# 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:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/61 "2017-02-19T17:47:41Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > And more importantly, the females have no reproductive organs at all. This species is doomed. Don’t be silly. She’s clearly budding. ---
**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, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/62 "2017-02-19T18:04:19Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > 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. Sure, but those presumably weren’t explicitly designed to be understood by anyone but themselves. That’s more like asking some aliens to decipher my dashboard warning lights. ---
**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, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/63 "2017-02-19T20:12:16Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > 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”. Funny! ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/64 "2017-02-21T13:38:58Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > 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. This. We here in this discussion, working casually as a few dozen individuals with little or no cryptographic background, are scrutinizing the plaques for a couple of minutes before giving up. An alien civilization who finds the plaques will likely be highly motivated; it’s not hard to imagine that they might put a large team of their best and brightest on the job for weeks, months, or even years. Presumably some number of the team would have skills in cryptography, language, and/or other areas that would help them make sense of it. Maybe they’d even broadcast an image of it to their entire race and say “hey, anyone have any idea what these chicken scratches are all about?” And eventually one (or more) among their billions with the requisite education/knowledge/intellect would recognize binary encoding, or the pulsar map, or the hydrogen transition stuff. They _will_ understand it eventually. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/65 "2017-02-21T16:47:05Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > One of them has recordings, including Blind Willie Johnson’s _Dark was the Night._ It’s the Voyager recording. When they find that, and play it at the right speed, I hope they’ll find it alone was worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/66 "2017-02-21T17:15:20Z")
I think that they will just pop the thing into their logic analyzer and it will determine likely translations to the Golden Record. I mean, think of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The computer on The Enterprise was pretty awesome. You could ask it to figure out all sorts of things. You knew that real bad stuff was going down when the computer system went offline. I don’t think its a far stretch for some race of Space People to have a computer loaded with at least an Iron Man type of AI. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/67 "2017-02-21T18:24:13Z")
I think it really depends on the psychology of the aliens who find it. If they have similar psychology to us (unlikely), then it would be reasonable for them to think that a possible goal of this was to show who we were and where we are. In that case the figures are pretty self explanatory. As for the pulsar map, it is a bit more obscure but if you think that this is going to be transmitted to the entire scientific population and have every theory imaginable thrown at it someone in the next few centuries would happen to notice that they match the coordinates of pulsars. However, if it reaches a society that has an entirely different set of values (more likely), for example it might be that drawing on this world is primarily used to commemorate military victory, in which case the people could be seen to be beings we destroyed, with a large explosion like the one on the left, while the upper corner shows our tribe’s sigil. But even this view involves basically human-like motivations where alien motivations are likely represent something that is so completely different that it isn’t even possible to speculate about. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/68 "2017-02-21T19:10:50Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > This. An alien civilization who finds the plaques will likely be highly motivated; it’s not hard to imagine that they might put a large team of their best and brightest on the job for weeks, months, or even years. Presumably some number of the team would have skills in cryptography, language, and/or other areas that would help them make sense of it. It’s possible we might be the source of countless alien PhD’s. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/69 "2017-02-21T19:54:53Z")
As I understand it the aliens think it’s a challenge and then start an intergalactic war based on 1980s video games. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/70 "2017-02-21T20:17:28Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > However, if it reaches a society that has an entirely different set of values (more likely), for example it might be that drawing on this world is primarily used to commemorate military victory, in which case the people could be seen to be beings we destroyed, with a large explosion like the one on the left, while the upper corner shows our tribe’s sigil. But even this view involves basically human-like motivations where alien motivations are likely represent something that is so completely different that it isn’t even possible to speculate about. You’re assuming that the aliens will think we absolutely must share their cultural values. If they’re smart enough to be spacefarers, then they’re smart enough to be open-minded as they try to find a translation that makes the most sense. Given enough time, someone among the aliens might advance the interpretation you describe, but then what of the markings in the explosion that are similar to the markings below each planet? Clearly that’s not _just_ an explosion, or perhaps it’s not an explosion at all. The “military conquest” interpretation fits, but not particularly well - and so the discussion would continue, and better interpretations would be sought. Maybe I’m guilty of assuming cultural values too, but I have to believe they would spend more than just a couple of minutes pondering this thing before moving on; it seems almost a certainty to me that they would put the equivalent of many man-years of thought into it. > [@Dendarii Dame](#): > > It’s possible we might be the source of countless alien PhD’s. Certainly the reverse would be true. Imagine if an analogous artifact crash-landed on earth, how many doctoral students in linguistics would be studying such a thing for their dissertation. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/71 "2017-02-21T22:56:08Z")
D - r - i - n - k - m - o - r - e - o - v - a - l - t - i - n - e ---
**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 22, 2017, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/72 "2017-02-22T02:30:11Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > [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. Thanks for the link **Jophiel**! ---
**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 22, 2017, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/73 "2017-02-22T03:26:50Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > However, if it reaches a society that has an entirely different set of values (more likely), for example it might be that drawing on this world is primarily used to commemorate military victory, in which case the people could be seen to be beings we destroyed, with a large explosion like the one on the left, while the upper corner shows our tribe’s sigil. Well that sounds like the premise of a sci-fi story, rather than something actually plausible in reality. How would a species that can only think of a single hypothesis for a phenomenon have advanced to the level of making spaceships? \* Does this species have guys who are good at pattern-matching? Based on what we know it seems a likely pre-requisite – much of problem-solving is pattern matching. All of maths could be considered the study of patterns, for example. How could they fail to spot that the arrangement of lines matches a nearby star cluster? - Since we’re obviously assuming that if anyone ever sees these plaques it will be by intercepting them in space. The probes would not survive entering a planet’s atmosphere or colliding with a planet’s surface. > [@](#): > > But even this view involves basically human-like motivations where alien motivations are likely represent something that is so completely different that it isn’t even possible to speculate about. But knowing they’ve made spaceships already implies they are like us in some ways. But sure, we won’t _know_ until we actually encounter an extraterrestrial species, if we ever do. All we can do is extrapolate from what we know. Some hypotheses seem more likely than others. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2017, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990/74 "2017-02-23T02:06:02Z")
Just more junk mail - what are these guys selling? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-an-alien-can-you-decipher-the-pioneer-or-voyager-plaques/779990.md?page=3)