As you go about your alien day on your far off alien world doing your strange extra-terrestrial things you look up to the many suns in the sky and wonder; is there life out there somewhere? 
In this installment of the ever-popular and interesting edition of Audio Adventures Tim Pickup puts us in that position, taking us through highlights of the Voyager Interstellar Outreach Program. Launched in 1977 the two Voyager spacecrafts held a golden record – an audio greeting from the planet Earth including cryptic instructions for alien lifeforms to play the record. Sit back, listen and imagine that you are the alien tasked with sorting out these strange new sounds from a little blue planet across the universe.
Audio Adventures: Voyager Interstellar Outreach Recordings [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
wow! thankyou very much for the fantastic show.
The Golden Record is like the ultimate mixtape. I often make mixtapes for people and think carefully about what to choose, taking into account what i know they like and what i think they’ll like and what i just want them to hear. But in this case its pretty tricky, they might even get this thing and figure out how to work it but not have any ears, then they might then think we were just wasting their time!
Obviously its available now with internet technology, but do you know if you could get hold of this recording when it was made. Seeing as it was 1977 it might have sat next to God Save The Queen on the shelf which is a good image.
Thanks! I’ve always wondered what was on the record sent with the Voyager spacecrafts. It’s now about 35 years later and I’d forgotten about it entirely. I have an idea that many years from now, maybe eons, an alien civilization might come across one of the Voyagers and actually figure out how to listen to it. Given the very nature of organic life as it relates to the Universe, I’m sure they’d have some kind organ(s) for hearing.
Now, if the spacecrafts are discovered, I hope the people/aliens that find it are friendly and offer the inhabitants of Earth nothing but good intentions. Otherwise, we may become the victims of Interstellar terrorism.
But, if any civilization has the ability to travel across vast distances of space I would hope that they’d be more interested in making friends rather than wage war. Maybe they would be interested in commerce as well.
Anyway, despite their would-be intentions, nothing would interest me more than if they believe in God, angels, heaven, hell or dozens of other faiths unheard of by mankind. It’d be interesting to determine if they had their saviors and evil historic figures. Or maybe they have a philosophy that makes more sense than religious dogma.
Maybe they’ll just broadcast their history towards the Earth in hope that we might understand how to save thier civilization form destruction. In that case, good luck, fellow lifeforms … you’ll need it!