A Brief History Of Martian Ruckuses | Defector
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A Brief History Of Martian Ruckuses | Defector
"In the balmy late summer of 1924, people across the world prepared to receive the first messages from the intelligent alien civilization that was assumed to inhabit Mars. To tune in to these Martian communications, the U.S. military imposed a period of radio silence on the nation that spanned 36 hours between August 21 and 23, coinciding with an unusually close pass between Mars and Earth in their orbits around the Sun."
"In addition to declaring a National Day of Radio Silence, the U.S. military recruited Charles Francis Jenkins and David Peck Todd, a leading inventor and an astronomer respectively, to capture Martian missives sent across the interplanetary transom. For this purpose, Jenkins developed what he called a "radio photo message continuous transmission machine" that converted radio signals into optical flashes that could be recorded onto a 30-foot-long roll of photographic paper."
"When the opposition arrived at last, Americans flooded public observatories, hoping to catch a glimpse of their Martian neighbors. Jenkins and Todd, meanwhile, looked for messages recorded by the contraption in Jenkins's lab. The device did end up recording an inscrutable arrangement of dots and dashes, a result that tantalized the public, though Jenkins did not believe he had made contact with Martians."
In late summer 1924 the U.S. military imposed a 36-hour national radio silence during an unusually close Mars-Earth opposition to listen for communications from an assumed Martian civilization. Charles Francis Jenkins and astronomer David Peck Todd were recruited to capture possible Martian messages. Jenkins built a "radio photo message continuous transmission machine" that converted radio signals into optical flashes recorded on a 30-foot roll of photographic paper. Americans crowded public observatories during the opposition to search for Martians. Jenkins's device recorded an inscrutable pattern of dots and dashes that excited the public, but Jenkins suspected heterodyning or radio interference rather than alien signals.
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