An interstellar space freighter picked up an unidentifiable radio signal during a return trip to home base. “What do you think it is?” the captain asked her communications officer. Deciding to investigate, the freighter approaches the source with caution and intercepts a small, unmanned spacecraft that appears to be of alien origin.
“There is no response to our greeting, Captain. Sensors do not detect life,” the communications officer reported.
“Magnification,” the captain ordered. A crewmember complied, magnifying the image on the screen.
“What do you think those symbols mean?” her first mate asked. “They look primitive.”
Upon closer inspection the captain and her crew are further convinced the craft came from another solar system and offered definitive proof that we are not alone in the Universe. With a cargo bay mostly empty, the captain decides to latch on to the foreign object and take it on board. Signaling ahead about their finding, the news becomes an instant media sensation.
Upon docking at the orbiting space station, the freighter is instantly taken into custody. A team of government officials accompanied by armed guards take over the ship.
“What is the meaning of this?” the furious captain demanded.
“Your cargo has been confiscated,” the official informed the captain. “I’m ordering top secret priority for all crew members on board.”
“My cargo is not your property. I hold savage rights.”
“You will inform the media that your claims of finding proof of intelligent alien life were all a hoax. Then you are never to speak of it again.”
“Are you telling me, the government intends keeping a find like this secret?” the captain bellowed in rage.
“You or anyone on your crew who disputes this was a media hoax, will quickly find yourselves in jail,” the official stated coldly. Armed guards accompanying him left no room for argument.
The confiscated alien spacecraft is taken to a secret area on the planet’s surface where a small select group of linguists and scientists study it in secret isolation. Where did it come from? What was its purpose? What do the hieroglyphics and recordings mean?
The linguists determined that the recordings aboard the spacecraft represented not one, but several different languages. They found some of the sounds and images disturbing. The scientists searched for the spacecraft’s point of origin based on collected data and determined the alien civilization posed an impending threat. But further study and analysis were needed. The public must be protected from learning there is other intelligent life in the galaxy. All is top secret. Not even the world leader can be told of the secret research due to plausible deniability.
92,000 years have passed on Earth since Voyager 1 left to explore our solar system. The little spacecraft traveled 5.4 light years across the void of space before reaching the heliosphere of another solar system, gathering solar energy once again. Then the little ancient spacecraft did something it hadn’t done in tens of thousands of years; it sent a transmission to Earth. It was this radio signal the starship freighter picked up. Voyager 1 managed one more transmission, an image of its own capture by the space freighter, before going dormant again. These transmissions will reach Earth in about six years, but there is no one left on Earth to receive the transmissions.
