For the first few thousand years that human beings walked on Earth the only sound was them chipping away with chisels as they recorded their language and religion on the face of rocks in places like Egypt, Angor Wat in Asia and deep in the jungle of South America. Today, linguists are still teasing out the messages of long lost languages.
Over the following centuries humankind learned the art of war and eventually created the industrial revolution. An observer of Earth might have noted villages becoming big cities and smokestacks belching smog and we certainly learned to create wooden ships propelled by the wind in their sails to cross oceans - and discover new lands. But it was still a silent Earth. We did nothing to announce our presence in the Universe !
All that changed with the dawn of the twentieth century. A man named Marconi discovered that running electric power through resistors and valves enabled a radio signal to pass through the air and be recovered at a great distance. At first, this curiosity had limited application. In 1912 it added drama to a great sea tragedy. The luxury liner Titanic was making its first Atlantic crossing when it hit an iceberg at night. Its radio operators were sending distress calls and distant ships were racing to its aid, but within sight another ship was closed down on a calm sea and its crew were actually seeing the distress flares and rockets from the Titanic. They thought these were entertainment for the passengers, never thinking that the ship could be in trouble because it was deemed " unsinkable ".
This ships radio operator was asleep in his bunk and refused to arise and turn on his radio. When the rescue vessels finally arrived they found the fifteen hundred dead passengers and crew floating in the sea, killed by the chilling cold.
The advent of radio changed the world. It quickly became a source of entertainment for the masses. Commercial radio delivered music and news to homes across the world and radio connected countries where landlines were impossible. Then, midway into that twentieth century vision joined the sound of radio and the world embraced a new media - television. From every city of every country on earth sound waves bombarded the ether and bounced away into space.
The momentum of life quickly followed. The airplane brought mass, cheap travel and the age of rocketry allowed us to venture into space. The " computer " changed everything. In what seemed the twinkling of an eye we found ourselves with a " Smartphone " in our hand that connected us to the world, and as these decades slipped by the signals of planet Earth continued to boom away into space and announce our presence to whoever and whatever may share the Cosmos.
We even set up a " Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence " - SETI - and invited any aliens who respond to drop by and visit us. For some strange reason we assume that such creatures would be both benevolent and friendly. Perhaps that is naive !
We would do well to remember how we behaved when we were the explorers visiting new lands. We considered those we met as inferiors and we promptly placed our flag on their beaches and claimed the new country for our king or emperor. We assumed the right to any riches it contained and we carted away gold, silver, spices or anything that took our fancy. Worse, we imposed our laws and our religion on what we now called our new " subjects " and in many cases we forced them into the hold of our ships and carried them away to be sold in slave markets - where their labour would return us a profit.
It is too late to undo our declaration to the universe. For more than a hundred years our signals have been radiating through space and it may be many more centuries before they reach the outer limits of this infinite universe. Perhaps that may one day catch the attention of some other form of life and if so it may take a similar time measure for that entity to respond.
We hope that such an encounter delivers a better, kinder mix of civilizations than the history books recount of when we were the enlightened ones making new contacts !
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