HOW might the first intelligence from an extraterrestrial civilization be transmitted to earth? Basing his answer on a concept originally proposed in 1961 by Cornell Astronomer Frank Drake, Electrical Engineer Bernard Oliver composed a sample universal message that could conceivably have been sent from some distant planet. The information would be contained in a series of irregularly spaced pulses picked up by radio telescopes tuned to a wave length of 21 cm. (the natural frequency of radiation from a hydrogen atom and an obvious choice of an advanced civilization). Translated into print, the message would consist of an apparently meaningless sequence...
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