Arecibo reply

The Arecibo reply was the name given to a crop circle that appeared in farmland next to the Chilbolton radio telescope; home to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Hampshire, UK, on Tuesday 21 August 2001. The design is so named because it appears to be a response to the Arecibo message, which SETI transmitted into space in 1974.

The crop circle design features two images. The first, estimated to be about 100 by 150 feet based on comparison with the 25-meter Chilbolton dish, is a pixelated halftone representation of a humanoid face. The second image, estimated to be about 80 by 220 feet, resembles the original Arecibo message though changed in a number of key elements, said by Ufologists to be a reply sent to Earth by an alien species.

As with all crop circles, the origin of the Arecibo reply is highly debated. It should be noted that the 27 years between the time the original Arecibo message was sent and the reply in 2001, there would not nearly have been sufficient time for the message to arrive at its intended destination; furthermore, by the time it does, the M13 cluster will no longer be there.

Comparison with the original message

The original Arecibo message was transmitted as a three trillion watt (omnidirectional equivalent, 1MW actual) broadcast from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The message was sent in a very narrow beam towards a globular cluster known as M13, 25,100 light years away. It was a pictogram arranged in a matrix of 23 pixels by 73 pixels. It was intended to describe our numbering system, the building blocks and formulas for DNA, the double helix of DNA, the shape and size of a human being, the layout of our solar system, and the radio telescope that sent the message.

The crop formation looked very similar to the Arecibo message but with several variations. Below the dot pattern for our numbering system, the crop formation had an additional pattern that indicated the atomic number of silicon in addition to the hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus numbers. Instead of a double helix symbol of DNA, the crop formation depicted three sets of diagonal lines.

Instead of a depiction of a human being, as presented in the Arecibo message, the crop pattern had a different depiction of a humanoid form. This new image showed a body with two arms and legs like humans, but the head was much larger. The height of the crop formation’s body was indicated as being slightly taller than half the height of a human. The dot pattern in the crop formation indicated a population that was almost six and a half billion larger than our own.

The Arecibo message depicted the 9 planets around the Sun with the symbol for Earth raised above the rest to indicate where humanity lives. Earth’s dot was also located directly below the depiction of man. In the crop formation, there were three symbols that were raised above the rest, possibly indicating three populated planets in that solar system.

At the very bottom of both formations, there are distinctly different dot patterns. The Arecibo message had a depiction of the telescope that sent the message with an indicated size of 2,430 times the wavelength of the message (at 126 mm, so 306 feet) . The crop formation had a depiction of something else with a size of 6,748 times its wavelength (which is obviously unknown). This shape was depicted even more clearly in a 2000 Chilbolton crop circle.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu