The UA threads are very busy, and people tend to get a bit excited and post as soon as they think of something without reviewing the entire thread to see if anyone else has said the same.
For instance just a few days ago I posted that I've solved the puzzle, visited the alien homeworld and now have a pet Thargoid called Ronald, and not one person has quoted it. Except Ronald, of course.
On the 000/111 thing - one possible explanation is that the message is a sequence of base-4 values. i.e :
00 - 0, or perhaps "A"
01 - 1, B
10 - 2, C
11 - 3, D
I don't know what kind of data would need - or only need - a base-4 character set.
The UA threads are very busy, and people tend to get a bit excited and post as soon as they think of something without reviewing the entire thread to see if anyone else has said the same.
For instance just a few days ago I posted that I've solved the puzzle, visited the alien homeworld and now have a pet Thargoid called Ronald, and not one person has quoted it. Except Ronald, of course.
On the 000/111 thing - one possible explanation is that the message is a sequence of base-4 values. i.e :
00 - 0, or perhaps "A"
01 - 1, B
10 - 2, C
11 - 3, D
I don't know what kind of data would need - or only need - a base-4 character set.
I've just waited three hours for my audio boffins (ahem, me) to complete their work on one of RatKing15's vids to try and 'decode' the purrs.
I'll post the full details here shortly, once I've got mp3s uploaded of all the different sound files the analysis produced.
One thing - only really found 5 purrs between honks, except in one case, where there were 6. Each honk is accompanied by its own low purrs, so it was discounted.
The report is very 'dry' - so you'll have to allow some stylistic license
Also, it doesn't really contain anything that hasn't already been suggested/observed by anyone else. Can't help thinking that that's three hours I should've spent carrying on my exploration jaunts...
So here it is - with links to the audio and everything - yes it's a bit of a vanity project, but I tried to come at this completely cold - so I'll repeating much of what has been said by all of you. As I say, there's nothing new here - but there's a small chance there might be something in here that triggers somebody's brain.
I can assure all of you, I went in with my eyes completely open, and absolutely ready to find something. For the 5 minutes it'll appear on the last page of this thread, it provide some entertainment at least!
Assumption: Purrs contain some hidden message or data, or otherwise betray some behaviour on the part of the UA.
Analysis: Grab a series of purr sequences from a UA recording, measure length of each, analyse individual purr tone (since there is a definite tone variance), record results and report any initial observations/thoughs. Also add any hypotheses that occur as analyses are conducted and provide examples for tests for those hypotheses where possible.
Timing is from start of first purr to just before next honk, in M:ss.mmm. Purr during honk is omitted as being part of the honk only - it's always low and long and never changes between each section, so can be inferred by the reader.
Pitch analysis was conducted at 200% speed up to simplify - but I feel it's still reasonably obvious when playing back at normal speed. Certainly, it's as clear as the morse in the audio after the 'honk'.
Pitches are described as h/l where h is the highest of the two tones (Observation: It's always two tones) in that purr sequence - i.e. relative pitch within that purr sequence, not absolute pitch - as that was discovered to increase gradually between sequences.
(Late) Observation: There are occasionally some hidden purrs within the honk - as has been noted by previous posters - however I could only discern these hidden purrs when the audio was sped up to 200%. Therefore - given the original instruction just to 'listen to them', not'record and increase tempo of sound, then listen to them', this analysis only looks at isolated purrs that are clearly discernible at 100% speed.
High/Low tone analysis of each purr sequence:
#1: h l h l l (18.624s)
#2: h h l l h, (18.551s, starts 0:51.314)
#3: h l l h h l, (20.031s, starts 1:41.560. Last purr almost joins into honk.)
#4: l h l l h, (18.527s, starts 2:34.499)
#5: l l h h l, (17.315s, starts 3:26.879)
Observation: gap length between successive purrs has a range of around 3.5-4.1s, which, when playing back at normal speed, is not immediately apparent as variable. At 100% the purrs sound like they're evenly spaced apart. I only identified this gap variance by examining the spectrograph of the sound.
Hypothesis: The difference in gap length between purrs is not significant - the range is a product of procedural generation to make the sound more natural. Test: Unknown - although if it's client dependant, then further analysis of multiple client recordings of the same, and other, UA(s) would be a good start.
Hypothesis: The periodicity of the purrs might be significant. That is, the fact that there is a rhythm to the purrs signifies something. What, though? Test: See if periodicity is consistent in all recordings, regardless of variance in pitch sequence. If they are generally the same, then any recordings where they're different could be significant.
Observation: there's a clear clustering around 18.5s for timing, with 3 out of 5 sequences showing this. #3 and #5 are anomalous, but is that significant? #3 also has 6 purrs - while all the others have 5. If we chop off the last purr in #3, we get a length of around 18.5s again - meaning that the length of a sequence is probably a function of the length of the purrs plus the length of the gaps between purrs only.
Hypothesis: #3 Having 6 purrs is either important, or anomalous and we should ignore it - the pattern between the last purr and the next honk is different in #3, too - so it raises questions. Test: We need to know what the 'normal' number of purrs is, or even whether such a thing exists. Therefore we need more analyses of more UA recordings, from different clients in different locations. This will not yield an answer - but will then warrant further investigation. Already I'm aware of others who've examined recordings with a lower number of purrs.
Observation: Absolute pitch between each purr sequence changes. The overall pitch in each sequence is rising the longer the UA is out in the open.
Hypothesis: Significance of this is low - would make sense to alter the pitch as a function of 'health' of the UA to keep the community guessing. Test 1: Would expect overall pitch to rise for every UA recording in this case, since UA always degrades, so perform pitch analysis on all available UA recordings of sufficient quality and length. Test 2: Record a UA for 5 purr sequences, and then scoop it, then eject it and record it again for 5 purr sequences. Would expect the pitch to rise in both cases, possibly starting at the same starting pitch (although the starting pitch might also be procedurally generated).
Hypothesis: High/low tones represents an information encoding, based on a two-state system. Test: Binary - Choose a method of mapping h/l to 1/0. Translate the h/l tones to the target format - and see if it translates to anything intelligible. Concerns: There is no way to know what kind of binary information you expect, even if deriving a binary string '10110', for example, is easy. There are multiple binary encoding schemes for all types of numeric/character data, and you can't know for sure that you're reading it right, without context which, in this case, there is none. The now established morse signal was self-describing once morse was chosen as the candidate format - it has short and long pulses - the community did not need to invent its own mapping scheme. Test 2: Morse - Choose a method of mapping h/l to dit/dah. Translate the h/l tones to the target format - and see if it translates to anything intelligible. Concerns: No standard digits or letters require a 5-pip morse sequence, which means that the experimenter will necessarily need to 'invent' spaces in that 5-pip sequence to derive text that she understands. That is not experimentation, it's inventing results to suit prejudice. Test: There's some other, unambiguous, form of communication based on h/l tones that this is based on: find examples and test them with the h/l information presented here.
Conclusion:
The purrs of the UA are a reasonably regular (within certain tolerances) 'pulse', somewhat like a heartbeat, almost as if they represent background noise of the UA itself following its morse broadcast. They are generally of the same length, with the same gap in between, and also generally are broadcast in groups of the same length - with 1 out of 5 of the groups in this test containing one more. Much more analysis of many more recordings will be required to ascertain whether this is the norm, and certainly before any further hypotheses can be formed or tested.
There appears to be no pattern to the low/high 'tones' represented by the purrs, but within each sequence of 5/6 purrs, in this recording at least, the high tones are always the same, and the low tones are always the same. Between sequences, however, the high tones differ from each other, as do the low tones.
As has been noted by the community on more than one occasion, however, this recording exhibits no sequences of 'lll' or 'hhh' - which is, perhaps, strange, given the relatively high chance of such a pattern occurring in truly random two-state patterns. This could be a factor of the underlying programming preventing 3 or more tones the same whilst still being random, or could betray an underlying order to the tones.
No real information has been obtained from the purrs themselves from this analysis, only more questions. Given the uncertainty surrounding any encoding 'scheme' used for the purrs, however, and the uncertainty surrounding a mapping between binary or morse, I feel reasonably certain that any information contained within the purrs is neither binary nor morse. Especially since, as mentioned above, the existing morse signal actually fits 'accepted' morse, by varying the lengths of the 'chitters', which is how 'standard human' morse is broadcast - it's only the tones themselves that don't fit 'standard' morse.
Any further attempt to read the purrs as morse should first start with a good answer to the question "Why would an agent already communicating in recognisable morse change to an obfuscated form of morse part-way through transmitting?"
I feel certain, however, that if there is information present in the purrs, then each individual recording of a UA should contain that information, or parts of that information - therefore it should be possible to decode it from just one recording.
If this analysis is accepted, then any further analyses on other UA recordings to gather the high/low tone 'map' should use the same parameters for identifying the 'purrs' - i.e. only including those that occur after the morse finishes and when the next honk starts since, in this recording at least, any other hidden purrs were not apparent until the audio was sped up.
As I write that final sentence I realise that this analysis might not have been possible without using the audio tool Audacity to simplify the process of identifying high/low pitches. This is completely contrary to audio presented to us as citizens of Elite Dangerous, and therefore any information or hypotheses constructed based around such analysis could be argued to be flawed at best.
QorbeQ, sorry for bothering you but, haven't you anything to say about that mysterious background sound, all over the UA sound, that seems morse code or something similar, coming out from the bottom of a well?
It's that constant background sound that you here ALWAYS and that, if listened carefully, seems to have a structure, repeating itself in a loop of around 5 seconds, like an SOS does.
Well there are references in the galnet newsfeed to speculation on outbreaks possibly being caused by the UA`s. In the galnet newsfeed devoted to the mysterious transmission about Arcannon, the mystery broadcaster warned against “history repeating itself”. Any thoughts in regards to how this might apply to past events in Elite lore? How about the mycoid thing with the thargoids. Could the UA be related in some way? Im afraid that outside galnet newsfeeds, I know next to nothing about the lore.
Yes, it could be related. But what kind of history could they talk about? Humanity being too curious and getting a bloody nose as result? Attacking the thargoids without provocation, resulting in an all-out war? There are so many examples.
"While he denied that the team were calling the new disease the Cerberus Plague, one technician did confirm that the name was being used unofficially and came from an unusual three-pronged structure at the ‘head’ of the phage-like organism."
Did not read all(still on it). Just checked the audio. In this example i clearly hear 7 purrs. One joins the honk and one is in the honk(almost at the end).
Did not read all(still on it). Just checked the audio. In this example i clearly hear 7 purrs. One joins the honk and one is in the honk(almost at the end).
I didn't consider purrs that weren't on their own - so any that are hidden in a 'honk' aren't included. I couldn't easily identify them without speeding up the sound - which is not something I think is reasonable to expect is to have to do.
I also don't think that if you do include them that it really changes my 'findings' (or lack thereof) at all...
Thanks for reading, though - to be honest, I can't help thinking it's just a massive wall of blarney!
"While he denied that the team were calling the new disease the Cerberus Plague, one technician did confirm that the name was being used unofficially and came from an unusual three-pronged structure at the ‘head’ of the phage-like organism."
yes, we've already talked about it some hours ago:
Cerberus is the three headed dog guarding the door to hell (Italian here, Dante's expert )
In poetry it's generally used as a metaphor to identify "something" with three equal "things" coming from it: so not necessarily heads.
In a comparison with the UA, they could be the three racks with the pods. Most of all a "phage" in some way resembles the UA "shape", the head in particular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
But then... who knows...
What scares me is the "Cerberus/Hell" thing...
EDIT: It's also one of Pluto's satellites: a well chosen name in my humble opinion, as it is guarding the door to the Unknown...
QorbeQ, sorry for bothering you but, haven't you anything to say about that mysterious background sound, all over the UA sound, that seems morse code or something similar, coming out from the bottom of a well?
It's that constant background sound that you here ALWAYS and that, if listened carefully, seems to have a structure, repeating itself in a loop of around 5 seconds, like an SOS does.
I think this is a very interesting angle to follow up on.
If there is to be a "message" embedded in the audio somewhere then, from everything else we've discovered, this would be the place for it.
Sadly I am not the person to do so.
Despite spending several hours trying to decipher the morse in the chittering, it was beyond my abilities (even with all the signposting offered in this thread).
It would be great if some of the Morse code listeners could verify whether there is anything here or not.
I didn't consider purrs that weren't on their own - so any that are hidden in a 'honk' aren't included. I couldn't easily identify them without speeding up the sound - which is not something I think is reasonable to expect is to have to do.
I also don't think that if you do include them that it really changes my 'findings' (or lack thereof) at all...
Ok, then forget it. I think i'm just a little bit tired of all this discussion that there are only 5 purrs or something. I think i had too many discussions with other people taking posts like yours(with less purrs) as proof that there are not always 6-7 per sequence. But you are right, if there are 5 or 10 purrs does not really change the result.
It's getting to the point where im contemplating turning up (with my tinfoil hat in full glory) on their doorstep, protesting for info on the Unknown Artifact.
"While he denied that the team were calling the new disease the Cerberus Plague, one technician did confirm that the name was being used unofficially and came from an unusual three-pronged structure at the ‘head’ of the phage-like organism."
Ok, then forget it. I think i'm just a little bit tired of all this discussion that there are only 5 purrs or something. I think i had to many discussions with other people taking posts like yours(with less purrs) as proof that there are not always 6-7 per sequence. But you are right, if there are 5 or 10 purrs does not really change the result.
Oh don't worry - I'd never take a disagreement over anything as (let's face it) trivial as this as personal
When it comes to this mystery, we're all equal - so just because I stick up a massive load of text representing time where I really should have been doing something far more constructive (I hope my wife never finds out!), doesn't make me any more or less right than anyone else!
yes, we've already talked about it some hours ago:
Cerberus is the three headed dog guarding the door to hell (Italian here, Dante's expert )
In poetry it's generally used as a metaphor to identify "something" with three equal "things" coming from it: so not necessarily heads.
In a comparison with the UA, they could be the three racks with the pods. Most of all a "phage" in some way resembles the UA "shape", the head in particular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
But then... who knows...
What scares me is the "Cerberus/Hell" thing...
EDIT: It's also one of Pluto's satellites. a well chosen name Indeed as it is guarding the door to the Unknown...
Cerberus was the 3 headed hound that guarded the entrance to hell, keeping living souls out and KEEPING DAMNED SOULS IN.
Three pronged to me means Poseidon's Trident, but I also accept that it simply means 3 of something.
Perhaps we need 3UAs in combination? Is there anything on the "head" that seems part of a trinity?
I know there's what looks like a compressed face with flattened "nostrils", but anything else?
Cerberus was the 3 headed hound that guarded the entrance to hell, keeping living souls out and KEEPING DAMNED SOULS IN.
Three pronged to me means Poseidon's Trident, but I also accept that it simply means 3 of something.
Perhaps we need 3UAs in combination? Is there anything on the "head" that seems part of a trinity?
I know there's what looks like a compressed face with flattened "nostrils", but anything else?
Cerberus was the 3 headed hound that guarded the entrance to hell, keeping living souls out and KEEPING DAMNED SOULS IN.
Three pronged to me means Poseidon's Trident, but I also accept that it simply means 3 of something.
Perhaps we need 3UAs in combination? Is there anything on the "head" that seems part of a trinity?
I know there's what looks like a compressed face with flattened "nostrils", but anything else?
"While he denied that the team were calling the new disease the Cerberus Plague, one technician did confirm that the name was being used unofficially and came from an unusual three-pronged structure at the ‘head’ of the phage-like organism."
"Three-pronged"... i think my english is not good enough to imagine what this could also mean.
It's getting to the point where im contemplating turning up (with my tinfoil hat in full glory) on their doorstep, protesting for info on the Unknown Artifact.
I suggested we had reached an impasse a few pages back and "no more clues!" was the cry. I have been reading everything but staying quiet.......the answer is probably much simpler than any code......but again I could be totally wrong.
