In 1974 a special ceremony in Puerto Rico took place at the Arecibo Observatory. Known, as the “Arecibo message,” American astronomer Carl Sagan and his colleagues beamed a broadcast into space using the most powerfully known radiowave. Directed towards M13, a globular star cluster approximately 25,000 light years away, the binary coded, pictorial broadcast carried the basic—and as seen by Sagan and his colleagues— the most essential information to understand our civilization.Consisting of 1,679 binary digits, the message contained: graphic representations of chemical elements that make up the structure of human DNA, the physical attributes of an average adult human, Earth’s human population, the planet’s location within the Solar System, and an image of the Arecibo radio telescope used for transmitting the data. 27 years later and 6,713 km away, a near replica of the Arecibo message known as the “Arecibo answer” appeared in the form of a crop circle near the Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK.

The miraculous apparition was considered a hoax by many, but believers agreed that “contact” had occurred. Using the same binary digit language, the extraterrestrials’ reply consisted of information about their race and civilization. The answer presented a slightly altered chemical composition of silica in their genetic makeup as well as an extra strand of DNA. The pictograph discovered with this information depicted the little grey men who have been said to spontaneously abduct cattle and human beings since the Roswell UFO incident in 1947. Roughly 3-4 feet tall, the graphic representation of the extraterrestrial’s physical appearance featured a bulbous head like that of the “grey” men described in H.G. Wells’s essay titled “The Man of the Year Million” (1893). At the end of the message, it was determined by believers and dreamers alike that the extraterrestrials used a microwave instead of a radio wave to transmit their message back to us.
Text by Future Proof

- Established in 2012, Future Proof is a curatorial project initiated by Patrick Cruz and Jabari Jordan-Walker. The duo is dedicated to the humour in art, design and other esoteric practices. They have curated, sponsored and conducted projects at Dynamo Arts Association, Avenue, Hammock residency and VIVO media arts centre in Vancouver, Canada.