Arecibo Message Crop Circle

The Chilbolton 'Arecibo message' Formation

On Tuesday 21st August 2001 two new crop formations were reported near Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK. Both were very impressive looking and consisted of a large number of small 'pixels', which when viewed from the air formed a recognisable shape - unlike many other crop formations.

One represented a 'human face' and the other resembled a radio transmission that SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) sent from the Arecibo radio telescope in 1974. This latter formation will be examined in this article, in which I hope to not only describe and explain the original transmission, but also to examine and decode a number of significant changes occurring in the crop formation.

After speaking to witnesses, it would appear that the 'Arecibo' formation was created on August 20th. Although I could roughly make out the binary pattern of the formation from aerial photographs, some aspects were not quite clear enough to discern individual 'digits'. Therefore I visited both formations myself (they are about 200m apart in the same field) on Saturday 25th August 2001.

The Arecibo message

First, I will give some background to the original message sent from Arecibo, back in 1974.

Arecibo is on the northern coast of Puerto Rico and contains a natural disc-shaped hole in the rock. Inside this bowl was constructed the world's largest radio-telescope, with a diameter of 1000 feet.

In 1974 a number of modifications had been carried out to the transmitter, enabling it to broadcast signals at a power of up to 20 terawatts (1 terawatt = 1 trillion watts) and as an inaugural test of these improvements it was decided by SETI to transmit an encoded message to the heavens. This signal was aimed towards the globular star cluster M13, some 25,000 light years away and consisting of some 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules.

The message was actually transmitted on November 16th 1974 and consisted of 1679 pulses of binary code (0's and 1's) - which took a little under three minutes to transmit. It was transmitted on a frequency of 2380MHz (which is significant later).

Why 1679 digits?

The reason for this is down to mathematics. 1679 is the unique product of two prime numbers; 23 and 73. Any sufficiently intelligent lifeform would no doubt look for unique, universal constructs - such as prime numbers, chemical element frequencies and binary digits. Don't forget that because we could be trying to communicate with an intelligence completely different to our own, we cannot talk in terms of 'human' systems, such as centimetres, feet, decimal numbers etc.

Because ONLY the two prime numbers 23 and 73, when multiplied together, produce 1679 there can only be a single way to arrange the signal, if you were converting it into a matrix grid - 23 squares by 73 squares.

The original binary code is shown in figure 1.

Binary coding....

In order to fully understand the message encoded in the transmission, it's essential to understand the binary code. This is actually much simpler than our base 10, decimal system. Whereas in base 10 we count from 1 to 9 and then carry 1 into the 10's column and start again in the units column, until we've got 9 in the 10's column and 9 in the units column. Then we have to carry 1 into the 100's column and start again in the 10's and units columns, and so on and so on.

In binary each column goes up in powers of 2, hence the columns are units, 2's, 4's, 8's, 16's etc. Because we can only deal in 1's and 0's, we rapidly move up through the columns - because as soon as we exceed 1 we carry into the next column. For an example of counting in binary, see the table to the right.

To go back to the original transmission of binary pulses (fig.1), by converting it into 23 columns of 73 rows we get the matrix shown in figure 2 (left).

You can now see a graphical pattern depicted by the 1's and 0's of the code. For clarity I've converted this into black squares (representing 1's) and white (empty) squares (representing 0's). You can see that viewing it like this, makes the actual message a lot clearer, as shown below, in figure 3.

This is where a slight puzzle becomes visible. By performing the steps described above, the literal translation of the original pulses is on the left of figure 3. However, the image printed in a couple of my books is that shown on the right of figure 3. This is an exact left-right mirror image of my decoding. I suspect that this is possibly an error which went un-noticed when the book went to print - although I have checked two books which both depict the same pattern as shown on the right of figure 3.

The pattern which occurred in the Chilbolton crop field, is the same image as

12 Must-See Skywatching Events in 2012

The top 12 "skylights" for this coming year include a "double planet" in May and a Venus transit of the sun in June 2012.

By Joe Rao 

As the year 2011 comes to a close, some might wonder what is looming sky-wise for 2012? What celestial events might we look forward to seeing? 

I've selected what I consider to be the top 12 "skylights" for this coming year, and list them here in chronological order. Not all these events will be visible from any one locality … for the eclipses, for instance, you'll probably have to do some traveling … but many can be observed from the comfort of your backyard.

Hopefully your local weather will cooperate on most, if not all, of these dates. Clear skies!

Jan. 4: Quadrantid meteor shower peaks

This meteor shower reaches its peak in the predawn hours of Jan. 4 for eastern North America. The Quadrantid meteor shower is a very short-lived meteor display, whose peak rates only last several hours. The phase of the moon is a bright waxing gibbous, normally prohibitive for viewing any meteor shower, but the moon will set by 3 a.m., leaving the sky dark for a few hours until the first light of dawn; that's when you'll have the best shot at seeing many of these bluish-hued meteors. 

From the eastern half of North America, a single observer might count on seeing as many as 50-to-100 "Quads" in a single hour. From the western half of the continent the display will be on the wane by the time the moon sets, with hourly rates probably diminishing to around 25 to 50 meteors.

Feb. 20 to March 12: Best evening apparition of Mercury

In February and March, the "elusive" innermost planet Mercury moves far enough from the glare of the sun to be readily visible soon after sunset. Its appearance will be augmented by two other bright planets (Venus and Jupiter), which also will be visible in the western sky during this same time frame.

Mercury will arrive at its greatest elongation from the sun March 5. It will be quite bright (-1.3-to-0 magnitude) before this date and will fade rapidly to +1.6 magnitude thereafter. Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in terms of magnitude, with lower numbers corresponding to brighter objects.

March 3: Mars arrives at opposition

On March 3, the Earth will be passing Mars as the two planets wheel around the sun in their respective orbits. Because Mars reaches aphelion — its farthest point from the sun — on Feb. 15, this particular opposition will be an unfavorable one. In fact, two days after opposition, Mars will be closest to Earth at a distance of 62.6 million miles.

Compare this with the August 2003 opposition when Mars was only 34.6 million miles away.  Nonetheless, even at this unfavorable opposition the fiery-hued Mars will be an imposing naked-eye sight, shining at magnitude -1.2, just a bit dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star, and will be visible in the sky all night long.    

March 13: Brilliant "double planet"

The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, team up to make for an eye-catching sight in the western sky soon after sunset. They will be separated by 3 degrees on this evening, Venus passing to the northwest (upper right) of Jupiter and shining nearly eight times brighter than "Big Jupe." Although they will gradually go their separate ways after this date, on March 25 and 26,

Shocking: Young Boy Survives by Feeding on Dog Milk

I have just come across a very shocking and disturbing video on Youtube which shows an Indian (apparently) boy named Chotu that survives by feeding with milk from female dogs. The video that can be seen below is very disturbing, so viewer’s discretion is advised.

Poverty is the real reason behind this

Alien Voices from Space (1977)

By Billy Booth

On 8th January, 1971, Greater London Radio featured a phone-in on the subject of UFOs. At 9.10 PM, a caller announced in a cold, metallic voice that he was speaking from outer space. A guest of the phone-in was the late Ufologist and theosophist, Rex Dutta, who compiled the transcript given below. Assistant Producer: Why are you calling us?

Extraterrestrial: I have not phoned you, I am speaking by thought-transference guided by computer.

AP: What does that mean?

ET: It means how do you do.

AP: Very well. How do you do, Sir?

ET: Yes. Evidence of life in outer space is not visible to Earth eyes except the chosen few who have celestial ability to appertain and to appreciate higher intelligence.

AP: How does the planet Earth rate in your experience? Are we reasonably well developed?

ET: Planet Earth is in for a very difficult time, spinning very fast, making heads of men go round too quickly and think too much about silly little problems. But I think that long-term prospect for Earth is relatively good.

AP: Are you going to help us from wherever you are speaking?

ET: Maybe. That is to be discussed soon at a meeting of the Universal Planet Development Society, and we are considering shortly the special case of Earth.

AP: Have you spoken to Mr Heath? [In those days, the Prime Minister.]

ET: I know of Mr Heath, this gentleman. No? Yes, he is a gentleman. He is at this moment-Mr Heath-yes I can see him. Yes, I see him there. He is at the moment-he is having-he is sleeping, but very quickly he will get up to have his breakfast. He is at the moment not in your country.

AP: No, you are quite right, he is not in our country at the moment. You have spoken to him then?

ET: I have spoken not to him, no. But I have heard him speak, yes. But I have not spoken with him myself.

AP: What do you think the prospects are for this planet?

ET: Well, I tell you that very shortly now on Earth there will be very big trouble.

AP: What sort of trouble?

ET: I think mankind makes very silly, foolish mistakes. It does not look at elementary methods and forgets important principles: always looks at unimportant things and thinks unimportant things are important. And because of this there will be much trouble.

AP: How can mankind avoid this disaster?

ET: No, I cannot say because you will not listen.

AP: I am listening to you now.

ET: I know, it has happened before. Also men on Earth say men, other men, do not listen; they do not wish to listen. They wish to hear other things and they turn away. For a time on Earth the trouble must come and no words, it seems, can escape this.

AP: Where are you now?

ET: I am now approximately, Earth distance, 200,000 miles over 'x' in the centre of 'y'. [Marylebone High Street, Greater London.]

No Doomsday in 2012

by Ian O'Neill

Apparently, the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012. Yes, you read correctly, in some way, shape or form, the Earth (or at least a large portion of humans on the planet) will cease to exist. Stop planning your careers, don’t bother buying a house, and be sure to spend the last years of your life doing something you always wanted to do but never had the time. Now you have the time, four years of time, to enjoy yourselves before… the end.

So what is all this crazy talk? We’ve all heard these doomsday predictions before, we’re still here, and the planet is still here, why is 2012 so important? Well, the Mayan calendar stops at the end of the year 2012, churning up all sorts of religious, scientific, astrological and historic reasons why this calendar foretells the end of life as we know it. The Mayan Prophecy is gaining strength and appears to be worrying people in all areas of society. Forget Nostradamus, forget the Y2K bug, forget the credit crunch, this event is predicted to be huge and many wholeheartedly believe this is going to happen for real. Planet X could even be making a comeback.

For all those 2012 Mayan Prophecy believers out there, I have bad news. There is going to be no doomsday event in 2012, and here’s why…

The Mayan Calendar
So what is the Mayan Calendar? The calendar was constructed by an advanced civilization called the Mayans around 250-900 AD. Evidence for the Maya empire stretches around most parts of the southern states of Mexico and reaches down to the current geological locations of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and some of Honduras. The people living in Mayan society exhibited very advanced written skills and had an amazing ability when constructing cities and urban planning. The Mayans are probably most famous for their pyramids and other intricate and grand buildings. The people of Maya had a huge impact on Central American culture, not just within their civilization, but with other indigenous populations in the region. Significant numbers of Mayans still live today, continuing their age-old traditions.

The Mayans used many different calendars and viewed time as a meshing of spiritual