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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Arecibo Observatory (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This site, and the enormous telescope that sits on it, is loved and lost to both scientists and everyday Puerto Ricans. READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/arecibo-observatory

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

In 1974, a group of scientists and government officials sat in silence in the jungles of Puerto Rico.

0:11.0

They were staring up at the afternoon sky. And then a

0:19.0

strange noise. A little bit like TV static, but also a little bit eerie, ethereal, just two warbling notes over and over and over.

0:39.2

For almost three minutes the noise continued blasting through the speakers.

0:47.0

Some people were moved to tears.

0:50.0

Others stood up and began to gravitate towards this unfathomably big structure.

0:58.1

Three towers with blinking red lights, a 900 ton platform suspended high in the air between them.

1:06.0

And in the center, nestled into the ground, a curving dish as wide as three football fields.

1:14.0

It was a massive telescope.

1:16.0

Sending out radio signals into space,

1:19.0

the very first time humans had intentionally

1:22.0

sent a message out to whoever or whatever might be out there.

1:27.0

A message saying, we are here. I'm Doolan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscura.

1:39.0

A celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

1:47.0

Today, we visit Puerto Rico's Ereseboe Observatory,

1:50.0

and its enormous telescope,

1:52.0

a site loved and lost to both scientists and everyday Puerto Ricans.

1:57.0

That's after this. And the Up until 2016, Airsebo was the world's largest radio telescope.

2:23.0

It could detect radio waves from space and use them to create maps of the Cosmos.

2:28.0

And it could also send those waves out into space.

2:39.0

What they were sending into the sky that day in 1974 was called the Arasebo message.

2:41.0

It was a series of radio pulses beamed into space and the hope was

...

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