Maybe they're learning. Or if not this time, if we keep overanalysying everything, they'll throw us a bone sooner or later.
You can keep your trading and bounty hunting. The unknown is what sci-fi should be about.
UNKNOWN ARTEFACT: Sound Engineers, apply here!
- Thread starter sohara
- Start date
Maybe they're learning. Or if not this time, if we keep overanalysying everything, they'll throw us a bone sooner or later.
You can keep your trading and bounty hunting. The unknown is what sci-fi should be about.
Very nicely done! This kind of alignment is what we should do with all the samples. OR - I saw some nice spectrographs that made the patterns very visible, that could be another approach.
In looking at this, I see no repeat. I don't think that we have the whole message NOR do we know if it is in contiguous order. We need more recordings until we can identify a repeated section and hopefully have enough coverage to stitch together the whole series. A little like shotgun sequencing.
Just FYI, the closest system to those coordinates is V1285 Aquilae... I may head that way tonight, but it may end up being in the morning - only 175LY out. (1AM, need some rest)
Its actual coordinates are 28.4, 24.9, 1.61... so it is rather close.
I don't actually have a UA, so... it'd mostly just be to see if anything stands out, but I'm exploring anyway, so... might as well!
And if that doesn't work try syncing it to The Wizard of Oz.
So far no-one seems to have successfully decoded the sounds, and any attempts to do so seem to have produced random numbers
or possible coordinates which lead nowhere.
This is leading me to think the following explanation might make more sense...
Everyone seems to have been interpreting the 'honk' sound as some kind of sync bit or word separator, but if so, why does it obscure the last two bits,
and why can you occasionally hear, or see in the spectrogram, fragments of bits in the silence after the 'honk'.
If it were a sync bit, or even a reply tone, then wouldn't it be in a different frequency range so it could be separated out rather than trampling over the signal?
Now it could be Frontier have done this just to make it harder to hear, but things seem pretty complicated already.
I'm beginning to think the 'honk' might be some kind of 'error' signal, based on the way that it steps on the signal frequencies.
Perhaps if we take the UA to the right place, or do the right thing, the 'error' will disappear and the remaining binary signal will be the correct one.
However that just takes us back to the problem of finding the right place/thing, which would imply that the first clue lies elsewhere.
Does that sound plausible to anyone else?
or possible coordinates which lead nowhere.
This is leading me to think the following explanation might make more sense...
Everyone seems to have been interpreting the 'honk' sound as some kind of sync bit or word separator, but if so, why does it obscure the last two bits,
and why can you occasionally hear, or see in the spectrogram, fragments of bits in the silence after the 'honk'.
If it were a sync bit, or even a reply tone, then wouldn't it be in a different frequency range so it could be separated out rather than trampling over the signal?
Now it could be Frontier have done this just to make it harder to hear, but things seem pretty complicated already.
I'm beginning to think the 'honk' might be some kind of 'error' signal, based on the way that it steps on the signal frequencies.
Perhaps if we take the UA to the right place, or do the right thing, the 'error' will disappear and the remaining binary signal will be the correct one.
However that just takes us back to the problem of finding the right place/thing, which would imply that the first clue lies elsewhere.
Does that sound plausible to anyone else?
I got it as D G# D A
and F C# D
I got this by playing the notes on virtualpiano (http://virtualpiano.net) along with the recordings - this seemed the closest fit (to my ears).
Going on musical intervals the pattern seemed as follows
root +b5th root +5th or -4th (D G# D A)
root +b5th +5th (F C# D)
If we make the assumption that the key is D for both sequences
root +b5th root (+5th or -4th) +minor3rd +maj7th root(one octave above)
If we go "chromatic" and say 1 is the root and 13 is one octave above and number each semi-tone between...
1 7 1 (-6 or 8) 4 12 13(or 1)
Other possible things to look for could be the actual frequencies of the notes and the differences or ratio of differences in frequencies between notes - but I think I have already gone too far in over analyzing.
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This may be really stupid but I recently watched the movie 'Mission to Mars' - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523 - And
- Now, whether or not what they did is possible or just movie magic doesnt matter.
The point I am trying to make is: Could this be similarly setup? Some are saying that the end of the sequence is sort of cut off or tromped on by another sound. Could the audio be a representation of a 3d object? I know people have done the spectrograph analysis, but to me that is more 2D than anything.
I think I agree that this could either be just the sound of an alien inside the artifact and we are listening to a heartbeat etc. Or it could be that something needs to be "added" or modified to produce a valid signal that can be decoded.
Here is my question for anyone that has this cargo: Has anyone tried any of this with 2 of these? Does anyone have 2 samples to drop in the same system, same instance, same everything and see if they both produce the exact same sounds? Like jettison both samples and select each to see if anything changes...I think a wing with another CMDR who has a sample should work to test this out as well
Again, this is by no means my area of "expertise" - so If Im completely off then dont mind me
At the end, they have to decode an audio signal sending out tones groups of 3s - it turns out the audio signal represented a DNA strand that had missing values - They had to insert the ending of the audo signal to actually complete the audio representation of the DNA Strand
The point I am trying to make is: Could this be similarly setup? Some are saying that the end of the sequence is sort of cut off or tromped on by another sound. Could the audio be a representation of a 3d object? I know people have done the spectrograph analysis, but to me that is more 2D than anything.
I think I agree that this could either be just the sound of an alien inside the artifact and we are listening to a heartbeat etc. Or it could be that something needs to be "added" or modified to produce a valid signal that can be decoded.
Here is my question for anyone that has this cargo: Has anyone tried any of this with 2 of these? Does anyone have 2 samples to drop in the same system, same instance, same everything and see if they both produce the exact same sounds? Like jettison both samples and select each to see if anything changes...I think a wing with another CMDR who has a sample should work to test this out as well
Again, this is by no means my area of "expertise" - so If Im completely off then dont mind me
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I have kept a keen eye on this thread and the others spawned by it so i have my own piece to say
Through my travels i have noticed that most systems have their own seemingly unique sound signature depending on the type and class of star, a lot of the audio is pre-generated stuff like your thrusters re-aligning your ship or your sensors on their regular sweeps. Both of which can be eliminated by turning the modules off.
has anyone tried isolating and cleaning up the signals from the UA's and such?
As in removing the local systems background audio and the unique sounds for each ship?
All that interfearence would most likely be why the audiophile's have not gotten their binary translations/calculations right.
Through my travels i have noticed that most systems have their own seemingly unique sound signature depending on the type and class of star, a lot of the audio is pre-generated stuff like your thrusters re-aligning your ship or your sensors on their regular sweeps. Both of which can be eliminated by turning the modules off.
has anyone tried isolating and cleaning up the signals from the UA's and such?
As in removing the local systems background audio and the unique sounds for each ship?
All that interfearence would most likely be why the audiophile's have not gotten their binary translations/calculations right.
The notes D and G sharp are an augmented fourth or flattened fifth apart. This interval (difference between the two notes) is also known as a tritone. The other name for this is the devils interval.
Another point is a tritone splits an octave exactly in half.
This sound is heard at the start of 'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix. Not the exact notes but the same interval.
I have no idea what this all means but I hope that helps.
Hi Guys,
I've been looking into a sounds a lot - hadn't spotted this thread so have been posting in another:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142794&page=11&p=2194131#post2194131
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142794&page=14&p=2195833#post2195833
Some of the things I think I've discovered are:
Listening at 3x speed makes it a lot easier to hear some of the details
There are 2 main tones in the sequences, but many have up to 4 tones in the first few notes. This could be a marker for the start of a message sequence, or be something like a header providing meta-information about the message to follow.
It seems there is a pattern that begins with 2 honks, is followed by 6 honks and then settles into a regular 7 honk cycle. The 2 and 6 honk segments have the bigger alphabet of up to 4 tones, but the 7 honk sequence is where it becomes limited to 2 tones. However it is difficult to be sure the start and end of the sequences have been captured entirely.
The pitch of the two main notes slowly increases throughout the 7 honk cycles - directly compare some tones from the start and end of the sequence and there is a big difference in pitch. I am guessing that the pitches of the notes could indicate the position in the sequence.
The 'whale noise' segments alternate between two seemingly identical samples, both of these are directly followed by a single sequence of click and whirs. Every instance of the clicks and whirs is identical.
The spacing of the 'whale noise' segments is regular, which could indicate they are a timing mechanism. There is an exception though - the distance between the very first and second whale noise segments does vary.
The timing between the honks is not always regular. This could be why there is a need for the whale noise 'clock' to give context to the timings.
Sometimes honks are very quiet and/or cut short and sometimes they are entirely absent, leaving an unusual gap when compared to other recordings.
All interesting stuff - not sure what to make of it all yet, but it is an intriguing puzzle!
I've been looking into a sounds a lot - hadn't spotted this thread so have been posting in another:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142794&page=11&p=2194131#post2194131
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142794&page=14&p=2195833#post2195833
Some of the things I think I've discovered are:
Listening at 3x speed makes it a lot easier to hear some of the details
There are 2 main tones in the sequences, but many have up to 4 tones in the first few notes. This could be a marker for the start of a message sequence, or be something like a header providing meta-information about the message to follow.
It seems there is a pattern that begins with 2 honks, is followed by 6 honks and then settles into a regular 7 honk cycle. The 2 and 6 honk segments have the bigger alphabet of up to 4 tones, but the 7 honk sequence is where it becomes limited to 2 tones. However it is difficult to be sure the start and end of the sequences have been captured entirely.
The pitch of the two main notes slowly increases throughout the 7 honk cycles - directly compare some tones from the start and end of the sequence and there is a big difference in pitch. I am guessing that the pitches of the notes could indicate the position in the sequence.
The 'whale noise' segments alternate between two seemingly identical samples, both of these are directly followed by a single sequence of click and whirs. Every instance of the clicks and whirs is identical.
The spacing of the 'whale noise' segments is regular, which could indicate they are a timing mechanism. There is an exception though - the distance between the very first and second whale noise segments does vary.
The timing between the honks is not always regular. This could be why there is a need for the whale noise 'clock' to give context to the timings.
Sometimes honks are very quiet and/or cut short and sometimes they are entirely absent, leaving an unusual gap when compared to other recordings.
All interesting stuff - not sure what to make of it all yet, but it is an intriguing puzzle!
The binary route.....is it possible in ED to plot a course to a particular set of coordinates in the galaxy?
+rep
This is an excellent overview, and matches my own findings perfectly. In particular, I think the additional tones in the 'header' could do with more investigation - they are an oddity. Typically, tones outside of the regular 'binary' nature indicate punctuation, or SOM/EOM markers - but I still haven't got anywhere with that.
As each block only contains a maximum of 2 consecutively repeated tones, I suspect that we are dealing with something other than a simple binary message. It could indicate the presence of a cipher; with predominately 7-bit binary blocks, I'd expect at least one instance where value concurrency exceeds 2.
- - - Updated - - -
Indeed it is!
Good stuff - I'll have a listen. I'll repeat my encouragement to make 10 recordings in one spot. The five recordings that we have from the initial location never repeat the series. This means that we may not be in possession of all the patterns, we may be missing chunks in between each group and/or it may actually be random (can't rule that out until we see it repeat)
What happens if we bring two or UAs together (within say 100 metres)?
Maybe they only make sense if they act as a together.
Sadly I don't have any to try this with.
Maybe they only make sense if they act as a together.
Sadly I don't have any to try this with.
This thread isn't for you then, Chief. Move along!
I'd like to see what the results of this are - not sure anyone has tested this yet.
Also, try flashing your lights at it while you are there
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Yes, easily. Use the galaxy map to get to those coordinates. If there is a system there, click on it to get a route there (assuming you are within 1000LY. If not, get nearer - use the coordinates to find interim system(s) ).