Lost Tapes Reveal Apollo Astronauts Heard Unexplained ‘Music’ On Far Side Of The Moon

Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 2 months ago to Science
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Just another little tidbit NASA sort of never noticed, or forgot. Seems like it would be solar wind or Van Allen belt interference. But kinda spooky.


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  • Posted by bsmith51 9 years, 2 months ago
    When I flew to Siple Station in Antarctica (1981-2), near the base of the Palmer peninsula, it had a 13 mile long antenna the Navy used to communicate with a station (I think in Ontario or Quebec, Canada) using the earth's magnetic field and only 1 watt of power (probably for research in submarine communications). I'm told that antenna is now 26 miles long, but haven't researched it. Just found this: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p...
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
    "Music" differs from "noise" only in degree. Music is pleasant to listen to and makes you think of something; hence the name. Noise merely "annoys" you.

    Music also has some order to it. But that only means it could come from some kind of resonating system that puts out a few tones that might even harmonize. It does not mean any intelligent agent--and more particularly it does not mean any extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood agent--actually composed, recorded, and set that music up to play back. You can say that the far side might be the easiest place for an ET expedition to contact astronauts making a tentative exploration beyond their home world. But you cannot say that's what it was--not without more evidence of an ET expedition than what I have so far seen.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    one of them made as comment on what it took to sit on million critical parts supplied by the lowest bidder. Never heard it stated more accurately
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "I have also wondered how radio waves propagate in space, are the a linear function, since there is no atmosphere?"
    They decrease as the square of the distance. It ends up following this simple formula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friis_t...
    The atmosphere doesn't attenuate signals very much, but solid objects do. The main limitation of radio waves on earth is the curvature of the earth. You can work out range by knowing the height of the antenna and the radius of the earth. Transmit power doesn't matter unless it's really low. With good antennas I have worked on commercial wi-fi routers connecting oil and water pumps over 15 mile distances. (It's amazing how much normal wi-fi cards are used in important industrial applications.)

    Over the distances of space, they travel huge distances until they eventually fall into the noise floor of a practical receiver with pracitcally sized antenna.

    The first pulsar was called LGM for little green men b/c it seemed like something that couldn't be natural, an example of something that seemed creepy that turned out to have natural explanation.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 2 months ago
    When I look back at those old clips of those guys doing what they did I realize how brave they were. Look at that technology - vacuum tubes, tape computers. Pretty amazing stuff.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    One reason I posted this was I am aware of several different types of audio signals that have been caught in the past and were "unexplained" but later found to have a basis in fact, the solar wind one was a classic. They did use UFH radio transmissions, I have also wondered how radio waves propagate in space, are the a linear function, since there is no atmosphere? So if it was, then they could get away with low power and so it would be more likely to pick up low power background stuff.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I know, but the videos are interesting. I find the notion of NASA sort of missing it fairly believable.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 2 months ago
    Huffington Post....come on...not exactly much more than a check stand tabloid.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 2 months ago
    I wonder if the receiver they were using had a beat frequency oscillator (BFO) for picking up sideband transmissions. Back then, that was one way to get better sensitivity: supress the carrier, receive just the sideband, and use the BFO to replace the carrier. If they did that, noise from the other radio's LO might have gotten into the receiver, as the one engineer suggested. I wouldn't expect this probem to come and go, though. Maybe the noise floor dropped when tey when behind the moon. I really wouldn't expect that though.

    I really wish they had given the frequency, the moduation type, and if they tried other frequencies.

    I have enjoyed creepy signals on the radio since I discovered them by chance at 12 years old. https://www.element14.com/community/g...
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