48 Hours a Day

Chapter 691 - Voyager 1

Chapter 691: Voyager 1

“It’s all just basic knowledge. You can easily learn about them with a little online research,” Zhang Heng entered the keywords as he said. He typed in a combination of two words—Alien + Cretaceous, but only nonsense showed up in the search result.

He saw conspiracy theories like, “The Horrible Truth: Aliens killed dinosaurs!” Evidently, the information he wanted might be located in this pile of garbage news. There was even an article that went with the title, ‘Aliens have already visited earth!’ and ‘Eleven pieces of evidence that prove the Chinese are the ancestors of aliens!’ Naturally, none of these proved any useful.

So Zhang Heng recalled Lin Sisi’s weekly journal again. He changed the keyword combination this time and typed in Alien+Disaster+Access Denied. Simultaneously, to prevent anyone from deleting anything from the database, he used a VPN to access the internet this time. Although Google had withdrawn itself from China, its algorithms still grabbed information nonstop from Chinese websites. Zhang Heng could take advantage of it to complement Baidu Snapshot.

This time around, he found something worth a read. He then turned on both computers, and after spending ten minutes with Bai Qing reading through the posts, he found only one that could be useful. It was a short horror science fiction story written by a professional author, and it happened that the forum did not remove it. The author seemed to really put his passion into the account, yet only a few comments were below it. Most of the words there, however, served to criticize.

[I don’t think it will work.]

[You can’t say that. Maybe the author had been replaced by an alien. That’s why his writing is so bad.]

[It makes sense now. That explains everything.]

...

Bai Qing could not help but send a reply.

[I think it’s quite a good idea, and it’ll be even better if you just keep writing! You can do it!]

However, it seemed the author had a hard time dealing with the negative comments. His last login was three weeks ago, and he had never visited the forum since. Zhang Heng noticed the previous comment, though. It was posted only one day ago, and the person’s username was Voyager 1. The comment made no sense at all.

[Are you Fermi Paradox? So, you are using that thing to write science fiction?]

Zhang Heng looked at the ID and saw that the person was online.

So he sent Voyager 1 a private message.

[Can you talk more about the Fermi paradox?]

[Wait a moment.] replied Voyager 1.

After about two minutes, he sent a second message.

[My boss was just watching us. I don’t want him to know that I’m looking at other things during working hours. You want to learn more about Fermi Paradox? Can’t you just search it on Baidu?]

[No. You mentioned something about a science fiction novel earlier.]

[Oh, oh, you’re referring to that thread. I think you might’ve got the wrong person. That guy does not belong to this forum. He used the same username on Douban as well. He is a very mysterious guy—he only logs in from 5:30 to 6.00 every day, and you’ll never see him before or after. He’s as punctual as a robot.]

Zhang Heng silently pondered upon it. If this ID belonged to Lin Sisi, it made sense that she would only come online at a particular time since her parents restricted her computer usage—a common practice for most families with young children. The peculiar behavior had made her even more mysterious among the forum members.

[What do you know about her?] Zhang Heng asked.

[Her? You’re saying that Fermi Paradox is a girl? Speaking of which, I don’t remember she has ever mentioned her gender. I don’t know her too well. She usually comes online when we get off work. I remember she was a very serious person. She would argue if she thinks she’s right, and she would not give up until you surrender or it was time to go offline. I must say, though—she was quite knowledgeable. Some even suspected that she must be from some research institute or a schoolteacher.]

[Oh?]

[By the way, our group organized a stargazing outing a while ago. Fermi Paradox asked a lot of questions and mentioned that she would come with two of her friends. Later, she told us that her family wouldn’t allow her to join. At that time, we speculated that he was a married man, and his wife was quite strict.]

Zhang Heng and Bai Qing exchanged glances. It appeared they found the right person this time.

He continued typing.

[What is that set of things you mentioned earlier?]

[Oh, didn’t “The Three-Body Problem” win a prize last year? Communicating with aliens has become a burning topic recently. I remembered about three weeks ago, Fermi Paradox posted something about this topic, saying she managed to decipher a part of a radio emission from space.]

[What happened after that?]

Voyager 1 was very patient. Since he had nothing better to do, he continued explaining the whole thing.

[The so-called radio is actually some sort of electromagnetic radiation. It can penetrate interstellar medium, traveling even further to deliver information to distant galaxies. Scientists use radio telescopes to observe and study radio waves. The largest radio telescope in the world is the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, spanning a diameter of 350 meters. But in the second half of this year, our country’s 500-meter wide FAST radio telescope should be completed. It should then be the largest radio telescope in the world.] proclaimed Voyager 1 with pride.

[I know what a radio telescope is.] replied Zhang Heng.

[Actually, I want to know how Fermi Paradox deciphered the radio waves.]

[Hold on.]

The enthusiastic Voyager 1 logged in to Douban, and two minutes later, he sent a shocking reply.

[The post has disappeared.]

[What is its title?] Zhang Heng asked.

[It is called “I deciphered a part of a radio emission.” Fermi Paradox said that she discovered that a part of a radio emission contained some crucial information. However, during that time, no one in the group believed her. Radio emissions are typically emitted by astronomical objects and carry no meaning. Since it is electromagnetic radiation, it can theoretically be used to store information. But it is hard to imagine an extraterrestrial life-form converting a pulsar into a radio transmitter. Everyone thought she was joking, and for the first time, she didn’t argue with us. After that, no one talked about it anymore.]

Zhang Heng searched the post’s title but found that it had been completely deleted from the internet. He remembered the man he met who had the skills to edit surveillance videos. It seemed that some computer expert was living among them.

“What should we do now?” Bai Qing asked. This was a terrible feeling. Now that they were on the right path and one step away from the final answer, they became stuck in the last section.

Before Zhang Heng could reply, there was another message from Voyager 1.

[Well, it doesn’t really matter that the post is gone. Anyway, I have learned her deciphering method. However, it can only be used to decipher that particular radio emission. After that, I cross-checked the radio emission found on the internet, but I couldn’t find the radio emission that she mentioned. So, I figured she might have made the whole thing up.]