posted on Jun, 18 2008 @ 02:22 PM
reply to post by Xtraeme
Re-reading both documents (
Extraterrestrial Intelligence from NSA Technical Journal Vol. XI No. 2 pp.
101 and
Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages from NSA Technical Journal Vol XIV, No. 1 pp. 13) I'm
fairly certain this is an exercise from one of
Dr. Lambros D. Callmahos's CA-400 senior
cryptanalytic courses.
The first document
Extraterrestrial Intelligence starts out with the title, author, and classification,
or rather the lack of classification. The article is stamped, "
Unclassified". Meaning that the document, even at it's initial
release, could be read by anyone. No security clearance required.
That immediately tells me, "This is an exercise, a mind game, not a real comm."
Most people would recognize this as a puzzle, but the intro paragraph throws the first-time reader off because it appears to make a factual assertion.
The editor (it doesn't seem like the author Howard H. Campaigne composed the introduction) writes,
In the most recent issue of the NSA Technical Journal - Vol. XI, No. 1 - Mr. Lambros D. Callimahos discusssed certain aspects of
extraterrestrial intelligence (1) and included several messages to test the readers ingenuity(2). In the following pages,
Dr. H. H. Campaigne offers additional communications from outer space(3).
It's shocking to read
(1), because as far as 99.999999% of the population is concerned we're the only sentient creatures in the known
universe. Leading the reader to think one of two things, either (a) they're talking about something real or (b) they're roleplaying for the purpose
of this make-believe scenario. If it's (b), like most make-believe scenarios concocted for the purpose of a test (ie/ math problems on the SAT),
we'd expect there to be some tell-tale signs that the scenario is fictitious.
Here are those tell tale signs:
- Clause (2) of the introductory paragraph suggests that the author of the article is sending out these "comms," not to solve
them, but to test the ingenuity of the engineers and researchers at the NSA. Think about that for a moment. Would the NSA really send out UFO
communications in their technical journal, meaning to every single person on staff, simply to test the ingenuity of their employees? Unlikely.
- Clause (3) of the introductory paragraph reads very much like, "Dr. PuzzleMaster has more mind-bending math goodness for your nerd
solving pleasure!"
- Next, on pp. 18 of Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages we read,
The last two lessons 30 and 31 were not published with the first twenty-nine, because it made too long an exercise
(4).
Clause (4) is pretty much all the proof we need. These are lessons from some worksheet.
- Finally, on pp. 20 of Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages we read,
Looking back over the exercise (5) we see we have penetrated the meaning of the basic symbols, and even more important, have
learned some of the syntax rules of the notation, and have caught mistakes in the process. We have a few words for sophisticated concepts, and, given
more data, with a little labor we could establish its translation (6).
Clause (5) suggests - yes - this is an exercise. Clause (6) suggests the purpose here isn't to come up with a key but to
discuss how to go about solving the problem.