The most startling revelation of the year so far came at the end of a BBC Horizon programme called Strange Signals From Outer Space!. I’ve always admired the lads and lasses who produce Horizon; for decades, they have been giving us programmes that stretch our minds and fill them with uplifting concepts about the possibilities of human endeavour. Clearly, though, the producers haven’t been reared in a newsroom environment. If they’d been schooled in the arts of detecting and conveying hard news, they would have stuck this potentially game-changing information at the top of their programme.
It seems astronomers and space scientists have been showing more than a fancy to some bursts of activity in the blue yonder, which they believe might give them a chance of detecting alien messages. They’ve been looking at bursts of radio waves produced by neutron stars to search for unusual signal formations. Basically, these signals happen routinely and intermittently. But if any were to form into a pattern then there’s a decent chance that ET and his chinas are trying to contact us.
This edition of Horizon had been a great wee programme where I got to discover that there was a Scottish connection to another set of signals that, alas, turned out to be less amazing than they’d otherwise promised to be. This was called the Lorimer Burst and can only have been so called in memory of Peter Lorimer’s screamer against Zaire at the 1974 World Cup. That, too, had promised amazing things but, in the end had turned out not to be as Scotland’s challenge ended in glorious heartbreak – just like the Lorimer Burst.
Then, right at the very end, the narrator suddenly says: “Then in 2016 a new burst was detected; the distinctive pulse of radio waves released as the neutron stars collided and were destroyed, followed by nothing – silence – just as the astronomers expected. [At this point, the producers inserted a long pause for dramatic effect.] But then, when they looked again, the signal came back.”
And that was the end of the programme.
Essentially, the narrator was telling us that an alien signal was detected last year from outer space. But then, as soon as he did, the final credits started rolling. They should have put this at the start of their programme and then worked backwards with all sorts of delicious speculation about what it could be and how scientists had reacted. Indeed, the fact that they didn’t is deeply meaningful in itself and slightly unsettling.
Although I don’t own a telescope, I’ve been keeping an eye on space for a good wee while now. And I can tell you that there’s an international executive protocol whenever there is even a hint of aliens sending us messages. Presidents and prime ministers are informed and soon there is a Cobra-like huddle in Geneva or somewhere similar as they determine whether they ought to be alarmed by the signal. Until now, nothing much has happened at these gatherings beyond the Russians getting an opportunity to collect more material for future blackmail operations.
I think that last year’s signal – let’s call it the Archie Gemmill Burst in honour of the wee man’s goal against Holland in 1978 – is even now being scrutinised by international heads of state and their military advisers. What if the Archie Gemmill Burst has alarmed them and that they forbade the Horizon team from saying anything further about it? This in itself concerns me and it’s all because of Donald Trump. Prior to Donald Trump, I suspect that the Archie Gemmill Burst would have elicited a proportionate and considered response. Even if they were uncertain about the nature of the aliens’ communique, they would have tried to establish a dialogue. And this is where the Scots could have come in handy again. You see, this wee country of ours has been undertaking quite a lot of space activity recently.
BBC Scotland even has its very own space correspondent, big Kenneth Macdonald, one of the most experienced and respected of its reporters. According to him, the Scottish space industry is a very vibrant one indeed. While Scotland makes up less than 9% of the UK population, it accounts for 18% of jobs in the UK space industry, while more than 100 private and public organisations have created almost 7,000 jobs and are contributing more than £130m to the Scottish economy. And – get this – in the past two years Glasgow has built more satellites than any other city in Europe. Glasgow has even hosted a conference on how to use the increasing amount of data coming from orbit.
I think that Glasgow has shown it has all the credentials to represent planet Earth in any dialogue with the extraterrestrials over the Archie Gemmill burst. And that way, the world could be assured that this would be friendly and upbeat. “How are youze all?” we would say, before inquiring after the kids and asking if they’d had a long journey. Then we’d invite them down for a cup of tea and “perhaps something stronger”. We’d tell them that our intentions were friendly and that we’d be looking forward to getting to know them.
But we’d also issue a friendly warning not to take any liberties. Any extended period of unwanted scrutiny can make Glaswegians feel a bit edgy. Such behaviour can often be met with the response: “What are you looking at, sunshine?” So it would be friendly and business-like at the same time.
Donald Trump’s presence changes everything though. He’ll breenge his way to the front wearing a ridiculous US military brown leather jacket and daft baseball cap. And you can be certain he’ll have seen yon Independence Day movie where the American president himself leads a global military task force equipped with missiles. He’d immediately assume the aliens were an unfriendly shower and want to build some kind of virtual wall to keep them out. The stupid big bastard would see this as a way of rescuing his failed presidency.
The aliens, though, will have seen him coming and have probably been bugging his hotel rooms and family apartments for years… as well as all the rest of them. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
