How the US Navy detected alien signals: the forgotten story of a century ago
The discovery of radio waves and the first experiments in the field of radio communication allowed mankind to take a big step forward. It turned out that there is a special kind of matter that does not need a substance to propagate - it is an electromagnetic field, whose disturbances are called waves. Let me remind you that we hear sounds only in a dense environment capable of transmitting vibrations from one molecule to another, and at altitudes of hundreds of kilometers the rarefied atmosphere (and then space) will no longer allow us to speak. Or survive... The absence of air, however, does not interfere with radio waves; in fact, they propagate better in a vacuum. These simple, yet surprising, properties have made it possible to have uninterrupted and fast communication between any point on the globe.
Less than half a century has passed since the first successful experiments on the use of radio communication, as some enthusiasts came up with the idea of using it to establish contact with extraterrestrials. In fact, if earthlings have discovered such a convenient way of transmitting information, why not use it for the inhabitants of other planets, because the laws of nature are the same everywhere…
At the beginning of the XX century, many believed that another intelligent civilization lived in our neighborhood, on the planet Mars. Nothing surprising for that time — only in the era of space flight it became clear that the Martian conditions are not suitable for the existence of complex organisms. There is no liquid water on the surface of the planet, and solar radiation will quickly kill any creatures who venture to walk on Mars without spacesuits…
Marconi demonstrates his invention. However, the first experiments in the field of radio communication were almost simultaneously conducted in a number of countries, including Russia (Published in LIFE, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
And in 1920, one of the radio enthusiasts, G. Marconi, suddenly announced that he had received unknown signals, the source of which may be located outside the Earth, in the region of Mars. It is not necessary to accuse a talented experimenter of lying: the hypothesis about the habitability of a neighboring planet was not regarded by then science as absurd, and the lack of knowledge even among scientists could lead to erroneous conclusions.
Four years later, Mars was just at the minimum distance from Earth, and the astronomer d. Todd offered to take advantage of such favorable conditions to communicate with the Martians by radio. He suggested that the Earth's large transmitters should be temporarily switched off so as not to interfere with the reception of signals from Mars. Todd's idea was supported by the command of the US Navy. The captains of all military vessels were ordered to restrict transmissions and register any suspicious signals during the day of August 24, 1924. Unfortunately, the bold experiment did not yield anything, but it can be considered the first project to search for extraterrestrial civilizations by technical means.
About author:
 Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me |
Related tags:
aliens space radio Marconi US Navy signalsRandom UFO or conspiracy article
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