Presidential palace.

With his arms propped up on the table, John typed on Twitter at an age-inappropriate pace.

"The earthquake was completely caused by natural factors, and the power of the hydrogen bomb is not worth mentioning in front of nature, and I sympathize with the people in the disaster area, and I will personally donate $100,000 to make up for their losses."

After editing the tweet, he also @ a string of names, all of which are more active officials on Twitter.

The day before yesterday, the Wyoming successfully carried out the last clean-up operation, launching a missile from 5,400 kilometers away and detonating it in the predetermined airspace, which was just a little higher than Lucia's, which was also a passable result.

Fortunately, most of the power of the air-burst hydrogen bomb was limited to the control area, causing only two large-scale power outages and loss of communication signals outside the control area, and Edo Castle was largely unaffected.

However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck the waters around Hokkaido four hours after the explosion, causing damage to four cities, and many people believe that the earthquake was caused by a hydrogen bomb.

Such statements were of course absurd in John's view, and he did not even intend to make an official response.

After closing Twitter, he skillfully opened TikTok, and the two blue and black apps have become an important tool for him to understand the people's feelings.

Although the traffic is still very expensive, it can't stop him from having a heart to be happy with the people!

The result of bureaucracy is that reports are extremely complicated and redundant, with hundreds of pages of documents mixed with intrigue and intrigues, especially when it comes to budget approvals.

After brushing another "The Most Beautiful Nuclear Explosion Live Remix" that exploded on TikTok, there was a knock on the office door.

"Please come in."

John put down his phone and sat up straighter.

It was Robert and Claire who came in, and the former and current director came hand in hand, which should not be a trivial matter.

"What's the matter, gentlemen, don't tell me that the moon program is going wrong again."

"The Artemis III mission is going well and in good condition."

Robert's words dispelled his biggest concern, but the former's expression remained serious, making John a little uneasy.

Sure enough, the next sentence made the atmosphere change suddenly.

"Mr. President, we've intercepted an alien signal, very close to Earth, just around Mars."

“……”

There was silence in the air, Claire and Robert were cautious because they had a big stake, and John didn't know what to say.

Even if someone told him that the Chinese planned to build a military base on the moon, he would believe it, but the aliens ......

After going through the process of wanting to speak and stopping, and stopping to speak and desire, John said tentatively:

"Lightford, if NACA wants to increase funding, I can approve some more, you're the head of the space agency, you should be serious."

He didn't really believe that the two directors of NACA came together just to deceive themselves, but the topic of aliens was too scary once it became serious, so much so that he couldn't believe it.

"I'm sorry, I can understand your reaction, it's hard to believe, but it's true."

Claire solemnly took out a stack of papers from her briefcase, placed it on John's desk, and recounted the story.

Things have to go back to the rover team that controls Curiosity, it was a very ordinary afternoon nearly two weeks ago, Curiosity had been sleeping in the dark for more than 40 hours, and it ushered in good weather, ready to start surveying on a long-set target.

In order to observe whether the terrain of the destination can pass safely, Boris applied for the MRO (Mars Ring Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005) to call the right to call, which is equipped with a high-definition lens with a resolution of 0.3 meters, and is currently the best satellite in Mars orbit with optical telemetry.

The MRO soon began its observation mission, but just as it sent back the signal, a beam of radio passed by it, leaving a record in its logbook.

There is no shortage of electromagnetic waves in the universe, whether it is the sun, planets, satellites, all active celestial bodies emit electromagnetic waves all the time, and there are countless electromagnetic waves outside the solar system, and these natural signals will basically be treated as background noise.

But this beam of signal is different, although its frequency band is not in the spacecraft communication band at all, and should be filtered out, its signal strength is not normal, not like normal attenuation across long distances, but like a launch source around Mars.

The anomalous record was immediately noticed by the staff in charge of MRO control, and she didn't think much about it at the time, this situation is not unusual, but it is customary to record it according to NACA's requirements and send it to "Team A" for analysis.

Group A, a mysterious but actually better than nothing, isn't even a formal department.

A comes from Alien, which originated in the 70s, when the alliance abandoned the Mars program to bet on Venus, and scientists thought that Venus was likely to have aliens in an environment similar to Earth, and there were many beautiful fantasies about Venus before Venera 4 rushed into the atmosphere of Venus and found that it was hell.

At that time, it was the height of the competition, and in the context of the fact that both sides had invested huge resources in the research of superpowers, it was certainly understandable to establish a study of extraterrestrials.

However, the study of superpowers is still slightly different, it originated from Ami's questioning of the extremely loyal and even backward actions of those alliance spies, believing that they were controlled by some powerful brainwashing technology, which led to the study of mind control and even comprehensive superpower research.

The foundation of extraterrestrial research is much weaker, so even the predecessor of Group A, the "Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Association", did not have much influence when it was established, and it has been declining since then, and now it is almost just a name.

Employees who have leisure will regularly take turns as Group A employees, summarizing some messy alien clues, the biggest meaning is to have some fun or make up videos for the fledgling marketing account.

After this abnormal signal is given to group A, they also process it according to the conventional steps, that is, splitting, spectrum analysis, etc. according to a certain law, which is a method that cryptographers and astrophysicists have long formulated, mainly to judge the "amount of information" in the signal.

Although those predecessors didn't know what code aliens used at that time, one thing was absolutely true: the signal was used to carry information, and there must be a pattern, that is, repetition.

According to this basic principle, it is more accurate to judge whether it is a smart signal, and according to certain conditions, it can also be divided into five levels of ABCDE, and the following level C is basically meaningless, and the A level can really determine the content.

The biggest suspicion of this unknown signal is actually mainly the strength, which is not very special in itself, and James, the engineer on duty at the time, analyzed it step by step when he was free.

The answer, of course, is that there is no result, and after several attempts, no matter how it is split, there is no regularity, and it has been able to close the coffin.

Just then, one of the engineer's colleagues, Italiano, passed by, and he was very interested and sat down to give it a try, and as expected, the result was the same.

But Italiano was not discouraged, there was always a gut feeling that something must be there.

James laughed at him at the time as delusional, as UFO enthusiasts all over the world have this instinct and are unwavering.

In the end, Italiano went home with the recorded signal spectrum to analyze it himself, and half a month passed in a flash.

James had almost forgotten about it, but Italiano was suddenly excited to find him, saying that he had made a big discovery.

The unkempt Italiano recounts his experience: he had no clue for the first week, and at one point suspected that it was his own delusion, but one afternoon he was doing his job - he now works in the communications department, and while he was accustomed to reading the latest communications patents, he came across a patent for a ternary modulator filed by XAP.

As we all know, XAP has an ambiguous relationship with Huanghe Huang Semiconductor, and as the promoters of ternary chips, they have been trying to improve this ecological chain and avoid the troublesome translation problems at this stage.

Ternary signal modulation in their description can compress the information volume and enhance the anti-interference ability, which is very helpful for interstellar communication.

Italiano seems to have grasped something, trying it with the last enthusiasm.

This time he tried more than 100 combinations, and finally found a clue.

It took him another full day to get a collated radio map.

Dense and regular fluctuations not only indicate that they carry information, but also a lot of information.

The results of the analysis were returned to Boris, who immediately sought out a colleague in the relevant field to check the calculations, and the results were correct.

This time, they went one step further and used the ternary and octal systems respectively to interpret the content of highly suspiciously valid information, and although there was no corresponding password that could not be deciphered, it was 100% sure that the signal was sent by an intelligent being.

As for the question of whether other satellites are launched, it is easy to rule out, and at present, in addition to several Aramco probes in Mars orbit, there are only ESA's "Mars Express", India's MOM, and the UAE's "Hope".

The suspicion of all three can be completely washed away, so the result is that there is an unknown emission source within tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of kilometers, around Mars, sending signals in an unknown direction.

Of course, they haven't forgotten the "fire" launched by XAP, but it will take at least half a year for the probe to arrive, and it is estimated that they are still rushing in the vast deep space, which can also be ruled out.

After hearing this, John was in a great shock, but so many experts have studied it together, and it is almost impossible to go wrong.

"Can't be sure where the signal is going?"

Robert shook his head and said helplessly:

"The signal is too short, and we can only speculate that the receiver range should be within the solar system based on the intensity of the transmission, but this does not represent that aliens are in the solar system, and it is not absolutely accurate, and we cannot use the human mind to speculate what they do."

"But we ruled out that it was a human launch based on cryptographic methods, and the way Itariano finally tried to succeed in parsing it was so strange that even the most senior cryptographers couldn't find a source.

And they are clearly hoping to disguise themselves as natural signals to evade reconnaissance, the solar system is so vast that we would never have detected it elsewhere if it hadn't been for an unrepeatable coincidence that MRO had not caught up. ”

Claire followed up by explaining that although the attenuation of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum is much smaller than on Earth, for example, the antenna power of Voyager 2 is only 20W but can cross more than 20 billion kilometers, but this does not mean that it is easy to find a signal.

After the power of 20W arrives at the earth, it will attenuate to 1/100 trillion of the original, which not only requires the transmitting antenna to be aimed at the earth through ultra-high-precision gyroscopes, but also requires a high-gain antenna with a diameter of more than 70 meters on the ground and a global receiving array amplified hundreds of millions of times, and the signal will be lost if it is not satisfied.

What if alien receivers could be magnified tens of billions of times, tens of billions of times? Maybe the signal will be forwarded somewhere else, maybe ......

Everything else that can be inferred from the current information alone is inaccurate, and the only thing that can be determined is that it does not belong to all known human detectors, but that is enough.

John was silent again, but this time his brain was racing, and he really began to think rationally about the utterly absurd thing.

I don't know how long it took, but he suddenly raised his head and said thoughtfully:

"The Chinese have announced a series of four simultaneous Mars landing exploration plans, do they know anything?"

The sudden change in topic made Robert a little unresponsive, but Claire had obviously thought about this question a long time ago, and replied without much hesitation:

"There is a certain possibility that if the moon has the mineral resources or strategic position to attract them, then Mars is too far away to have any practical value, and the competition between us is not urgent enough to immediately land on Mars to prove itself."

Although Tianwen's plan to carry out four at once is indeed amazing, considering their aggressive strategy, it is quite normal, Claire does not think there is any conspiracy.

John naturally heard the disapproval behind the echo, crossed his fingers and thought again, and then slowly proposed his own coping strategy:

"First of all, we have to collect as much information as possible, mobilize all forces for surveillance, and we must not rule out human ...... Human possibility, this matter deserves our highest vigilance to investigate.

I will have the Hexagonal Group set up a secret research group with you, and conduct secret activities as the top secret of the United States, and give the highest authority until the investigation is clear.

Second, convene experts to analyze the premise of extraterrestrials and judge whether their purpose is ...... Be friendly and try to decipher the signal.

Third...... This can be semi-public, looking at how to conduct interstellar defense, and I believe that we are not unthreatening turkeys.

Finally, the matter needs to be kept secret anyway, and the Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence will conduct cross-investigations and closely monitor all those in the know.

I will also convene others, and the presidential palace needs a special provisional body to take care of this. ”

Claire agrees with these decisions and is a sound choice in the current situation.

"We'll follow up right away, but ...... I don't think you have forgotten Christina, there is no answer to that matter until now, and maybe we should secretly recall her as well.

If it's really related......"

Claire took a deep breath and said the answer he didn't want to see in a trembling voice:

"If it's not a coincidence on both occasions, then there's a 99% chance that we're going to start an interstellar war."

(End of chapter)