I’ll Take a Rusty Nail and Scratch Your Initials on My Arm and I’ll Show You How to Sneak Up on the Roof of the Drugstore
The Voyager program consists of a pair of unmanned scientific probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s.
Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The record is intended as a combination time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human, that recovers either of the Voyager craft. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.
The following is a selection of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft { NASA | Complete Photograph Index }
{ UN Building Day and Night, UN }
{ X-ray of hand, NAIC }
{ Demonstration of licking, eating and drinking, NAIC }
{ Schoolroom, UN }
{ Sprinters (Valeri Borzov of the U.S.S.R. in lead), History of the Olympics, Picturepoint, London }
{ Supermarket, NAIC }
{ Calibration circle, Jon Lomberg }
{ Diagram of vertebrate evolution, Jon Lomberg }
{ DNA Structure, Jon Lomberg }
{ Diagram of conception, Jon Lomberg }
{ Fetus diagram, Jon Lomberg }
{ Diagram of male and female, Jon Lomberg }
{ Diagram of family ages, Jon Lomberg }
{ Diagram of continental drift, Jon Lomberg }
{ Mathematical definitions, Frank Drake }
{ Solar location map, Frank Drake }
Solar spectrum, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Cornell University (NAIC)
{ Structure of Earth, Jon Lomberg }
{ Earth, NASA }
{ Mars, NASA }
{ Mercury, NASA }
{ Jupiter, NASA }
{ Titan Centaur launch, NASA }
{ Airplane in flight, Frank Drake }
{ Astronaut in space, NASA }
{ Violin with music score (Cavatina), NAIC }
May 5th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
i’m sorry but there’s no way any alien would understand the DNA structure diagram
May 5th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
don’t worry rick they won’t figure out how to play the record
May 5th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
oh Rick.. just because you don’t understand the fundamentals of biology doesn’t mean aliens won’t. don’t worry about.. just calm yourself by looking at the picture of the boobies.
May 6th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
a beautiful representation of our achievements and who we are - that would likely be decipherable by any sentient, thinking, being.
May 6th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
“almost none of the scientists that were shown the message were able to decode all of it”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque#Criticism
May 6th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
What file format the pictures are in? JPG, GIF, TIF etc. didn’t exist in 1977. I wonder if we had the disk today, would we be able to view the pictures?
May 6th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Interesting! It wasn’t an easy choise what to put in there, that’s for sure.
May 6th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
We should have found some pictures showing how we all get along.
May 6th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I’m pretty sure you might not be able to see the pictures, Sean, since you can only see JPG, GIF, TIF, and other digital formats but us, humans, can see pictures taken from an artifact called “film camera” which uses a “picture card” that instead of being made of silicone is made of celluloid. You can upsize these pictures using a light projection into what’s called “photo paper”. You can make “pictures” using this process, Sean.
Life is more interesting outside of the house, far away from the computer.
May 6th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Just because the aliens understand the fundamentals of biology doesn’t mean they will understand the english alphabet.
May 6th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
The thing is, any civilization advanced enough to play the record should be able to read and interpret it, if they followed similar technological paths as we did (which is likely).
May 7th, 2007 at 12:17 am
what if they use this against us……….
May 7th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Where is the alphabet?
May 7th, 2007 at 3:36 am
Nobody drinks out of a coffee pot in my family
May 7th, 2007 at 3:39 am
1) “I’ll Take a Rusty Nail and Scratch Your Initials on My Arm and I’ll Show You How to Sneak Up on the Roof of the Drugstore” What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
2) It’s from a Tom Waits’ song, but I don’t know why it’s the title of the story.
3) Whoever got their initials gouged into the guy’s arm is going to have to go into the drugstore and get him some tetanus meds
May 7th, 2007 at 7:50 am
All this is under the assumption that they can see like us (same wavelengths) or even see at all. What if they have different sensory systems, where they can’t notice anything like us.
A simple clear example, are birds, they can see more colors than humans.
Another wrong assumption is that if ET does exists, if they have the same latency as us. Maybe their life time spawn seconds or maybe millions of years, we don’t know.
Size comes in to the matter as well.
Beyond that, kudos to those who posted this.
Hindsight is always 20/20, so no comments about the pictures, more so about the intent.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Just an FYI NAIC is no longer called NAIC, its NASIC now (National Air and Space Intelligence Center)
May 7th, 2007 at 10:23 am
oh and all the images are drawn from top to bottom, left to right
May 7th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Well, if a civilisation is advanced enough to find the probes then chances are that their combined scientific knowledge would be enough to get something out of these pictures.
thats assuming they have eyes etc.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:41 am
The evolution chart doesn’t stand a chance. There is no concept of time and relation in it at all. It looks like those are other organisms on the planet of which we are the smallest. I personally will bow down to our new giant bird overlords.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
We should have been a little more honest, there is not one weapon! Maybe if we were any alien life might take us more seriously. Still, have to admit I am impressed with the diversity of the images.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:53 am
GREAT… we have given any lucky aliens out there a blue print on how to kill us :O
we ARE ALL DOOMED REPENT !! THE END IS NEAR… we are all fucked :D
May 9th, 2007 at 10:47 am
I’ve always wanted to see these images! Thank you, Internet! :)
June 5th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
No TV? no BEER? no RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM? This is what earthlings REALLY care about.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:11 am
This won’t reach another possible inhabited part of the galaxy for tens of thousands of years anyways. It’s really more of a symbolic gesture than a real attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. If anyone were ever to find it, we’d all be long gone anyways, so it’s more of a time capsule than a letter.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:35 am
This kind of collection is what happens when scientists work together…meaningless crap which only they believe other people or aliens will understand.
The data included with the Voyagers were decided upon by committee which assumed Aliens would be as clever or as advanced as us.
They really should have asked the stupidest people on Earth what to include..it would have been more representative of what Humankind is all about and probably better understood by any non-earthling that finds the discs.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Not to worry . . . the record has automatic updates, whether or not the aliens turn it off.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:47 am
All of them are worthy representations of our world, except for the continental drift picture, lol.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:03 am
It’s amazing the assumptions that are made.
Some say Aliens are super intelligent, some say they are super stupid.
“They really should have asked the stupidest people on Earth what to include..it would have been more representative of what Humankind is all about and probably better understood by any non-earthling that finds the discs.” - How baseless can you be?
We have no idea “who” or “what” is going to find this.
For all you guys know there is a planet filled with 70 foot high invisible (to us) blobs that have their own society and form of communication.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:06 am
All the aliens will think we’re just a bunch of white people. what happened to other races, people of the 70’s???
October 6th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Personally, I don’t think we should broadcast where we are until we’re ready for them, friendly or hostile.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Wait if the aliens come back and play us some music that they got from the disk. The first thing the RIAA does is to sue them into oblivion for copyright infringement. They will be the cause of the first Terra - Alien war.
The basic idea behind it is a sound one. It teaches ‘whomever out there’ that they are not alone, in case they were wondering about that too.
Although the aliens will look nothing like us and they will have their own technologies, when they are intelligent enough to intercept the probe [whenever that may be], they will grasp the concept that somebody was trying to reach out to them and send them a message. Of course, you never know which image or sound included on the disk will prove to be so horrendously offensive that the first sign we see of their civilization is the death star emerging from jump space to kick our asses.
This was a great initiative and it absolutely had to be done. My very deep respect to the late, great Dr. Carl Sagan.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I wonder if we were to send a deep space probe today would it contain something meant to be discovered by aliens? I doubt it would.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:49 am
@ Bri: ???, look at the picture of the olympic games.
October 6th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
The images are encoded as analog signals on the record using a single monochrome channel — much lower fidelity than what we’re seeing here, but no dependence on the human visual system.
It would be interesting to see what the reconstructed images look like.
October 6th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
what about the 17+ billion subterraneans!? I’m sure they’d like to get a message out.
October 6th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
where is the picture of the mushroom cloud?
October 6th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Nothing about man’s true nature is revealed. Enlightenment without action is meaningless. We are omnivores and killers of each other, nothing more.
October 6th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Was it a good idea to show our location? I hope the probe doesn’t break an alien’s greenhouse.
October 6th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
phil:
Your complaint that “almost none of the scientists that were shown the message were able to decode all of it” is about the PIONEER PLAQUE, not about this record. The Pioneer Plaque was made before this record, and had much less room to place information into.
This record was designed with the shortcomings of the Pioneer Plaque kept in mind.
October 6th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
We’ll be long gone, but aliens will come to earth and all mankind will be doomed.
October 6th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
How about a picture of what we think THEY look like. I think they would get a kick out of that.
October 6th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
will the aliens spend so much time to learn who WE are … ???
October 6th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
These are two small probes traveling through space at sub-light speeds… though it’s definitely a very hopeful thought that some space-faring alien race will a) run into them, and b) understand what it is we’re trying to say, I think they have a better chance of picking up some of the TV broadcasts radiating away from Earth… in which case they won’t be looking at all the pretty pictures, but at Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil instead… doh! Good news is, after watching that they probably won’t think is worth it traveling all the way here to meet us/destroy us :D
October 6th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I think its cool that long after we’re all dead from nuclear war and global warming a memory of us will tumble through space forever and to no end. That’s life, in case you needed a reminder….
October 6th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
To everyone whining that “we told *them* where we are (o noes!)” Aliens *could* follow the probe’s trajectory back to us.
Also, by the time voyagers, pioneers, etc. get anywhere where ETs might be, isn’t it probable that we have since made many, many, many, more of these going much, much much faster?
I think it’s awesome they put the record in. It obviously wasn’t the main point of the mission though, but it’s a shoutout to our imaginations.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
We have given them too much information, any day now they will come and suck out our brains….
October 6th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Some alien race will probably discover it when we’re half-way to conquering the galaxy, and use the DNA information there to destroy us. Good job science-tards.
October 6th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Why would aliens bother with such a primitive, disgusting, mentally inferior species? If you want a true representation of humans, you’d have some fat people stuffing their faces at mcdonalds, some hideously skinny Africans, and a picture of a boy throwing stones at a tank. Seriously, murder of 1 million Iraqis for lies, 70k American soldiers for lies, you’re basically slaves, but you think you’re free. Humans are so backwards as to think black is white and white is black. If anything, they’d do the galaxy a favor and wipe us off the planet like when you clean some bathroom scum with bleach. Trust me, any advanced species wouldn’t even bother with us because when you play with sh*t it inevitably gets on your hands.
October 6th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Who cares if aliens will be able to understand these images. The chances of any alien ever finding this are virtually nil. It’s probably a trillion trillion times more likely that Bubba the space trucker will bring the probe back to Earth and auction it off on eGalacticBay.
October 6th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
there is no way that they will be able to understand any of this. they would need to have the same semiotics as us, for one thing. I could see them getting really confused at the x-ray one.
the aliens might be smart, true, but that doesn’t mean that their way of thinking is in any way, shape, or form like ours. I have the most faith in them being able to interpret the pseudo-binary numbering system, but I’m not even sure about that.
it would be neat, though…
October 6th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Who said we didn’t include any weapons? There’s no way to tell that the violin is not a weapon. And the music sheet could be considered a plan to attack them. :)
Good job everyone.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I wonder what the aliens will think of the guy drinking bongwater
October 6th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Where’s the pr0n pictures?
I bet one of the very first things some humans will want to do when aliens arrive would be to try and have sex with them. Mmm, baby that’s such a hot tri-tentacle–can you rub all my naughty bits at once with it?
October 6th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
am i the only one who finds the images (particularily) the ice cream one and the teacher leaning over the pupil a little too sexually suggestive??? wtf !!!! ugh what morons. we’re doomed. :(
October 7th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Thats just great, a picture of a FAT white man eating, like the aliens need to know our indulgences!
October 7th, 2007 at 12:46 am
As everyone else puts it this way… where is the snowflake???
October 7th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Where are the photos of Brittany, Lindsay, and Paris? They represent us best.
October 7th, 2007 at 4:06 am
I think these things have a better chance of hitting a rogue asteroid or being sucked into the gravitational pull of a distant star than to ever be picked up by someone..er something.. But its nifty to think about that these things will continue onward into the universe long after earth probably doesnt even exist anymore.
October 7th, 2007 at 4:11 am
good luck to us all!
October 7th, 2007 at 9:21 am
As an aspiration, I think it’s beautiful. We can quibble about the content, but you naysayers - think about it - we are saying hello to the universe. We’ve taken a large chunk of resources and announced our presence, peacefully. Whatever it comes to, and honestly it’s likely to be nothing, we used that resource to do something other than kill or exploit each other, we used it to look out, look up, look forward.
October 7th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I think it’s more than a little ironic that the Titan rocket which launched our peaceful greeting into the sky was originally designed to obliterate Soviet targets with multi-megaton nuclear warheads. This also demonstrates how nothing worth doing is done easily. The only way to erase war and bloodshed and struggle from the world of man would be to erase our passion and will, and if that were the case, we wouldn’t be bothered to do monumental things like explore space. I have a feeling that any other beings zipping around out there will have developed similarly. We will no doubt seem primitive to them, but also a reminder of their own past.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
they should have posted the help wanted ads for fast food restaurant jobs to give them some real perspective of life on earth
October 7th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Oh my. Where is a picture of Homer Simpson? What aliens can learn from these meaningless pictures?
October 7th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Do the scientists think the aliens are stupid?? Real intelligence is visdom. If the aliens are smarter then us they will understand that the pictures not showing the reality of our world. If there are life out there we are being held in a cosmic quarantine. And we will NEVER have an alien visit or find them as long as we are acting like a virus on mother earth.
October 8th, 2007 at 6:33 am
I believe more in the fact that people from earth will hunt them down and bring them back and put them in a private showroom than an alien will find it and come to us.
October 8th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I belive the chances larger that the alien will search in space for life in same way as we do, maybe with more advanced intstrument that can see small planets like earth and if life exist by reading the atmosphere or by amplifying so much so they can see the earth ground.
I belive also the chances larger that our radio broadcats are like an beacon in space and maybe they don’t understand our TV/Radio/Radar etc signals but at least they will understand that signals are artificial and not as part of the nature. I also belive that chances that they find our probes are very small (could be taken for small comets also that flyby without any notification) unless they just run into them as they would be likly a nail in a very huge haystack.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I would like to see the pictures that the rest of the world newer knew about.
Perhaps they sold us out.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:18 am
..|….. ||…. ||… | ……||..|…
translation: we’re just watching you…
October 10th, 2007 at 10:35 am
I always wanted to see these pictures! Did y’all notice that this is not the complete set? Follow the link at the top of the page (Complete Photograph Index) and you’ll find more. All image links are not clickable but at least they are described (sunset over Grand Canyon etc). There are more people of colour in those pictures, and while some indeed mirror the old colonial mindset some do not. “Woman with microscope” is my favourite (sounds like a painting by Vermeer, no?). No mushroom clouds or concentration camp piles of bodies there either, though, but I think that is just as well. When you write a contact ad you don’t list your worst habits but your best character traits!
I don’t think any alien ever will find these pictures — the chances are just too slim. But humanity has always been good at the “what if?”-scenario and grand gestures, and this is certainly one of the grandest. Sending out a little tin ball into the great big unknown, and packing it full of US, not the best of us, not the worst either, but just us. Like writing a memoir or painting on the cave wall… I love it.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Scusate se scrivo in italiano.
Il problema di decifrazione aliena ai “nostri” messaggi (in special modo al “nostro” DNA) é talmente difficile tanto é difficile trovare a “corta distanza” altre forme di vita.
E non é detto che gli alieni abbiano la “nostra” stessa intelligenza e logica di interpetazione.
Le differenze di altre forme intelligenti aliene potrebbe essere, confrontandola con la nostra, la stessa che c’é tra Marte, la Terra e Venere.
See you.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:17 am
BUON NATALE A TUTTI!
December 12th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Who are we? Really small…really.
You wanna know how big you are?
And how big are the things that will upset today?
KEEP LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE!
If you want to know all about is, email me !!
CIAO !!
January 19th, 2008 at 5:24 am
I think we should have sent more Voyager in different directions. The risk that Voyager flies right into a star or out nowhere is big. Voyager is already there and it helps nothing to argue about it. It might be a contact. Maybe it already exist but we don´t know for shore. If the aliens are smart enough they can decode the record. It is that kind of smart ET we want a contact with. Hopefully they are nice people. Nobody on earth knows what is out there and if it can think or anything else. Some things are more logical than others, but it is unknown until the day we know.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
all of life is a downer if you let it let them come by the time they get here we wont be here any more anyway so they might as well have earth after its cooled from globle warming and fried us all
March 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am
what if they don’t have eyes?