In June of 1977, President Carter wrote a letter to space aliens that was placed aboard the Voyager probes. Here’s the text, that some consider inspirational.

Note the sentences, “We cast this message into the cosmos. [Snip] If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message….”

Oh, dear, that message includes an onboard Golden Record that depicts life and scientific concepts on planet Earth. It also includes maps showing our location relative to pulsars, essentially providing a cosmic coordinate system. If PBS can read it, the legal space aliens won’t have any problem.

Perhaps the message Carter cast into the cosmos has indeed been intercepted.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 did much more that surveil and investigate the Solar System’s wonders. In 1990, for example, at about four billion miles away from us, NASA maneuvered Voyager 1 into position for a “family portrait of the Solar System.” The awe-inspiring image revealed Earth as a tiny point of light, what astronomer Carl Sagan called “The Pale Blue Dot of Earth.” A seemingly insignificant speck in the void, yet home to billions of humans with the potential for high levels of consciousness.

As both Voyagers trek beyond our Solar System and on towards infinity, they continue to conduct useful space science including examining properties of the heliosphere and sampling interstellar particles. Their remarkable performances have exceeded mission planners’ wildest dreams, but there were periods when we lost contact.

Voyager 1: Connections were sporadic, at best, between November 2023 and April 2024.

Voyager 2: We lost contact in July 2023.

Mission specialists attribute the communication lapses to power conservation attempts as the Voyager probes’ radio transmitters switched from higher- to lower-bandwidth transmission frequencies. Apparently, the onboard plutonium’s radioactivity (used to generate power) was depleting, and the probe’s made the switch “autonomously.”

Autonomously? That sounds a bit suspicious for a period before AI algorithms became prevalent. Many of the wondrous features of the Universe remain mysteries to us, so perhaps the extraterrestrial civilizations Carter envisioned are real.

Who really knows? Perhaps, coinciding with these Voyager down periods, Carter’s cosmic communications were indeed intercepted by a “spacefaring civilization.” The prodigious probes are now transiting interstellar space, after all.

Imagine their delight. They now know where we are -- and where our rare-earth minerals are. After calibrating their mothership’s navigation, inputting the coordinates from the maps on the Golden Records that we so graciously provided, the vessel may be what Rep. Jeff Van Drew is now seeing (he even doubled-down on the adversarial mothership claims) -- or imagining. Not from humanoid foreigners, mind you, but from grabby space aliens.

The late great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wasn’t yet world-renowned when Carter wrote that message about joining “a community of galactic civilizations.” Otherwise, he might have advised against it. He cautioned against advertising Earth’s location -- as with our own illegal aliens invading terrestrially, the illegal space aliens may not be friendly.

Carter was searching for common ground when looking to the stars, but an advanced civilization may consider us unworthy of Planet Earth. However, they may consider our planet to be a worthy waystation on their treks through space. Even if they have to zap us into a vapor.

After dispersing their surveilling drones, I just hope that any potential Earth invaders that Carter welcomed don’t disembark with the intent to “drill, baby, drill,” and otherwise confiscate our resources. Then their status would change to illegal space aliens (though a galactic treaty or convention has not yet been drafted, it would still be illegal planetary trespassing because possession is nine-tenths of the law here on Earth, and we got here first).

Meanwhile, Voyager 1 and 2 continue on their merry Milky Way -- along with Carter’s message and a map on how to get us.

Image: AT via Magic Studio