In 1974, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) celebrated an upgrade of a radio and radar dish in a limestone valley at Arecibo in Puerto Rico, by transmitting a sequence of dots and dashes toward Messier 13 (M13) /NGC 6205, a globular cluster in constellation Hercules, of 300 000 stars of light, early, old material with very few planets.
M13 was near overhead during the ceremony on November 16 at the dish, which relies on daily earth rotation and annual orbital obliquity of 23.5 degrees to bring targets into radio frequency focus for two-hour periods daily.
From 12:56 to 13:13, for two brief moments, M13 stood 19.5 degrees from the zenith, at the latitude of three of a tetrahedron’s four points in a globe.
The radio beam blast of 2min 49sec contained 1679 frequency modulations, at 10 bits per second. If read as a rectangle of 73×23, a random pattern emerges. If read as a rectangle of 23×73 (two prime numbers), and as light versus dark squares or dots, it forms a coherent low-resolution digital image. The string is a 2D ‘Persian carpet’. In this matrix, Arecibo (later SETI) director Frank Drake expanded on the 1973 Pioneer plaque design. But these conscious meanings are difficult to decode due to some binary inconsistencies; counter-intuitive symbolisation; binary notation changing from line to line; and interspersed with non-binary graphic elements (as Chris Joseph and others noted). In binary code, digits are 0 or 1, but in the next row or column the 1s rise by a power of 2 (x2).
Columns could magnify digital units into 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s, etc. For example, 14 could be noted as 01110, meaning 0+2+4+8+0 =14.
Drake had sent the digital string by anonymous emails to some scientists, who all drew the picture, and could decipher the parts dealing with their field of expertise. (extract from Stoneprint Journal 8; NASA space cosmograms archetypes, 2023 April).
The ceremony and message were drafted in a hurry, by people who made careers of ‘alien contact’ ideas. The ceremony was typical of a healing ritual, before globalisation made culture shock all too real. Culture remained the same as ever, but the level of tech and science now magnified the geoglyphs and power displays of the past (see Cosmic graffiti on p18).
The flaws and divisions of science were also magnified as defence cluster tech officials played at culture heroes, ‘spreading civilisation’ to the galaxy.
SETI Institute anthropologists added ‘current evolution’ ideas to their courses, blurring fact and fiction even more.
The Arecibo signal on frequency 2380 MHz, FM by a 10 Hz shift, would take 25,100 years to pass 30 stars and reach M13 on a very narrow 3 trillion-Watt beam, a million times stronger than a TV signal, brighter than the sun at that wavelength if seen from the target area.
The concave reflector of 1000ft (305m) with its smaller convex antenna suspended on cables over the bowl, normally scans the sky for radiation at various frequencies.
It could detect a TV station at 1.8 light-years, or a BMEWS radar at 18 light-years, or its own counterpart on the other side of our galaxy.
The event was a memorial to high tech, not really a ‘message’, as Donald Campbell and Sagan himself noted. Gaining public interest, support, and state funding for astrophysics, is part of the SETI agenda.
Healers, priests, warriors, and inventors depend on politicians and popular perception for budget.
The Arecibo rectangle gives numbers, elements, DNA molecules, helix, number of amino bases, human profile and height, population, planets, dish shape and diameter:
[] Numbers 1 to 10 at the top, are read upward. The lowest digit is intended as a zero or place marker, and digits above it mean 1,2,4, capable to write up to 7, while 8,9,10 are written in the column next to the zero marker.
[] Five biology molecules by their atomic numbers: 1Hydrogen, 6Carbon, 7Nitrogen, 8,Oxygen, 15Phosphorus (see the typological Periodic table on p23).
[] DNA double helix section in vertical profile, but the full structure is not explained.
[] DNA sugars and bases as sequences of five elements, but containing errors. Deoxyribose (carbon sugar) monomers have five carbon atoms [C5], but shown as seven [C7]. Base Adenine has five carbons [C5], but shown as four [C4]. Base Guanine has five carbons [C5], but shown as four [C4]. Base Adenine bonds have H4, two bonds to an N, and two to two Cs, but shown as H5. These errors are impossible to rectify from the message alone. The nitrogen bases attach to the sugars (S) and a phosphate group. The four bases differ only in the nitrogenous base. DNA polynucleotides spirals use bases as rungs. DNA elements form a square outline of six molecules in the ten peripheral positions of a 4×3=12 grid:
S A T S
P P
S C G S
This grid with two blanks in the middle is puzzling, unless the reader understood it as two DNA ‘ladder rungs’ that could also invert to T A, or G C, and requiring a 4×7=28 ladder grid:
S A T S
P P
S T A S
P P
S C G S
P P
S G C S
[] Total of base pairs in human DNA is noted on the central bar as about 4.3bn, but that was about 3bn more than was known at the time, among some last-minute ‘improvements’, or perhaps Drake’s message to the future that they had some information in advance. A year later, in ‘Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence’ in Scientific American, they again showed 4.3bn. And in the journal Icarus, where Sagan was an editor, a cartoon of the matrix printed mirrored had several differences from the signal version: the number of base pairs missed a critical 0, increasing the already inflated number of DNA base pairs by another half a million. In 1978 Sagan and Drake repeated the high number in several publications.
Later, SETI chief astronomer Shostak did the same. The current known total is 3.2bn (Celera Genomics 2000, announced at a White House ceremony with the state-funded Human Genome Project). Some estimates are up to 3.5bn, far above the estimates of 1974, but still only 75% of Sagan’s ‘4.3bn’ or ‘4.8bn’.
[] Human height as 14 wavelengths (126mm x14 =1.7m(5.8ft), roughly also indicating earth gravity.
[] Our planets in a row, and earth raised under the human. But their digits are very rough approximations.
[] Human population in the block on the left as 4.3bn, incidentally equal to the inflated number of human DNA base pairs shown.
[] A radio receiver /transmitter antenna convex, pointing down to a much larger concave dish, not shown, but noted as a diameter of 1000ft /306m.
Characters in SETI’s Arecibo radio grid (archetypal features in brackets):
1 Builder; Phosphate P8 O4 DNA strand (‘book’, maze, cluster, build). And part of the helix (twist, spiral).
2 Builder; Phosphate P O4 DNA strand (‘book’, maze, cluster, build), outer end.
2c Basket; DNA strand (weave, ‘arm’-link, container, ‘snake’, secret). C-types are between specific axes.
3 Queen; DNA strand (long, bent).
4 King; Sun (sun, ‘kiln’) as 3×3 block (rectangle), but incorrect in digital size.
5a Priest; Mercury of fast orbit (hyperactive, ‘winged’, as in myth).
5b Priest; Venus, known as vaporous (‘water’).
5c BasketTail; Radio dish (‘container’, disc), wave (weave) and signals (reveal).
6 Exile; Earth, raised (ingress).
7 Child; Mars, known as scarred (‘mace’, ‘eyeless’).
7g Gal.Centre; Radio dish edge (juncture, ‘vortex’).
8 Healer; Jupiter, large (strong).
9 Healer; Saturn, large (strong), known as ringed (disc).
9c BasketLid; Uranus (disc). And Neptune (disc). And population number of earth (reveal).
10 Teacher; Human, arms half raised (arms up, guard), with height scale bar (‘staff’), maker of the dish (metal, disc), with population number (‘council’, ecology), sharing data (school).
11 Womb; A deoxyribose sugar, C5 H7 O1, at top left. The four sugars are on the outside, as in DNA.
12 Heart; Thymine base (interior), C5 H5 N2 O2, at top centre left. The bases T, A, G, C are ‘ladder rungs’, as in DNA.
13 Heart; Adenine base (interior), C5 H4 N5, at top centre right.
13c Basket Head; Cytosine base (weave), C4 H4 N3 O1.
14 Mixer; A deoxyribose sugar (energy), containing H and O, elements of water (transform). And a phosphate group (more typical of type 15).
15 Maker; A deoxyribose sugar (‘rope’, doubled). And a type 15 phosphate (rope). The four phosphate chains are on the outsides, as they are in DNA.
15g Gal.Gate; An atom of type 15 phosphate (juncture. See p23).
Axial centre; Unmarked, as usual.
4p Gal.S.Pole; Human’s left hand (joint).
11p Gal.Pole; A sugar or base (juncture).
Cp, Cel.Pole /Midsummer; DNA strand (juncture).
Cs, Cel.S.Pole /Midwinter; Human’s right foot (limb-joint).
Timeframe; The solstice markers are near horizontal (plane). These polar triangles place midsummer on axis 15 or Gemini, thus spring and the cultural time-frame on axis 4, or Age4 Pisces, confirmed by the sun as type 4. The work was made near the end of Age Pisces. Another solstice marker option is on axis 13 or Leo, placing spring and the cultural time-frame in Age2 Taurus, as most alchemical works are, regardless of their epoch.
The structuralist analysis test of the Arecibo radio digits, scores 43/68 archetypal features; 16/16 axial points; 12/4 c-type sector features; 3/2 g-gate sector features; 4/5 polar markers; 1/2 planar or cardinal orientations; 1/1 correlation with the Age or Age prior to the work; 2/2 general themes; thus 82/100, minus 13 extra characters off the axial grid; total 69%, more than the global average of 60%. The high score among transitional types and polar types (c, g, p), is due to the conscious theme of natural structure (numbers, elements, acids, DNA, planets) already expressing archetypal structure. The same integration applies to alchemical cosmograms (see the Alchemy article on p4).
*This post is an extract from Stoneprint Journal 8; NASA space cosmograms archetypes, 2023 April, 24 pages. Order copies at E8 /$10 /R100 plus delivery cost from Johannesburg, on edmondfurter at gmail dot com
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