# You're an alien. Can you decipher the Pioneer or Voyager plaques? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 16, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990 "2017-02-16T17:57:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/41 "2017-02-17T17:22:47Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > For those of you who are poo-pooing the plaque and think yer so smart, how would you design it? I’m not saying there’s necessarily a design you could come up with. At best, you’re guessing that the alien even has sensory apparatus conducive to knowing there’s a message at all. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/42 "2017-02-17T17:54:04Z")
I still can’t figure out the binary 8 representation ☹ Little help? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/43 "2017-02-17T18:06:51Z")
I don’t think that whether or not the average person could recognize hydrogen models, binary keys or pulsar maps is particularly meaningful. Could the world’s leading astrophysicists tell what it’s saying? I assume the conceit is that, if aliens found the satellite, they’d send it to their best and brightest to work out what it says. In that sense, we seem to have tried to find scientific constants to communicate with. Maybe that’d work, maybe not but it seems like a reasonable place to start trying. Likewise with the images of humans – maybe they’d misinterpret them but, hey, that’s what we generally look like so if you have space for one drawing on your record, that seems to be a good one. Obviously the spacemen could communicate in ways completely incompatible to recognizing the images but, again, you’ve got what you’ve got to work with. The main purpose of the probes wasn’t a treasure chest for aliens so this is just a value added Hail Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/44 "2017-02-17T19:02:48Z")
I would say, about as much chance as the average person has of reading Hieroglyphs with out ever having a rosetta stone, and that is IF said Mister Alien comes to earth and studies the archaeology of the long since deceased humans, if not than i would say less than 0? And that may be a good thing actually, we know from earth that intelligence unfortunately does not equal kindness, no need to openly advertise to some super intelligent thing with a doomsday pistol in his pocket . Actually, now that i think of it, it could be the most kind gentle and intelligent being in the universe and accidentally kill off the entire planet the same way we accidentally killed off a lot of isolated indigenous peoples. Disease to which nothing has any immunity, but that mister friendly alien has a 40 million year earned immunity to and has long forgotten exists ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/45 "2017-02-18T05:11:56Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > I just read a story (in Analog, I think) in which aliens find this and they think > > [was spoiler]It’s a trap! No intelligent civilization would announce its presence to other civilizations, possibly dangerous, unless it was a lure to destroy them.[/spoiler] > > This explains why we seem to be alone in the universe. Be quiet or they will find you! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/46 "2017-02-18T09:22:13Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > I would say, about as much chance as the average person has of reading Hieroglyphs with out ever having a rosetta stone, and that is IF said Mister Alien comes to earth and studies the archaeology of the long since deceased humans, if not than i would say less than 0? I don’t think that’s a useful comparison. The text on the Rosetta Stone is just some witter about priests, kings, gods, military victories and the like - meaningless outside of local context and the languages that it happened to be written in. The messages we’re discussing here were designed with the intent of meaning something _outside_ of those contexts. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/47 "2017-02-18T10:58:22Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > For those of you who are poo-pooing the plaque and think yer so smart, how would you design it? I’m not poo-pooing it. But I think the Rosetta Stone on the movie Contact was more comprehensive: 1+1 = circle = true 1+1 = broken circle = false ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/48 "2017-02-18T13:23:46Z")
The puzzled alien would take it to a priest or shaman, who would interpret it in such a manner as to prove the infallibility of the currently prevailing religion, and torture and execute anyone who dared to disagree… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/49 "2017-02-18T13:52:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I’m reminded of a Michael Crichton sci-fi novel (might be _Prey_ or _The Andromeda Strain_) in which he talks about a scientist who created a coded message to communicate with aliens - in the event that there are any aliens out there listening in - and that a group of great, intelligent researchers, when presented with the coded message, couldn’t figure it out at all. > > Once Scientist X explained it to them, then they agreed that it made perfect sense and was a very well designed message, but - that was only \*\*\*after \*\*\*explanation by someone who knew in advance what the message said. It’s in SPHERE. > [@](#): > > So yeah, I think the people who cooked up the Voyager and Pioneer messages are committing the error of a message that makes sense only to the sender, and the sender expects that the recipient will see or think the same way the sender does. Do you figure the Pioneer message is less bad than the Voyager one, though? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/50 "2017-02-18T14:20:07Z")
One of them has recordings, including Blind Willie Johnson’s _Dark was the Night._ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/51 "2017-02-18T14:24:46Z")
Two key points, here: First, if the plaque were ever found by aliens, its primary message would be almost certain to be correctly communicated, because the primary message is simply that **we exist**. Everything beyond that is mere details, and in fact a lot of the details are unnecessary: For instance, aliens won’t look to the pulsar map to determine where the probe came from; they’ll just look at where it came from. Any civilization capable of going into space at all is going to be capable of tracing back a trajectory. Second, we know that the plaques can communicate to their primary audience, because they already have. They’re not actually meant for aliens; they’re meant for us. The plaques existed as a way to get the general public interested and excited in the missions, and they succeeded at that. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/52 "2017-02-18T15:32:08Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I’m not poo-pooing it. But I think the Rosetta Stone on the movie Contact was more comprehensive: > > 1+1 = circle = true > > 1+1 = broken circle = false Sorry, what? I don’t understand the message (even though I have the advantage of knowing the symbols) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/53 "2017-02-19T05:33:35Z")
> [@Mavic\_Chen](#): > > Anyway, the species is obviously bizarrely inexplicably alien as it only has two testaclons and one penicle. My grandfather taught me how to play many card games, including penicle. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/54 "2017-02-19T07:17:48Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Sorry, what? I don’t understand the message (even though I have the advantage of knowing the symbols) Where it says “circle”, it’s an actual circle with ll inside the circle. In the broken circle it has lll in it toj indicate false. So it was something like: l+l= ll (with "ll"drawn inside a circle) true. l+l= lll (with “lll” drawn inside a broken circle) false. Or something to that effect. It been years since I’ve seen the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/55 "2017-02-19T13:16:25Z")
Firstly, what **Chronos** said. And secondly I’ve said many times on the Dope that I think the idea of “aliens won’t be able to understand the first thing about us” is just a sci-fi meme that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It reminds me a bit of the “people in the future will be mystified by artefacts from the 21st century”. One thing we can know about a space-faring species is that they have a general intelligence that they can apply to abstract problems wholly unlike their natural environment (otherwise, how did they get into space)? To such a species, figuring out what the hell these markings represent belongs to the set of easy problems, not like the messy shit that nature (literally) produces. If they cared about figuring it out, they would. Maybe it would take years, but such a timespan is inconsequential. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/56 "2017-02-19T15:59:33Z")
[This seems to be the system used in Contact](https://scannersuniverse.neocities.org/maths_universal_language_4A.jpg). Maybe useful for continued conversation where you keep sending examples until they get it but I wouldn’t be any more confident that it would be noodled through with two examples off a gold record any better than what we sent. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/57 "2017-02-19T16:01:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > First, if the plaque were ever found by aliens, its primary message would be almost certain to be correctly communicated, because the primary message is simply that **we exist**. A fact that would be quite obvious without the plaque. > [@](#): > > For instance, aliens won’t look to the pulsar map to determine where the probe came from; they’ll just look at where it came from. Any civilization capable of going into space at all is going to be capable of tracing back a trajectory. This makes the large assumption that it would be visible in its original trajectory long enough for scientists to determine its origins. The OP postulates that it was found by a non-scientist already stopped and taken to another non-scientist. Assuming it finally make its way to a scientist could it’s trajectory then be plotted? I don’t think so. In that case they would have to rely on the information supplied by the disc or plaque. > [@](#): > > we know that the plaques can communicate to their primary audience, because they already have. They’re not actually meant for aliens; they’re meant for us. The plaques existed as a way to get the general public interested and excited in the missions, and they succeeded at that. This fights the hypothetical. The plaques exists and so, presumably, does alien life. However unlikely, the possibility exists that the probe and discs will someday be discovered. The OP asks if in that eventuality could they be read. I think it’s improbable. There is too little information laying the groundwork for context. If the primary mission had been to announce where we are I think it could have been achieved but as it was an add on, no. I realize it’s not the same thing but I used to live in northern New Mexico. That area is littered with pictographs and petroglyphs the large majority of which have yet to be understood. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/58 "2017-02-19T16:12:17Z")
There a joke in a Star Trek novel where they discuss how it has become a game in the Federation for aliens to try to figure it out. Someone comments, “A Vulcan came close once.” ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/59 "2017-02-19T17:09:24Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I’d assume it was from an extinct species, since the males have such tiny penises. And more importantly, the females have no reproductive organs at all. This species is doomed. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/60 "2017-02-19T17:27:08Z")
> [@BobArrgh](#): > > We should have sent the Voynich Manuscript and blown their alien minds! Until they answer : “thanks a lot for sending us the secrets of eternal life, cold fusion and perpetual movement, we’re using these to move our whole civilization to a parallel universe before the end of this one in 50 of your years, as you probably have already done. See you on the other side soon. Bye”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990.md?page=4)