Epilogue: Earth Probe Synopsis: Long Delayed Echoes: Long Delayed Space Echoes are explained along with the Von Neumann Probe which Ronald Bracewell suggests refelct from an allien probe orbiting Earth. Violations In the weekly scientific journal ‘Nature’, issue 3rd November 1928, there appeared a letter to the physicist Carl Stormer penned by one Jorgen Hals, a radio engineer from Bygodo. The letter read: "At the end of the summer of 1927 I repeatedly heard signals from the Dutch short-wave transmitting station PCJJ at Eindhoven. At the same time as I heard these I also heard echoes. I heard the usual echo which goes round the Earth with an interval of about 1/7th second as well as a weaker echo about three seconds after the principal echo had gone. When the principal signature was especially strong, I suppose the amplitude for the last echo three seconds later, lay between 1/10h and 1/20 of the principal signal in strength. From where this echo comes I cannot say for the present, I can only confirm that I heard it." Hals had discovered a phenomena that was later to be called ‘Long-Delayed Echoes’. During the half-century following this discovery, scientists from around the world have studied the phenomena but have not been able to offer a satisfactory explanation to account for all the evidence accrued. Essentially the LDE phenomena is that radio messages can be transmitted into space and are ‘reflected’ back to Earth off an object or objects elsewhere in space; the ionosphere and the Moon acting as the two main ‘reflectors’. Over 100 reports exist of the phenomena, yet some of the reports refer to echoes being received seconds later at their original transmitting station. Since the radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second, and the distance between the Earth and the Moon varies from 221,460 miles to 252,760 miles, the longest the radio wave should take to be reflected back to Earth is 2.7 seconds; any delay longer than that would indicate reflection off an object further out in space than the Moon. Carl Stormer, the recipient of Hals letter, teamed up with a Dutch researcher, Van der Pol from the Phillips Research Institute in Eindhoven and in September 1928 they began experiments to validate Hal’s findings. They radiated radio ‘call-signs’ of different lengths at 30-second intervals and the results they achieved from 11th October 1928 demonstrated delays in the signal of between 3 to 15 seconds. Van der Pol confirmed these findings in a telegram that read "Last night special emission gave echoes here varying between three and fifteen seconds. 50% of echoes heard after eight seconds!" (1)

Yet, as noted above, 2.7 seconds would be the longest it would take to reflect such a signal back from the Moon, and it would take over four minutes for the echoes to reflect back from our nearest planet in the Solar System, Venus. Clearly, the echoes were being reflected off something between Moon and the nearest planet. Stormer continued to investigate the phenomena and his work was duplicated by intrigued researchers from all over the world.

Stormer published his findings in August 1929, and attributed the echoes to some form of ‘auroral causes’, however such an explanation was, and remains, unsatisfactory. Later another natural explanation for LDEs was proposed by Anthony Lawson in the 1970s (2). Essentially he contended that the signals were reflected off the ionosphere or other natural phenomena. His hypothesis was regarded as impressive by the British Interplanetary Society who gave him Fellowship of their Society. Lawton’s work almost killed off research into the phenomena, however what limited research that continued concluded that "we still don’t know which of the proposed mechanisms are valid." (3).

What made the puzzle more intriguing were the different time delays in receiving the signals back after their transmission. Stormer and Van der Pol noted echoed delays to their transmissions (in seconds) that read 8-11-15-3-13-8-8-12-15-13-8-8. Either there were a number of reflective objects out there to account for these time differences or something else was happening.

This is not some wild dream but a sweet reality, for the satellite, named ‘Keo’ was launched by the space agency Centre National d’Etudes Speciales in 2001 and France’s Atomic Energy Commission has helped with the pioneering research work to demonstrate Keo’s ability to survive in space for 500 centuries.

Inside the satellite’s small circular hub will be samples of air, seawater, soil and human DNA. There will also be CDs containing what Philippe describes as "the library of Alexandra" and pictorial instructions of how the satellite’s finders can construct a CD player to retrieve the information (5).

What the inhabitants of this planet will make of the information in 50,000 years time is pure speculation. Interestingly in our own 1950s strange signals were picked up from just beyond the Earth’s atmosphere leading to suggestions that an artificial satellite might already be in orbit around our own planet.

Such signals were first recorded in 1953 by Dr. Lincoln La Paz at the University of New Mexico. The US Department of Defence acted speedily and set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the mystery echoes under the chairmanship of Dr. Clyde W. Tombaugh (right), the discoverer of the planet Pluto.

However, that was not Tombaugh’s only claim to fame, for following World War II he spent a period working at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at the same time as Wernher von Braun was there. The same von Braun who, six years later, was to state "we find ourselves faced by powers … whose base is at present unknown to us."

Tombaugh was given complete access to all information on the mystery object and he presented his findings at a Pentagon briefing the following year – findings that have been withheld from the public domain.

TAGS: Long Delayed Echoes, Long Delayed Space Echoes, Long Delayed Space Echoes Explained, Ronald Bracewell, Von Neumann Probe, Alien Probe Orbiting Earth