The Golden Record
Two spacecraft leaving the solar system carry a golden record of Earth's sounds, music and greetings, for whoever finds it.
What was reported
In August and September 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2 from Cape Canaveral. Each carries a gold-plated copper record, with a stylus and picture instructions for playing it, put together by a committee led by Carl Sagan.
It holds greetings in 55 languages, sounds of Earth such as rain, birds, whales and a heartbeat, music from Bach to Chuck Berry and from many cultures, and pictures encoded as sound.
Explanations offered
The chance of anyone ever finding it is tiny; it's as much a message to ourselves as to anyone else. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012 and is now the most distant human-made object. In about 40,000 years it will drift past another star.
- When
- Launched in 1977
- Where
- Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA
- Witnesses
- NASA, and a team led by Carl Sagan
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.