We Have Announced Our Presence to the Stars

There are those who predict a dire catastrophe if we broadcast our presence to another star. The extraterrestrials will come and – eat us, or something equally unpleasant. (Actually, if we are especially tasty, they need only sample one of us, determine what sequence of our amino acids makes us appetizing, and then reconstruct the relevant proteins on their own planet. The high freightage makes us economically, if not gastronomically, unappetizing.) The message aboard Pioneer 10 was criticized by a few because it "gave away" our position in the Galaxy. I very much doubt if we pose any threat to anybody out there. We are the most backward possible civilization able to engage in communication, and the vast spaces between the stars are a kind of natural quarantine, preventing us at any time in the near future from messing around out there.

But, in any case, it is too late. We have already announced our presence. The initial radio broadcasts, starting with Marconi and reaching significant intensity in the 1920s, have leaked through the ionosphere and are expanding at the velocity of light in a spherical wavefront centered around the Earth. And in that wavefront, an advanced technical civilization can pick up the tinny transmissions of Enrico Caruso arias, the Scopes trial, the 1928 election returns, the big jazz bands. These are the harbingers of the cultures of Earth, our first emissaries to the stars.

If there are technical civilizations some fifty light-years out, they will just now be detecting these strange, primitive signals. Even if they are poised to respond instantly with the fastest spaceship possible, it will be at least another fifty years before we hear from them. Pioneer 10 will take a million years to cover the same distance.

It is too late to be shy and hesitant. We have announced our presence to the cosmos – in a backward and groping and unrepresentative manner, to be sure – but here we are!

Jazz-band radio broadcasts are our first emissaries into space, now nearly 100 light years out.