Chapter 616 - 603: The Risk of War_2

However, psychic powers research was slightly different. It originated from America’s skepticism towards the extremely high loyalty of those Union spies, who would even pay out of their own pockets if necessary, suspecting they were controlled by some powerful brainwashing technique. That was why they started enthusiastically researching mind control and eventually, comprehensive psychic powers research.

The foundations of alien research were much weaker, so even when the predecessor of Group A, the "Association for the Study of Extraterrestrial Civilizations," was established, it didn’t hold much influence, and its significance continued to decline over time, now essentially just a name.

Employees with spare time would take turns working part-time for Group A, compiling various scraps of alien evidence. The greatest significance was perhaps finding some amusement or giving nascent social media influencers content for their fabricated videos.

When this anomalous signal arrived at Group A, they processed it according to standard procedures – breakdown, spectrum analysis, and so forth – methods long established by cryptographers and astrophysicists primarily to determine the "information content" within the signal.

Although those predecessors did not know what coding aliens might use, one thing was absolutely clear: signals are used to carry information, they must have a pattern, which is to say, repetition.

Based on this basic principle, determining whether it is an intelligent signal became fairly accurate, and under certain conditions, signals could even be categorized into levels A through E. Signals below level C were essentially meaningless, whereas level A could definitively contain content.

The main doubt regarding this unknown signal lay in its strength; it wasn’t considered particularly special on its own, and engineer James, who was on duty at the time, routinely proceeded with the analysis whenever he had a moment.

Of course, the outcome was fruitless. After several attempts, no matter how the signal was broken down, there was no discernible pattern, and it could be conclusively dismissed.

At that moment, engineer Itariano, a colleague of his, happened to pass by, sat down out of interest to give it a try, and unsurprisingly, got the same result.

But Itariano was not discouraged, having a strong intuition that there had to be something there.

At the time, James mocked him for his delusions, as all UFO enthusiasts around the world shared this kind of intuition, unwavering in their belief.

Eventually, Itariano took the recorded signal spectrum home for his own analysis, and in the blink of an eye, almost half a month passed.

James had nearly forgotten the incident when Itariano suddenly and excitedly approached him, claiming a major discovery.

A disheveled Itariano spoke of his experience: For the first week, he had no leads and even doubted his own delusions. But one afternoon, while doing his day job in the communications department, and habitually reading the latest communication patents, he saw a ternary modulator patent applied for by XAP.

As is well known, XAP has a murky relationship with Yellow River Semiconductors. As advocates of ternary chip technology, they had been trying to perfect this ecosystem to avoid the troublesome translation issues of the current stage.

In their description, ternary signal modulation could compress information size and enhance anti-interference capabilities, which would be beneficial for interstellar communication.

It seemed Itariano had grabbed onto something, and with his last bit of enthusiasm, he began trying out combinations.

This time, after trying over a hundred combinations, he finally found a clue.

Taking another full day, he produced an organized radio spectrum chart.

The dense and orderly fluctuations not only indicated that information was being carried, but the quantity of the information was also substantial.

His analysis was brought back to Boris, who immediately sought verification from colleagues in related fields. The results were correct.

Going a step further, they deciphered the signal using both ternary and octal bases and obtained highly suspected valid information content. Although there was no corresponding code to decrypt it, it was now 100% confirmed that the signal was emitted by an intelligent entity.

Eliminating the possibility that other satellites had sent the signal was straightforward. Apart from America’s several probes, only the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, India’s MOM, and the Union’s "Hope" were in Mars orbit.

These three could be completely ruled out, so the conclusion was that there was an unknown source within tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of kilometers of Mars, emitting signals in an unknown direction.

Of course, they had not forgotten about "Departing Fire," launched by XAP; however, that probe would need at least another half a year to arrive, probably still traveling through the vast expanse of space, so it could also be ruled out.

After hearing all this, John was greatly shocked, but so many experts had studied it together, it was almost impossible to be mistaken.

"Can’t we determine where the signal was sent to?"

Robert shook his head, looking rather helpless as he said:

"The signal is too short, we can only speculate based on the transmission strength that the receiver’s range should be within the Solar System, but that does not necessarily mean the aliens are in the Solar System, nor is it accurate. We cannot use human thinking to speculate how they would operate."

"However, our basis for ruling out it was transmitted by humans is the encryption method. Itariano’s eventual successful decryption method was quite peculiar, and even the most seasoned cryptographers couldn’t find its origin.

Moreover, it’s clear they wanted to disguise the signal as natural to avoid detection. The Solar System is too vast, and if it weren’t for an unreplicable coincidence that the MRO stumbled upon, we would never have detected it anywhere else."

Claire followed up with an explanation: although the attenuation of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum is much less than on Earth—for example, the 20-watt antenna of the Traveler II can cross over 20 billion kilometers—that does not mean the signal is easy to find.

When 20 watts of power arrive at Earth, it attenuates to one hundred-sextillionth of the original. Not only does the transmission antenna need to aim at Earth with an ultra-high precision gyroscope, but it also requires a high-gain antenna with a diameter of over 70 meters on the ground and an amplification of hundreds of millions by a global receiving array. A slight miss and the signal would be lost.

What if the alien receiver could amplify a hundred billion, or a hundred quintillion times? Maybe the signal would be relayed elsewhere, maybe...

With only the current information, any further deductions are inaccurate. The only certainty is that it doesn’t belong to any known human probes, but that’s enough.

John fell silent again, but this time his brain was racing, truly beginning to think rationally about this utterly absurd situation.

After what felt like a long time, he suddenly looked up as if struck by a thought and said:

"The Chinese have announced four simultaneous Mars landing missions. Do they know something?"

The sudden shift in topic caught Robert off guard, while Claire, who had apparently already considered this possibility, didn’t hesitate to reply:

"It’s possible. If we argue the Moon has attractive minerals or strategic value to them, then Mars is too far to have any real value significance for them. Our competition has not reached the point where we urgently need to land on Mars to prove ourselves."

Although China’s plan to carry out four missions at once is indeed surprising, given their aggressive strategies, Claire didn’t think it was indicative of any conspiracy.

John naturally sensed the non-committal tone behind the agreement and, with fingers crossed, began to ponder again before slowly presenting his response strategy:

"First, we need to collect as much information as possible, mobilize all forces for surveillance, and we must not exclude the possibility of human... human involvement. This matter deserves our utmost vigilance for investigation.

I’ll have the Pentagon set up a secret research group with you and treat this as the highest secrecy of the United States and conduct secret activities. We will grant the highest authority until this is clearly investigated.

Second, we will convene experts to analyze under the premise of aliens, to determine their goals, whether... they are friendly, and to try to decrypt the signal.

Third... this can be semi-public, to research how to develop interstellar defense. I believe we aren’t defenseless turkeys.

Lastly, this matter must be kept secret at all costs. The investigative and intelligence bureaus will conduct cross-investigations and closely monitor all those in the know.

I will also convene others; the Presidential Palace needs a special temporary agency to handle this."

Claire agreed with these decisions, seeing them as prudent choices under the current circumstances.

"We’ll start following up immediately, but... I suppose you haven’t forgotten Christina. That incident remains unsolved to this date, perhaps we should also recall her in secrecy.

If there really is a connection..."

Claire took a deep breath, trembling as he voiced the answer he least wanted to admit:

"If neither of the two events is coincidental, then there’s a 99% chance we’ll be starting an interstellar war."