The Wow! Signal
Mon, May 18, 2009
“Honey it’s late. You should get some sleep.”
“I will… In a while.”
“How long will you keep staring at that stupid signal? It’s been 30 years!
What do you expect to find now that no one else could for so many years?”
“I don’t know, okay! It’s just that I know it means something more, something big.
We are missing something. I can feel it.”
“Well whatever it is… I think it can wait till tomorrow.
It’s just a bunch of stupid numbers. To tell you the truth I think it’s a prank.
After all, no one was there at the station when it was received right?”
“It’s impossible for the Big Ear to have registered such high frequencies.
No one could have possibly doctored it.”
“I can’t talk you out of it can I? You love those aliens more than me.”
“Huh. Its Extra-terrestrial Intelligence and not aliens. Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
She gave him a dejected look and strolled to their bedroom, leaving him alone at his desk.
He stared at the screen and cursed “If only the signal was received in both the horns. We could possibly trace it back.”
He hung his head down after a few futile attempts to make some sense of the signal and logged off from the system.
The webcam on the desk turned slowly and followed him as he walked away.
A few thousand light-years away a humanoid figure asked his commander in a mechanical voice,
“This earthling is getting close to finding us. Shall we terminate him?”
“Not yet. We have been conducting experiments on them for over a century now. And they still think of us as slimy creatures that spit poison. They have no idea of who we are and what we are capable of. They pose no threat to us.
They intercepted one of our transmission 30 earth years back but have still got nowhere close to spotting us.
Let them come up with something more than just, ‘Wow!’”
Tags: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Sci-fi
Hey i think i am first…
Yeah i know about this light year concept and i get it very clearly..:P
I simply laughed at that last word of the story….:)
I am doubting man..there are million possibilities of their existence but would we be able to find that out..? is the question..
It was good attempt from you aniket ji..:P
Cheers
There’s an organisation known as SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). They actually recieved the WOW signal on 15th of August, 1977.
You should read about it. Its fascinating.
Thats why I wrote a fictional story surrounding it.
We are definitely not alone in the vast universe.
Ive heard abt it..
they found the signal and one scientist was so surprised and excited that he wrote wow on the side of the paper.
I also think that we are not alone in this universe
Dang, I knew the slimy part was a lie.
WOW!
lOL….
So now it’s aliens, eh?
Good going indeed!!
Are there like a thousand people (vampires, aliens and other creatures too) in your head who keep talking and you just listen to their convos and then reproduce them here?
Or is this all a result of excessive reading and/or cinematic experiences?
Amal,
Thats the one.
Glad to find fellow believer!
Jason,
I seriously don’t understand why they always portray aliens to be slimy and ugly?
Its equally likely that they turn out to have elfish looks, right?
Kriti,
A wee bit of both I guess.
Like I said everything that defies reality amuses me and grabs my interest. I hate anything NORMAL!
Probably thats why we get along well. lolz
That was WoW! I was not aware of this, But will check it out, seems interesting.
Beautiful!!! Hilarious!! I just LOVED it!!!
You know what I love the ET thing…UFOs etc. Your story was really Khool(in ur words). When I saw ‘WOW’…I came ‘running’ here:) I love it!! Super genius!
Where the rest in the list that you had promised?
Diya,
It is very interesting indeed. First contact with the extra terrestrial.
Though not proven without doubt. But then again, that’s what makes it even more interesting. Its a paradox.
Just look up Wow Signal on Wikipedia.
Am glad you liked it.
Deepa,
Am so happy that you liked it.
I was skeptical as to how many people would dig ET stuff.
And honestly, I planned to write a poem on Nephertiti. Then I researched for content and found it was a vast topic to cover. They had one famous family. Tutenkhamun was Nephertiti’s step son. Who got married to her daughter Ankhsunamun. These three are giant fixtures on their own. To tie them had to take time, which I didn’t have.
So took this up instead.
The rest of the list shall follow. All in good time.
This was a mind-boggling story for me as I really had to grapple with scientific concepts (being a totally non-scientific person). But my reaction was also: WOW@!!
I love sci-fi! Slimy and ugly? How dare you???
Sucharita,
Welcome here!
Am glad you liked this in spite of not being a sci-fi person.
Do visit again, as this is the first sci-fi story I’ve written.
May be you’ll get something to your liking next time.
Karen,
See it this way. Am giving a whole new planet full of beautiful people. More option right?
I wouldn’t mind get abducted then.
Aha, I know plenty of facts related to alien abduction theories too. Perhaps, I’ll write on them someday.
Really funny….the entourage with the extra terrestrial:D
im laughing:D
Richa,
Shhh! Don’t laugh out loud. They listen to everything!
E.T. is no phunny business.
Am glad you liked it.
The WOW Signal is something I never knew about…thanks for sharing the real life incident and that too in the garb of such a wonderful sci-fi story!
Aniket, I wish you could teach children ….history, science …facts through your fiction…they would learn to love the subjects!!!!
SGD,
Am glad you liked the extra bit of useless knowledge.
And also the story.
As a part of teachers day celebrations we went to teach the juniors when we were in class 12. I have utmost respect for teachers since then.
I went to teach the 6th graders. They have attention span of 5 seconds. Real Tough job it is.
And I hate the education system in India. I mean I would have loved history subject if it was just confined to knowing about Mauryas, the Mughals, etc. But no, they wanted me to rattafy the dates and the years. They take all the fun out of it.
But I do love to tell stories. And I rarely let an opportunity slip by. A friend of mine she doesn’t read any books, once a week she’ll ask me to tell her the latest story that I read. I always whole heartedly oblige.
And I doubt any parent would allow their kids to spend time with me. They’ll all turn Calvinish.
I am a real spoilt brat you know.
Speaking of History. One MUSTTT see the movie: The Emperors Club.
Rahul Khanna has guest starred in it. Its a wonderful wonderful story about a history teacher.
Its like a tribute to all the teachers.
I think that we should all (everyone in the world) at a given moment go outside and jump up and down. This would cause a small perturbation in the earth’s orbit, they would all come looking and we could be ready for them.
Dave,
That sounds like a Masterplan.
Oddly though, I had given this some thought myself. The problem is people jump on both sides of the globe then they’ll cancel each others forces, or just cause a negligible flutter if one hemisphere has more no. or heavier people.
So I believe we need to ask people on only one hemisphere to jump.
That should do the trick.
I love it, Aniket!
Give me good SF and you’ve won me!
I like the idea and your take on it. The matter of extraterrestrial life is endlessly fascinating…
Oooohhh, I love it. I would like to see this one as the opening scene to a novel wherein there is a clash of civilizations and the aliens get discovered and get mad and all kinds of strange and gooey stuff happens. Great beginning!
Vesper,
Couldn’t agree more.
ET and Time travel are right there on top that grab my interest.
Am glad you landed on a post of your liking.
Catherine,
Not sure if I’ll be able to pull of a sci-fi novel ever. My brother sure can.
We both have had endless talk on these. And he is so much more talented in everything than I am.
Yaaaa! I always knew “they” were out there watching us!
We’re not alone!!!
Loved your “Wow!” post Aniket.
Though you haven’t implied in your narration, if the ETI had that conversation immediately after the webcam moved, then that’d be a small technical glitch. If they’re thousands of light years away, it should take them exactly that many thousand of years to know of the narrated event. ‘Cuz nothing can travel faster than light, or that’s what Einstein would have us believe
I enjoyed reading!
TC.
Margaret,
Am so glad you liked it.
Ketan,
Ah. You do have a point there. But then, its implied that their technology is far ahead than ours and there are several phenomenons like warp zones, 6th dimension and parallel universe in fringe sciences that Einstien never explored.
So we may never know…
And all this while I thought what I was learning was fringe science! Talking of fringe science, I’ve used the concept of wormholes in my latest blog, ‘Futuristic!’. Though, it’s more on the social-psychological side than out and out fiction. TC.
Ketan,
I just read that post of yours before reading the comment.
Nice to see someone else having the same interests.
hmhm…. an interesting write and life if it exists on other planet would not be sure slimy.
And life in the sense of humans is an organism that breathes, takes food, thinks.
but how about an inorganic form of life… something that has evolved too much to be organic anymore…
too fanciful scientifically but what i say is theoretically possible.
anyways enjoyed your story.
cheers…..
muthu
http://www.average-everyday.blogspot.com
Aniket, I hate sci fi but this was kinda cool. I LOVE the twist– how we always assume we are at the top of any chain. Actually, there could be a metaphor, however unintentional, for the west in here if someone who sees oppression everywhere thought about if for, oh, half a second.
I am eating dal chaval and curried eggplant/potatoes for lunch with a chutney so spicy it makes me want to pull my hair out, but still I eat it. For some reason, it reminded me of visiting your blog…
(That is for the what do I need an award to say hi thing. 
)
Muthu,
But of course life could be in any form microorganism to inorganic to anything.
And they could have any form of abilities too. It funny how versatile are abilities among the same species. Some can write, some can paint, etc. Include animals and you have countless other abilities.
I wonder what it would be with them.
Ah, I know this one is too far fetched from reality. Well I tagged it fiction didn’t I?
Its funny how we write fiction cause it defies reality, yet at times we strive to make it as realistic as possible. A vicious circle it is.
Am glad you liked it.
Do stick around.
Jen,
Yes, we do don’t we. We love to assume that we are the smartest one around. And how often someone drops in to prove one wrong.
I love the quote of Qui-gon-jin in Star Wars: “There is always a bigger fish”
If only everyone realizes the truth behind it.
Am happy you dropped by.
Well I went to have some Hoeggarden today. And then well Dal-chawal is a daily routine.
You must try Paani-Puri once. Its god-max-dehlicious.
Hmmm…nice one..didnt know about the WOW signal!!! I wonder if these creatures exist then what are they waiting for??
Now you know the truth of my length between posts: I’m hiding from the extra-terrestrials…
Love the new look of your blog. Still haven’t posted on mine recently, but I thought I’d stop by and say “hey” anyway.
Priyanka,
Well we don’t know in which form are they living. Its entirely possible they suck at technology and its us who are far more advanced. The possibilities are endless.
Andy should be knowing about the WOW signal. Dr. H Paul Such came to IIT Bombay during TECHFEST to conduct QUEST – The SETI Workshop. Bro. was the organizer that time. He gave me all the material of the workshop and told stuff about this.
I even attended a few guest lectures in IIT about E.T.
Jana,
Oh, but you can easily outrun them easily. Am sure.
And it feels good to get an occasional ‘Hey’. I won’t mind if you increased its frequency.
Just curious, In which standard do you teach?
Man. I loved it. The concept is just amazing.
And I just noticed my blog under your “My Inspiration”!! Now I feel really, really badly for being away for so long.
Thank you, Aniket–it’s a great honor to inspire someone as good and talented as you are. I’m truly touched. Your generosity, enthusiasm and warmth are inspiring to me, too.
I love the utter disdain that the ET’s have for us here. It’s all about relativity, isn’t it? We are truly small fish in a big ocean.
Your dialogue and sense of pacing are becoming better and better, too.
Great twist, Aniket! And again, thank you so much. I love the new format, too!
Zeba,
Am very glad that you found a liking in it.
Sarah,
Come on now. I like the evil version of you.
You need not read my posts to inspire me young one (though you must), you must write though (novel counts)
I haven’t been able to do so much lately. But I used to read yours and Jason’s post to have a feel how you do it differently and much more effectively.
Glad to see some of it is paying off. Still a long way to go though.
You are also featuring in the dearest Aunts section.
So you get a free pass for being late every now and then.:P
wow!!
i do hope the aliens are keeping a check on you too
but you pose no threat to them..
as the line favours them in a way..
keep up the good work!!
I wish they are…
I would love to get abducted by them.
You would give complex to the Aliens!!!
Scaring them more by your horrendous, scary stories…or they might like it..as we all do!!
Wow Signal, never ceases to fascinate me.
Its the second biggest ‘What If?’ question in my life.
WOW!lol..i like the story beacuse it is scary to me..scary because the universe is so huge and it is really really stupid of us to think we are the lone big heads!!what if there are people(or whatever they call themselves…) live have spare sets of brains..or they dont use brains at all??they have some inbuilt processor??..What if they are searching for us too?? and above all i feel the tests we conduct that moon,mars,venus bla bla bla have no oxygen,water et cetera..what if they dont need any of them to live??LOL
I would like to see more of this story and this scientist’s reaserch..
Ps:i dint know you shifted your blog to HERE from
foolishnessofthings.blogspot.com/!!!
The endless possibilities is what fascinates many like us. Dr. H Paul Such from NASA is also known as Dr. SETI (Search for Extra Terristrial Intelligence).
He has researched a lot on the subject and his findings are most interesting to read.
I am a fan of everything Science Fiction too.