political dilemma."

If it proves to be peaceful, the hippies and the media will demand that I allocate all military spending to a space peace program; if it proves to be a threat, Congress will use fear to dump the entire budget onto the Pentagon.

"I'm afraid I'll lose control of the diplomatic initiative no matter what." This is an even more difficult dilemma than the trolley problem, because neither option is what Nixon wants.

At nine o'clock sharp, Lin Ran walked into the office.

"Professor, what should we do?" Nixon asked bluntly.

"We will immediately convene a press conference based on the available information to announce the existence of extraterrestrial signals to the public."

"Even a one-day delay would damage the White House's credibility," Lin Ran said directly.

Nixon's face darkened; revealing this was certainly not good news for him: "Professor, can we keep it a secret?"

Lin Ran shook his head: "Mr. President, I believe that NASA and the Pentagon's reports were already in your hands before I arrived."

The White House's science advisors have probably explained to you that this is a wide-area signal that can be received not only by official agencies.

The news cannot be suppressed.

Even if amateur enthusiasts can't receive the signal, universities can. You can command universities in America, you can command universities in Western Europe, but can you command universities in Eastern Europe?

They have no obligation to help the White House cover up the truth.

Moreover, other countries also received the information.

This is the time to showcase America's leadership to the world.

As the world's most advanced country in the aerospace field, if we don't announce this news, are we supposed to let the Soviet Union and Russia announce it first?

"Should we wait for Leonard to announce in the Kremlin if we don't declare that we are capable of handling any crisis?"

The last two sentences directly moved Nixon, enabling an internal consensus to be formed amidst an external crisis.

“Okay, I’ll have Haldeman prepare it right away,” Nixon said decisively.

Haldeman was the White House Chief of Staff and was absolutely loyal to Nixon until he took the blame for Nixon's Watergate scandal and resigned.

"Professor, do you really think they are aliens?" Nixon then asked, this was his most pressing question.

If aliens really exist, then all logic will change.

Whether it's the Cold War or a financial crisis, we have to make way for aliens.

After a moment of silence, Lin Ran said, "I don't know."

In the Oval Office of the White House, an office he had visited countless times, Lin Ran was not answering Nixon's question, but rather another question:
That is, when extraterrestrial civilizations exist and the sword of Damocles hangs over humanity's head, and the vision of human rulers needs to be broadened to a cosmic perspective, how will this timeline develop?

After Lin Ran's one-on-one conversation with Nixon, a series of meetings awaited them.

At NASA, the war has begun.

For tour groups from Puerto Rico, however, it was full of surprises.

The entire team's trip came to an abrupt end after the first day's activities.

The NASA staff looked grim, but no matter how they asked him, he only replied with four words: "No comment."

Perhaps it's just two words: No comment.

The reporters on the team felt like they were at a press conference in the East Room of the White House, not in Puerto Rico. The NASA administrative assistant, the young man who had been enthusiastically explaining planetary habitability just last night, was now nervously announcing an emergency evacuation list:
"Ladies and gentlemen, due to unforeseen circumstances, all scheduled activities have been cancelled."

A military transport plane is already on standby at San Juan Airport, and you will all be back in Washington before noon.

There was an uproar in the crowd.

"How come you guys are so good at this kind of language?" Lillian Morris, a senior reporter from The Washington Post, couldn't help but sarcastically remark in the hotel lobby. "Last night you were talking about the eternity of the universe, and today it's become the eternity of politics."

Arthur C. Clark and Philip K. Dick sat in a corner of the hall, the latter's tone filled with uncertainty: "Could it be that we received a reply from outer space?"

After a moment's thought, Arthur Clarke said, "Impossible, it can't be that fast, it's too fast."

Dick shook his head and said, "Sir, think about it, Arecibo transmitted the most powerful radio signal in human history."

Then an unexpected situation arose.

This unexpected situation was even enough to prompt NASA to initiate a military evacuation.

I think it must be related to what was received.

NASA is evacuating witnesses.

Arthur Clarke's eyes lit up. "Philip, I don't want to go back to Washington so soon. I came all the way from London, and I want to stay and investigate what exactly happened."

Philip Dick extended his hand to Arthur Clarke: "Sir, that's exactly what I was thinking."

A young man peeked out from behind them and asked, "Hey guys, can I join you?"

Then a hand was raised: "Me too!"

Moments later, the four-man group regrouped in Arthur C. Clarke's room.

The person who just poked their head out was Thornton Tomassetti, a reporter from The Times, and the person who raised their hand was Stephen Hawking.

At this time, Hawking was already somewhat famous in the academic world, especially in the fields of gravity research and cosmology.

He collaborated with Roger Penrose to publish an important paper on the singularity theorem of the universe, which was a major breakthrough in the theoretical physics community.

This paper demonstrates that, according to general relativity, the universe began from an infinitesimally small point, providing strong mathematical support for the Big Bang theory.

Because he focuses on space research and is a rising young scholar, he was also on NASA's invitation list for the sake of diversity.

Despite their different backgrounds, the four individuals shared a surprisingly consistent stance on wanting to know what had happened.

Thornton Tomassetti closed the door, made sure there were no NASA staff in the hallway, and the four of them gave brief self-introductions and assigned tasks.

Then Tomassetti lowered his voice: "Gentlemen, before the meeting this morning, I drove to the Puerto Rico Observatory. Before I was kicked out, I heard NASA people saying that all technicians' shifts had been canceled since this morning, and everyone was on standby."

As I was leaving, I saw military trucks constantly heading towards the Puerto Rico Observatory.

When I arrived at the residential area below, I asked some helpful residents and learned that these military trucks most likely came from the Roosevelt Naval Base.

Something unusual is going to happen.

We must act quickly.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Hawking used a ballpoint pen as a baton, clearly playing the role of a command and information center, since he couldn't move as freely as others.

Very good. We have different skill sets.

Let's assume the worst-case scenario: Arecibo receives an immediate response.

If such a response is strong enough, they will leave clues.

The three of you need to conduct external reconnaissance first.

NASA evacuated all non-essential personnel, but it was impossible to remove all local amateur radio enthusiasts.

They have high-frequency receivers, which may be able to capture the overflowing sidelobe signals.

I thought I'd try to find some high-performance computers, or at least a telegraph machine, to contact my friends in London so they could help me analyze what these signals meant.

Finally, we needed to move to a safe location to avoid NASA staff forcibly removing us from Puerto Rico.

Clark looked out the window as unmarked black cars slowly drove into the hotel parking lot.

He understood that NASA had already begun preparations for a personnel transport operation: "We need to act quickly."

Hawking recalled reading a Puerto Rico tourist brochure on his way there, saying, "We can't go to San Juan; it's a military assembly point."

We must venture deep into the karst landscape region.

We need a location with electricity, communication, and privacy, overlooking the observatory.

Tommasetti said: “I had previously contacted local amateur radio enthusiasts, including Mr. Philip Dick and Sir Arthur Clarke, and I believe they would be willing to provide us with temporary accommodation.”

They should have high-frequency receivers.

The four-person team acted quickly. Tomassetti, posing as a journalist, borrowed an old rental car from the hotel and covered the license plate with his coat.

Dick and Clark were responsible for quickly loading critical equipment, including Hawking's wheelchair, telegraph machine, and the reporter's tape recorder, into the trunk.

As for luggage and such, none of that matters anymore.

Tomassetti was responsible for contacting the amateur radio enthusiast to confirm that he could provide the location and its exact coordinates.

The vast majority of radio enthusiasts in this era were also fans of science fiction literature, and they would never refuse to listen to the mention of Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke.

As they prepared to leave, Dick looked back at the room, a feeling of being manipulated welling up inside him.

"Sir, no matter where we hide, we'll be found?"

"Philip, maybe, but isn't the interesting part of life to try new things?"

The four-man team drove into the rugged mountain roads and deep tropical jungles of Puerto Rico, heading toward their only hope—a makeshift radio station belonging to an amateur radio enthusiast—to escape NASA's forced evacuation.

Just a few hours later, clues from the outside world began to pour into Clark's room.

Radio enthusiasts in Puerto Rico captured a very strong white noise around 3 a.m. that covered the entire frequency band.

Hawking contacted his colleagues at Cambridge and analyzed the sequence of prime numbers.

On the other end of the phone, his colleague in London was ecstatic: "Stephen, our astronomical observatory and the astronomical observatory in Puerto Rico are receiving the same signal!"

"Life in the universe is greeting us!"

This left him feeling somewhat lost and disappointed.

What was initially thought to be a secret only to be discovered in Puerto Rico has turned out to be the same result analyzed by astronomers worldwide.

Extraterrestrials do exist, and they are announcing their existence to Earth using sequences of prime numbers.

The four men sat high up in Puerto Rico, at an observation post for wireless enthusiasts, exchanging bewildered glances as they looked at the latest information they had received.

"The White House is holding a press conference to announce to the world that humanity has received a greeting from the universe for the first time."

Then, a phone rang from a distant residential area. "Hello, this is Rama, please speak." Arthur C. Clarke answered the phone. Rama was his code name, and also the name of a giant cylindrical spaceship in his work, originating from outer space.

"Rama, a new signal has appeared."

(End of this chapter)