The Arecibo Reply
2001 · Beside Chilbolton Observatory · Hampshire · England
WHAT IT IS
A grid of 'pixels' copying the 1974 Arecibo radio message, rewritten: silicon added, the DNA changed, a big-headed figure in place of the human, a new transmitter. It appeared beside a radio telescope.
THE ALIEN READING
Read by proponents as an answer to the message humanity beamed at the M13 star cluster in 1974, delivered next to a radio telescope. With Crabwood it is the formation most cited on r/UFOs and r/HighStrangeness as a message.
WHAT THE RECORD SAYS
The SETI Institute called an other-than-earthly origin 'highly improbable'. The 1974 signal has covered about a thousandth of the distance to M13, the 'reply' adds nothing the original did not contain, and its transmitter copies a formation made in the same field in 1999 (The Skeptic, 2023). No maker has claimed it.
WHERE IT STANDS
Disputed. No maker has claimed it. Sceptics say people made it; proponents point to what they say people could not do.
STATUS IS OUR CURRENT ASSESSMENT, NOT A VERDICT · REVIEWED 5 OCT 2026
THE RECORD
- DATE
- 2001
- PLACE
- Beside Chilbolton Observatory · Hampshire · England
- MADE BY
- Unclaimed
- TYPE
- Messages & codes
- TECHNICAL
- Wheat · a 23 × 73 grid in the Arecibo format · sources date it 16–20 August 2001
