SETI: Too Close To Home

by John Martellaro

July 4th, 1999

You know, it seemed like such an innocent project. We'd all just get together, run a screen saver, and help the astronomers look for radio transmissions from Alf, er, you know what I mean. Little green guys. We were all so damn sure they'd have some nice, intelligent, encouraging message to send us.

Actually, that was probably true. Unfortunately, there were some other little green guys who didn't want us to see that message.

It started a few hours ago, just after sunset, when I was just sitting around watching TV and not paying too much attention to my Macintosh. I'd been watching the SETI@home screen saver for weeks with that same damn graphic, Fast Fourier transforming the hell out the data, when all of a sudden, it didn't look so noisy any more. Right there in front of me was a very obvious peak at 1.42 GHz, with little side lobes on each side to boot, and it didn't look like random sky background at all.

My first reaction was to save the SETI folder to a floppy. I sat for a second and stared at the beautiful blue and white G3. Damn! So who sez you don't need a floppy drive in a crisis? Brilliant, mister Steve.

So I copied the SETI folder to the 8500 via AppleShare and then grabbed a floppy to save it to. Just as I ejected the floppy, the house lights went out. Not the computer mind you, just the lights. The APC surge protectors started making their whiny little beep that tells you they're on battery power. Rats, I thought. I have an article to write. I don't need this.

Beep. Whine. Beep. Whine. Beep Whine....

By the glow of the CRT, I found the flashlight and went over to the window. The Patricks had power. The Haymans had power. Why didn't I have power? Must be something with the circuit breaker box. I went out to the garage and walked towards the circuit breaker, but stopped cold. There was a distinct electrical hum. I could see a blue glow around the edge of the access door. The hum made the hair on the back of my neck rise. No real need to touch that access door, right?

Suddenly, I was getting just a little concerned. I went back inside and shut the door. I could still hear that hum. Now it seemed to be coming from outside. I went over to the 8500, put the Mac floppy in my pocket, grabbed my jacket, and got the hell out of there.

I drove to Dan's house -- all the while looking out the car window. I don't know why. It was hard to tell if that hum was still around, but the hair on the back of my neck said it was still there, but just barely.

Dan is an electrical engineer for Boeing and a good friend. To say that he knows his way around an oscilloscope is putting it mildly. Know what I mean? Computers up on blocks. Soldering irons. Little black boxes. Dan knows everything there is to know about chasing electrons.

When I knocked, Lisa answered the door. She's seen me a million times, but she looked a little startled to see me. Maybe it was the look in my eyes.

"I gotta see Dan. It's an emergency."

"Sure," Lisa said, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. She closed the door behind me and headed quickly for the kitchen. Baby Anthony in his high chair was gurgling and banging his spoon. "Dan's downstairs, as usual," Lisa said as she disappeared around the corner. Did I look that scared? I must have. I'd never known Lisa to scurry away that fast. And no hug. I could've used one.

Dan looked up briefly when I came down the stairs. He was in his usual mode, at his work bench, squinting at some black box while he twiddled with the oscilloscope. His grape iMac was crunching away on SETI data. I pulled the floppy out of my pocket.

"Dan, you gotta look at this."

"Whatcha got there, John?"

"I don't know yet. It's SETI data, but it's not the usual noise we've been looking at for weeks."

Dan slid the floppy into his old 840AV and double clicked an icon I'd never seen before. But Dan had all kinds of exotic software. Stuff I'd never heard of. The program was writing some numbers to the screen in a dialog box.

"What's all that?" I asked.

Dan, not exactly the talkative type, just peered at the numbers. In a few seconds,he started smiling. Then a new icon appeared on the screen. He double clicked it.

Music.

The music scales if you will. It sounded like a student practicing the piano. That preamble lasted about ten seconds, then the most magnificent piano solo started. David Lanz, eat your heart out. This was the coolest piano solo I'd ever heard.

"SETI data." Dan said quietly.

"Huh?"

"I got a similar download last night. I wrote some software to analyze it. That preamble you heard? It's some kind of key. The music isn't just music -- I don't think. It's some kind of language. Here, give me your PDA. I'll upload it."

I gave Dan the Palm. "Have you dialed in to upload your data unit?"

"Not yet."

"Seems like a good idea."

"What's the rush?"

"Do it now."

"There. The music file's in your PDA."

"I said, dial in NOW!"

Dan gazed at me with that serene look of his. "The power went out at my house the minute I downloaded that data unit."

"So?"

"Nobody else on the street lost power. There was a hum. From outside." I may have appeared a little agitated at this point.

Dan looked into my eyes for another long second. "A hum, you say?" Then he calmly reached back to the 840 and clicked on his Remote Access Control Panel. We waited.

No dial tone.

The house lights dimmed, but didn't go out.

"Honey! What are you doing down there?" Lisa's voice echoed down the stairwell. Then I felt the hum again.

"Dan. Give me the Palm."

As Dan handed me the PDA, there was a moment I'll never forget. Lisa is a calm, intelligent woman. So when I heard her scream, it startled the hell out of me. It was was like, all of a sudden, everything was exploding in the house. And my head. Glass crashed. Anthony screamed. Lisa kept screaming. The hum got very loud, and the house lights flickered again. Dan and I were up the stairs so fast, at this moment, I don't even remember going up those steps. Or who got there first.

We're in Dan's Caravan on I-25, heading north. Lisa is in the back seat, holding Anthony and still shaking. I never saw Dan ask her what she saw. He seemed to just know. We both knew.

Dan says we're on our way to Fort Collins. He has friends there with Hewlett Packard. Somehow, we'll get back on the Internet and get this file uploaded to Berkeley.

Right now, in the city, the van is still obscured in plenty of traffic. In a few minutes, we'll be out in the country, at night, all alone on the Interstate. Frankly, I don't know if we'll make it.

If you find this PDA and read my log, you know what to do.