What Do You Think?

[jerrys1960]

Suppose you work for one of the government agencies attempting to locate life on other planets. The following sequence of high (1) and low (0) tones was received by one of the polar listening stations. The complete tone sequence was repeated a 3 and one half times then the signal was lost. Your job is to determine if the tones are a message or simply random space noise. (assume one long line no line breaks)

- - - - - below is the sequence of the tones - - - - -
1000000000010000000000000010010111000010010010000010010010000
0111100100000100100100000100100100000100101110000000000000000
1111101100100000000001
- - - - end of sequence - - -

Now it is your turn, what do you think? Is this a message or random space noise?
(If you think it is a message you should include what you think the message says.)

- - - -
- - - - - - - The answer is below.
- - - -


This is one of the exercises that once one sees the key to the answer it is simple. Unfortunately finding that elusive key to begin with is often very difficult.

In this case we have a series of 1’s and 0’s (high and low tones).
If we count to total number we discover there are 144 tones to the message.

We then might look for commonalities in the message, a decipher key or something to help with the messages meaning. (if we assume the sender wanted us to understand the message).

In this case one common trait is that the first 12 and the last 12 characters are identical.

Hum … 144 characters. 12 time 12 is 144. could that be important?
Perhaps the message should be read as a 12 x 12 grid?

Let us try.

100000000001
000000000000
001001011100
001001001000
001001001000
001111001000
001001001000
001001001000
001001011100
000000000000
001111101100
100000000001

Let’s change the 1’s to x’ and the 0’s to _’s and see if that makes the message more readable.

x__________x
____________
__x__x_xxx__
__x__x__x___
__x__x__x___
__xxxx__x___
__x__x__x___
__x__x__x___
__x__x_xxx__
____________
__xxxxx_xx__
x__________x

Hum . . . there does indeed seem to be a message.

The solution is simple and easy once we know how the key works. However, finding that key, much like finding the true keys and directions for our own life is not always easy.