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3 Solution

The radio telescope group detected an anomalous signal from Iota that they believe is from intelligent life. They received patterns of chemical element symbols pulsed in sequences that spelled out words like WATER, SALT, and METHANE. They also received an image but could not understand it. They asked the human experts to help analyze and understand the signal and data.

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147 views2 pages

3 Solution

The radio telescope group detected an anomalous signal from Iota that they believe is from intelligent life. They received patterns of chemical element symbols pulsed in sequences that spelled out words like WATER, SALT, and METHANE. They also received an image but could not understand it. They asked the human experts to help analyze and understand the signal and data.

Uploaded by

John
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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3.

 RADIO TELESCOPE SOLUTION
The graphs represent chemical elements. Each encodes an atomic number in base 10: the tall
spike is the 10's place and short spike is the 1's place. E.g. γ is 26: 2x10 + 6x1.

The sequences represent chemical compounds. The common names fit into the grid, which is
formed into a cube shape with the names wrapping around edges.

When the letters in squares with polygons are read in the correct order (shown in a line on
Standard puzzle, circle on Expert), they spell WE ARE COMING.

“Hi there, team. I’m Dr. Arroway, and I run the radio telescope group here. We followed up on
your discovery and pointed the array at Iota. Sure enough, we found a signal! It’s showing highly
anomalous changes over time, so we’re pretty sure this is a signal from intelligent life. That’s
tremendously exciting!
“We’re astronomers, not signal analysts or linguists, so we have no idea what to do with the
data. Perhaps you could bring the human element to this problem?”
The signal consists of these distinctive patterns, pulsed in various sequences:

γ
α 11 Na
β 6 C
γ 26 Fe
δ 8 O
ε 17 Cl
ζ 1 H
η 16 S

These are the sequences received:


WATER ζζδ
SALT αε
METHANE βζζζζ
SUGAR ββββββζζζζζζζζζζζζδδδδδδ
ACETYLENE ββζζ
OXYGEN δδ
HYDROGEN ζζ
PYRITE γηη
SULFUR DIOXIDE ηδδ
OZONE δδδ
3. RADIO TELESCOPE SOLUTION
“We also received this NTSC image,” Dr. Arroway explains, “but that just compounded our
confusion.”

S E
U N
L O
F Z
H U O N E
S U G A R A
P D H
T Y L E N E I S A L T
R E O E
G Y X O
I
D
I T E M

W
E C A
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Y D R O G

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