1924 New York Times...

[Xylo]

Don, in several of your podcasts I've heard mention of a New York Times article concerning a voluntary shutdown of radio broadcasts and someone receiving a signal that when decoded turned out to be a photograph that was interpreted as a face.

Are there any links or headlines that you have or further information? This subject matter intrigues me quite a bit.

 

[Decker]

Don, in several of your podcasts I've heard mention of a New York Times article concerning a voluntary shutdown of radio broadcasts and someone receiving a signal that when decoded turned out to be a photograph that was interpreted as a face.
Are there any links or headlines that you have or further information? This subject matter intrigues me quite a bit.

This bit of strange history is almost totally unknown today. When I first learned about it back in the very early 90's I dug into it as far as I could to try to learn what information was out there on this strange story. Of course it has been a very long time since I did much with this but it never left my mind.

Here are several areas where you can read up on it. First is this very bad You Tube video from Sightings. It has been a long time ago but if I recall ... I was the guy that took this story to them.


And here are several places on the web where you can read up more on the Mars Face-circa 1924 story.

US Navy Ordered to Listen for Martian Radio Broadcasts in 1924

http://earlyradiohistory.us/mars.htm

The Biological Universe: The ... - Google Books

Steve Quayle News Alerts

Now Xylo, go get em!!

Decker

 

[Ian]

I've just looked at the video and the links provided by Don. The experiment poses a number of questions that probably cannot be answered now, but would be very helpful if they were:

Was Dr. David Peck Todd familiar with radio frequency techniques?
What type of receiving equipment was used?
What type of signal was recorded? (CW/AM/FM/other?)
How was the signal transferred onto film?
Recording onto disc would have been possible then (and one would have thought worth the effort for this experiment), but guess such recordings have never been hinted at.
Signals from outside the earth have to penetrate the ionosphere and (depending on time of day/season/solar activity) penetration is very unlikely below about 20 MHz. (The the ionosphere was not well understood until the 1930s.)

On what frequency/wavelength was this "message" received? One report states the antenna was "tuned to a wavelength" of between 5 and 6 km. This is a frequency of about 55 kHz, well below most man-made signals used in the 1920s which would have been between about 100 kHz and 20 MHz. And therefore most unlikely to have originated from outside the earth due to the ionosphere.

What does exist near that frequency are natural noises called "whistlers" - derived from lightning discharges. Considering the huge size of the antenna and the probably crude radio receiver, this is possibly what they found.

As to the images on film looking like a face... well any random shapes can look like a face when stared at for long enough.

It's all looking rather unlikely to have come from Mars. Nevertheless, from the technical and historical aspect, the details of the experiment would be very interesting to establish - what WAS recorded on that film?

Regards,


Ian

 

[Anaximander]

I've just looked at the video and the links provided by Don. The experiment poses a number of questions that probably cannot be answered now, but would be very helpful if they were:

Is this your way of asking someone else to do your research for you?

 

[Ian]

Is this your way of asking someone else to do your research for you?

If only. No - I guess I was just thinking aloud - rhetorical questions.

There was some useful data in Don's links and perhaps if I did some research I may reveal more details. Although I think my suggestion of whistlers recorded on film seems fairly plausible.

Regards,

Ian

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I forgot about how sensationalist Sightings was - worse than Unsolved Mysteries. I love that they show the "face" on Mars. That's something that'll never die no matter how many new, hi-res photos showing that it's nothing more than a rock formation - but I guess that's what "they" want us to think!

We have studied the surface of Mars extensivly - there are no current civilizations there, and there's nothing pointing to anything intelligent having been there in the past. Although the latter isn't impossible, we can't say that there is until we have real proof. We do know that there does not look like there is anything intelligent currently there. Anyone who says they know otherwise is only speculating.

 

[justcurious]

We do know that there does not look like there is anything intelligent currently there.

This turn of phrase is weird, "We do know that there does not look like there is..." ???

Now, "There does not look like there is" is a speculation too isn't it ? Did you mean : "We do know that we are speculating" ?

Anyone who says they know otherwise is only speculating.

Let's call it a draw then...

 

[Angel of Ioren]

This turn of phrase is weird, "We do know that there does not look like there is..." ???

Now, "There does not look like there is" is a speculation too isn't it ? Did you mean : "We do know that we are speculating" ?

Let's call it a draw then...

My grammar was a little funky there, sorry about that. From all the research we've done on Mars, there's no evidence to support that there was ever an intelligent civilization capable of building monuments on Mars - you prefer that?

Stop nitpicking justcurious- you know exactly what I meant.

 

[justcurious]

My grammar was a little funky there, sorry about that. From all the research we've done on Mars, there's no evidence to support that there was ever an intelligent civilization capable of building monuments on Mars - you prefer that?

Stop nitpicking justcurious- you know exactly what I meant.

Not nitpicking Sir!

Incidentally, the way you reformulated it reads the same to me.

From all the research we've done on Mars, there's no evidence to support...

... is not a proof or a reason to conclude that there never was an intelligent civilisation there, just another (justifiably educated) speculation. Since when absence of proof IS proof of absence ? It's too early to conclude either way, if you don't mind. Isn't it skeptical ? (trying my best)

But we're digressing from the original thread...