Manfred walked down to the ground floor and was walking through the main door of the Institute when he saw two men in dark suits waiting outside.
“Dr. Manfred Kramer?” asked a man with American accent.
“Yes. I am Dr. Kramer. What do you want?” asked Manfred and was quite worried. These men did not look like reporters, however.
“Dr. Kramer, I am special agent James Thornbull from the United States Embassy. The U.S. Government is asking for your assistance and we would like you to join us in a meeting in Washington D.C. Your colleague Dr. Jim Taylor is already on his way to this meeting,” explained agent Thornbull showing his ID card.
“What kind of meeting is this? Why do you need me?” asked Manfred and was a bit concerned.
“Dr. Kramer, this meeting is about the discovery that you and Dr. Taylor made today. We need your assistance – this is very important. We do have a military jet waiting for you at the airport.”
Manfred was even more confused now. How could he possible help the U.S. Government? What was really going on?
“You want me to leave now to Washington D.C.? It is almost midnight,” Manfred asked.
“Yes – we need to leave immediately, Dr. Kramer. You can sleep on the plane. We have everything you need for this trip,” agent Thornbull said with a very confident voice.
“...and Jim Taylor will also be in that meeting, right?” Manfred asked.
“That is correct, sir. Dr. Taylor should be landing in Washington D.C. in about one hour. You will meet with him when you arrive. We will try to get you there as quickly as possible.”
“OK, let's go then,” said Manfred with a tired voice. This had been an extremely long and stressful day. Perhaps Jim could share some light on this 9/11 video controversy.
Thirty minutes later Dr. Manfred Kramer was in the air in a U.S. military jet with engines roaring full throttle heading towards Washington D.C.
MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT
DR. TAYLOR HAD already received an NSA briefing and FBI agent Deeley had been gathering more details about his discovery during their flight from Ithaca. At 7:00 PM EST Dr. Jim Taylor arrived at the White House. Eric Neumann brought Dr. Jim Taylor into the Oval Office and explained that the President would be addressing the nation shortly. Before his talk the President wanted to meet with Dr. Taylor.
President Walker entered the room.
“Dr. Taylor, it is a pleasure meeting you. Congratulations on your historic discovery,” said Walker while shaking hands with Jim.
“Thank you, Mr. President. I did not expect this discovery to become so public so quickly. In fact, I had hoped to spend a bit more time to study the signal and validate our hypothesis with Dr. Kramer,” responded Jim.
“Well, we are bringing Dr. Kramer over here and you can continue your work tomorrow. He should be landing in a few hours. In the meanwhile I would like to get some more details from you, Dr. Taylor,” Walker said.
“Of course, Mr. President.”
“I understand that you did verify from three different sources that the signal was indeed coming from an extraterrestrial source. You and Dr. Kramer also did analysis of the signal independently from each other? I am about to address the nation so the credibility of the United States Government is at stake. How confident are you about this extraterrestrial source? ” Walker asked.
“Mr. President, I have conducted astrophysics research for over 15 years. Dr. Kramer has over 25 years of experience in this field and he has published over 100 scientific papers. I have worked closely with him for over seven years now. Without going into too many technical details we have seen many different kinds of artifacts and multiple anomalies from radio telescopes, satellites and optical telescopes during our careers. Regarding today's discovery we observed the same microwave signal from three independent radio telescopes and did our best to eliminate any other possible explanations using advanced signal processing and analysis techniques. All the analysis we did points to one logical explanation: the source of this signal is in deep space, most likely coming from Gliese 3742. This is a red dwarf star system with two discovered planets, approximately 7.98 light years from Earth. I am over 99.99% confident of this conclusion, Mr. President,” Jim explained.
“Why did you select this particular star system to study, Dr. Taylor?”
“Dr. Kramer and I have been developing a hypothesis on planetary evolution in red dwarf star systems. These types of stars are very common; in fact they make up over 75% of the all stars in our galaxy. Twenty out of the thirty closest stars from Earth are red dwarfs. Our latest model estimates that over 32% of these star systems have planets in orbits where life can potentially evolve. In our current research project we have been capturing data from the 15 closest red dwarfs from Earth. Gliese 3742 was one of these 15 systems. We have already published three papers on this topic and this latest data set is used to validate other measurements done on optical and infrared frequencies. To summarize, we have been searching for planets that could sustain life in nearby stars. It appears that we found what we were looking for, Mr. President” explained Jim with great enthusiasm.
“Thank you, Dr. Taylor. This is indeed a historic discovery for humanity. Let's make it officially public and then have a celebration. Please join me for a dinner tonight to celebrate your discovery, Dr. Taylor.” Walker shook Jim's hand and they posed for an official photograph.
SPECULATIONS
THE NEWS OF the first ever signal from extraterrestrial intelligent life forms had been spreading like a wildfire in the Internet over the last 4 hours. The original video clip decoded by Finnish hacker Julia had been viewed by over 250 million people breaking all previous viral spread speed records on YouTube. Over 1500 different remix video versions with various subtitles, background music and alien themes had already been posted.
When the announcement was made that President Walker would be addressing the nation from the White House this immediately raised the activity around the world. All major news networks were hectically trying to get more details on this breaking news story and updating their front pages with every tidbit of information they could possibly gather.
Over 10,000 Facebook pages had already been created with people speculating what this video message really meant. Some religious groups were talking about the arrival of the Anti Christ and dark angels spreading chaos. Survivalist forums were very busy with people chatting about making the last shopping trip to stockpile food, water, ammunition and toilet paper before heading to their shelters and camps. Military groups were chatting about how to prepare for the upcoming alien invasion and wondering why aliens would even bother sending this early warning.
On Wall Street the stock prices were dropping quickly as nervous investors were selling off their portfolios. The S&P 500 index was already down 7% in the last hour of trading before closing.
Over billion people around the globe were tuning in with their TVs, smart phones, iPads, tablets and laptops/PCs to watch President Walker's speech. The whole world stopped and focused its attention on what President Walker was about to say.
NEWS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
8:00 PM EST President Walker began addressing the nation from the Oval Office at the White House.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today September 11, 2017 marks a historical milestone for humanity on planet Earth. Starting at 8:46 AM Eastern Time we received radio signals from an extraterrestrial source. Led by Dr. Jim Taylor from Cornell University and Dr. Manfred Kramer from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany this discovery is the first time in the history of mankind we have received a message from an extraterrestrial intelligent life form.
These radio signals are coming from a star system with two known planets about eight light years from Earth. Initial analysis of these radio signals has uncovered a message that indicates a possibility to establish two-way communication. We believe that this extraterrestrial intelligent life form has the ability to receive television broadcast signals from
Earth demonstrating very advanced technology.
Sixteen years ago our great nation was under a terrorist attack and thousands of TV broadcast stations around the world were sending footage from New York City. These were images that the whole world will remember forever. The message received today contains some of these images from 9/11.
We believe that these images were selected to ensure our full attention no matter who on planet Earth had received these signals. I want to emphasize that we don't think this message was sent as a threat against the United States but we shall take all possible precautions. I have instructed our defense forces to be on high alert, though at the present time we strongly believe these messages to be peaceful.
We the people of planet Earth have looked upon stars for thousands of years wondering if there is life out there. In recent years our scientists have gathered strong evidence that there are millions of planets that can support life in our galaxy alone, like the two planets in this nearby star system where these signals originated. Today we have discovered that we are not alone in the universe. We have other intelligent beings hailing us from a nearby star system.
The United States of America is leading the efforts to establish two-way communication with our newly discovered neighbors in order to build peaceful relationships and to exchange ideas and share technology for mutual prosperity. We are putting together a global scientific team that will focus on exploring this discovery further. Dr. Jim Taylor and Dr. Manfred Kramer are joining us here in Washington D.C.
We are entering a new era in the history of mankind. Please join us in this exciting journey. God bless America.”
Political commentators from both parties were digesting President Walker's messages. Overall sentiment was positive and some of the previous concerns were replaced by a new hope. In just two hours President's approval rating went up by 20% in opinion polls, breaking his all previous records.
The stock market went up 8% in early trading in China and on Wall Street off hours trading turned sharply positive. The military industrial sector was positive about the new funding opportunities to prepare for high alert even though it was still unclear what exactly they were preparing for.
Major news networks were analyzing Walker's speech and speculating about the new extraterrestrial technologies that the United States might have early access due to this new initiative launched tonight. Commentators and experts were interviewed on the news channels on what this all means for average Americans.
Two new startups were created in Silicon Valley to focus on developing unspecified breakthrough technologies for two-way communication between stars. Speculation on space travel and the possibility to open tourism trips to this newly found planet with extraterrestrial life raised both SpaceX and Boeing stock price in pre-trading by 12%.
Fast moving on-line marketers were testing new keywords and their effectiveness to make a quick sale to people looking for extraterrestrial technology, two-way communication devices, telescopes, and all kinds of other related goods. Amazon sales volume went up by 7% globally in 45 minutes after the speech.
In scientific circles the speculation started about possible Nobel Prize nomination for Dr. Taylor and Dr. Kramer for their discovery. People were arguing whether this prize should be given in physics or in the physiology category. Discovery of extraterrestrial life would certainly meet the Nobel criteria.
In hacker circles people were hugely disappointed when the President did not mention Julia. The fact that Julia had been off-line already for over 6 hours raised theories that aliens had kidnapped her. Some hackers speculated that the U.S. government might have taken Julia into custody. Many hackers tried to replicate Julia's signal decoding process only to realize that they didn't really understand the mathematics behind the Python code she had posted only few hours earlier.
Humanity was busy chatting, posting comments, liking, tweeting, buying stuff, posting selfies, texting and some older folks even sending some emails. President Walker had clearly done a fantastic job tonight.
Dr. Jim Taylor had a great dinner with President Walker who was in a very good mood after a successful speech. They discussed the significance of the discovery and what challenges they might have in establishing two-way communication. It was obvious that the extraterrestrials possessed superior technology, as they had been able to receive TV broadcasts from 8 light years away. President Walker explained his views on creating peaceful relationships and on the benefits that opening trade agreements with the extraterrestrials could bring.
By acquiring new extraterrestrial technologies the economy would get the boost it desperately needed and this would build prosperity across the world. It might also be the ticket for President Walker to win his second term. After the dinner Dr. Taylor spent the night in a guest suite at the White House thinking of today's events.
BOOTSTRAP CODE
BOTH DR. MANFRED Kramer and Ms. Julia Koski had arrived in Washington D.C. in the early morning hours. After a quick shower and breakfast at VIP facilities at Andrews Air Force Base they were escorted to the White House where they met Dr. Taylor. Eric Neumann gave a briefing of what had transpired over the last 24 hours, why they were brought in and explained the agenda for the day. They met the President in the Oval Office and official photographs were taken.
Then Eric brought them to a meeting. NSA chief analyst Dr. Aaron Bell expressed his congratulations for the discovery and opened the meeting.
“The NSA analyst team has continued the analysis on the raw data captured as well as the message structure that Ms. Koski discovered in the signal. We found some very interesting additional data overnight that we would like to discuss with you,” explained Dr. Bell.
“When looking at the signal polarization raw data we found another pattern. There was a pattern that appears to be compressed with a complex fractal algorithm. When we ran this in reverse we extracted an additional 354 Gigabytes of data. Our analysts at NSA have studied this new dataset overnight.”
“What is in the new data set?” asked Julia, clearly intrigued.
“That is a great question. We don't know. We have run a wide set of analysis tools on this data and it doesn't seem to match with anything we have seen before,” Dr. Bell responded.
“Can I have a look at it?” Julia asked, pulling her laptop from her backpack.
“I was hoping that you would ask that, Ms. Koski. Our analysts were praising the work you did on the decoder last night. It is mathematically a very beautiful piece of software,” Dr. Bell said.
Julia was still a bit uncomfortable of all the attention she was getting. However, she was ready to take on a new challenge. Julia copied the data file on to her laptop. She put her headset on, turned on the music and started doing what she enjoyed the most in her life – playing with the mysterious data.
Discussion continued between Dr. Bell, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Kramer. It became apparent that the captured signal had multiple layers of complexity. They had started to peel the onion from the physical attributes such as signal amplitude, polarization, frequency, phase and timing. Later they found that the prime numbers represented in the signal peaks and the encoded video message was clearly just a teaser. Since the dataset had leaked to public the men were wondering who else might be actively investigating the signal.
After about 35 minutes of intense work Julia stopped and took her headset off.
“I think I know what this file is,” Julia said.
There was a deep silence in the room.
“This is bootstrap code,” Julia explained. “It's a bit complicated to explain but I will try. The first segment appears to be the actual boot loader. Next segment is a virtual machine that executes the boot loader. There is a section that has definitions, most likely also specification for the virtual CPU and interfaces. Then there is large section of sparse fractal data structures, some kind of initialized sparse distributed memory space. That follows with section that contains a compiled program that is loaded by the bootstrap code,
” Julia went through each of the dataset sections.
Bootstrap Page 4