In the mid 1970s, NASA with notable scientists including Frank Drake, Carl Sagan, and others decided to send a message to potential extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. The Arecibo message was a interstellar radio transmission sent from Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory in 1974, aimed at the globular star cluster M13. The message contained basic information about Earth, humans, and DNA, serving as a symbolic gesture of humanity’s desire to connect with potential extraterrestrial civilizations. When decoded and displayed as a pixel image, the message attempts to convey fundamental information about humanity and Earth in a universally understandable way and includes the fallowing information: a binary representation of numbers, the atomic numbers of five key elements, formulas for sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA, a double helix structure representing DNA, a graphic of a human being with a average height depicted, the approximate population of the Earth, a diagram of the solar system with the third planet, offset to indicate the origin of the message, and a diagram of the Arecibo radio telescope itself with its diameter indicated.
A short quarter century later, many believe, a response was received in the form of two crop formations that appeared in Britain in 2001 A crop formation known as the Arecibo Answer crop circle or more widely as the Chilbolton crop circle appeared in a field in England on August 16 2001, and was seen by many researchers and enthusiasts as a response to the original Arecibo message. The formation was a near replica of the message, but with some differences that have fueled speculation and debate about its origin. It was a large rectangular pattern, and when viewed from the air, it appeared to be a direct, binary encoded reply to the Arecibo message. It mirrored the original Arecibo message’s format (a 23x73 grid) but with alterations in the information conveyed.
A few days later on August 20, another crop circle appeared right next to the original, that many interpreted as the face of the senders of the message. This one depicted a large, distinct alien face, similar in characteristics to the popularly known grey alien.
The binary coded rectangular message seen in the first reply, changed some of the basic information that was sent out by the Arecebo transmitter in the original message. The Chilbolton crop circle, sometimes called the “Arecibo answer” or “Hampshire pattern,” was a large and intricate formation that appeared in 2001 near a radio telescope in Hampshire, UK. This crop circle bore striking similarities to the original Arecibo message, leading some to speculate that it might be an extraterrestrial response.
The Chilbolton crop circle has been studied and thoroughly analyzed by many people, both professional and amateur alike, and the information has been uncoded and generally agreed upon. This crop circle was a large rectangular pattern, and when viewed from the air, it appeared to be a direct, binary encoded reply to the Arecibo message. It mirrored the original Arecibo message’s format (a 23x73 grid) but with alterations in the information conveyed.
The information that was changed, included some of the following: the atomic number of silicone and germanium we were added, a representation of DNA structure with a different double helix and a third strand in the DNA sequence, a representation of a humanoid figure with a large head and smallish body, a number in the billions representing a population number, a different solar system diagram with different planets highlighted indicating a population on the third fourth and fifth planets of a distance star, and lastly, a representation of a more complex transmitter diagram.
A few days later, another crop circle appeared right next to the original Circle. This one depicted a large, distinct alien face (with similarities to what is commonly known as a Grey).
The Chilbolton crop circles generated immense speculation and debate, primarily because of many of the unique features, including the complexity, the amount of precision, and the timing of their appearance (shortly after the Arecibo message’s 27th anniversary, and next to a major observatory). Many and perhaps most who studied these two formations came to believe that they were too sophisticated and too perfectly aligned to the Arecibo message to be human made hoaxes. Crop circle researchers and enthusiasts point to the intricate details and lack of visible human footprints, arguing that it would be very difficult if not impossible for humans to create such formations in secrecy and at night.