UAs, Barnacles & More Thread 6 - The Canonn

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LordZoltan

LordZoltan
As I say, I remain deeply sceptical because it's not been repeated nor is there apparently a logical way to identify dit-dah groups; but at the same time I'm loathed to believe Bitstorm or anyone else here would make this up, unless that person no longer cared about this mystery any more.

But here's my logical 'flow' on this:

A) if it's Morse, I can't see why there'd be no clear gaps. Removing inter-letter gaps makes almost all Morse of any significant length completely unintelligible without a supercomputer.

B) so there *must* be a way to identity letter groups, if that's what they are. The most obvious way would be with the crunches. But if you do that, you get sequences that are too long to be letters - so not letters? Not Morse? Certain binary encoded formats wouldn't suffer from this I guess.

C) But above all else - the only way to read the data is to use a program to speed up the audio. At normal speeds the sounds are indistinguishable. That breaks the rule that we can do it in-game with only paper and pen.

I think there are mysteries yet to be solved that we can solve now.

But until someone produces a reliable, reasoned way to extract meaningful information out of this sound at *normal* speed, I think this audio is a giant red herring and a pretty good April fool.

I edited this section out of this, forgetting that people might have responded in the time it took to do the edit:

The 'A / W A R N I N G / A R E A / E N T E' signal came from your recording @Bitstorm, yes?

Silly question: was your ship landed nearby? And, if so, what was it?
Click to expand...

Despite my scepticism and assertions above - I recognise people might feel the need to keep 'probing' in order to identify the exact conditions under which we might be able to reproduce this text if it's possible. I'm just saying that speeding up audio 20x to get a result is not something I think FD would have us do. It doesn't ring true to me at all.
 
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bitstorm

bitstorm
LordZoltan said:
The 'A / W A R N I N G / A R E A / E N T E' signal came from your recording @Bitstorm, yes?

Silly question: was your ship landed nearby? And, if so, what was it?
Click to expand...

Yes it was my recording.

It was from back in Jan, this was a long time ago!

I have no idea if the ship was landed.... I would NOT have dismissed my ship, absolutely no need. But on the other hand I did change modes quite often to hop between making "clean" recordings and chatting with folk at the site, and obviously you lose the ship on mode switch.

Ship would have been either Asp or Anaconda.

Is an interesting line of thought though...

I mean we have prior form of ship imagery. If the morse "message" is just the result of randomness as weve been discussing then the underlying morse producing that may still indeed be tied to ship type so we should try to remain consistent with testing when trying to reproduce a pattern?

Also on the flipside a "no ship" scenario is not possible with the UA, but it is with barnacles on a planet's surface, the message could occur with no ship? So perhaps the no ship scenario should be tested?

Then again with a ship present, the player isn't "in" the ship when recording are they, so when multiple ships are at site.... hmmmm.


This is also a really silly question but I'm now a bit curious. I'm sure this will have been tested.

With a UA deployment and 2 CMDRs present in different ships, does each CMDR "hear" their own ship being scanned and so different sounds, or do they both hear the same pattern?

Maybe the answer to the above could take us down another avenue of testing where two CMDRs record and we compare results, do both CMDRs hearing the same pattern.

On the assumption that with a UA, 2 CMDRs in different ships do indeed hear different patterns, then a similar test with barnacles may help rule out that the high/low sounds are unrelated (or unrelated) to CMDR ships?
 
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TheOneWithNoLife

TheOneWithNoLife
I personally believe that if we have no clear way of separating letters there is no way to decipher anything. We got something that looks like a warning, but that is so random. It is a random part of the sound, so the first several signals might be the second half of a letter that we can not hear. I also believe that those "aliens" that we encounter (UAs atleast) either are man made or have learned about the Morse code , and it is the easiest way for them to communicate with us. The Morse code is a purely human invention, so if they are enemies of us there is no point for them to communicate though means invented by their enemies. If that message that you decoded is actually real we should focus on finding what the separator is in that particular case.
 

LordZoltan

LordZoltan
Sorry I appear to have edited that post beyond recognition, I'll put back in the original text. I had no idea it'd had responses. Wasn't playing about.
 

ket halpak

K
Here is a visualisation taken from the 5hr recording at 15x speed.
fj1gwhX.png
 
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CMDR Runcible Shaw

CMDR Runcible Shaw
LordZoltan said:
As I say, I remain deeply sceptical because it's not been repeated nor is there apparently a logical way to identify dit-dah groups; but at the same time I'm loathed to believe Bitstorm or anyone else here would make this up, unless that person no longer cared about this mystery any more.

But here's my logical 'flow' on this:

A) if it's Morse, I can't see why there'd be no clear gaps. Removing inter-letter gaps makes almost all Morse of any significant length completely unintelligible without a supercomputer.

B) so there *must* be a way to identity letter groups, if that's what they are. The most obvious way would be with the crunches. But if you do that, you get sequences that are too long to be letters - so not letters? Not Morse? Certain binary encoded formats wouldn't suffer from this I guess.

C) But above all else - the only way to read the data is to use a program to speed up the audio. At normal speeds the sounds are indistinguishable. That breaks the rule that we can do it in-game with only paper and pen.

I think there are mysteries yet to be solved that we can solve now.

But until someone produces a reliable, reasoned way to extract meaningful information out of this sound at *normal* speed, I think this audio is a giant red herring and a pretty good April fool.

I edited this section out of this, forgetting that people might have responded in the time it took to do the edit:



Despite my scepticism and assertions above - I recognise people might feel the need to keep 'probing' in order to identify the exact conditions under which we might be able to reproduce this text if it's possible. I'm just saying that speeding up audio 20x to get a result is not something I think FD would have us do. It doesn't ring true to me at all.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree that having to use an audio editor to hear the morse breaks the pattern of these mysteries being solvable with simple tools. However, what if when you bring certain items or do something to the barnacle the signal speeds up enough to hear? We've just found it without having to meet those unknown criteria.
 

b_laiskiainen

B
CMDR Runcible Shaw said:
I tend to agree that having to use an audio editor to hear the morse breaks the pattern of these mysteries being solvable with simple tools. However, what if when you bring certain items or do something to the barnacle the signal speeds up enough to hear? We've just found it without having to meet those unknown criteria.
Click to expand...

The only logical item to bring would IMO be the UA, and that has not had an effect so far...

Also, "doing something" is mostly limited to shooting it with different things, which has to my knowledge been tried plenty :D
 

ket halpak

K
CMDR Runcible Shaw said:
I tend to agree that having to use an audio editor to hear the morse breaks the pattern of these mysteries being solvable with simple tools. However, what if when you bring certain items or do something to the barnacle the signal speeds up enough to hear? We've just found it without having to meet those unknown criteria.
Click to expand...

You could get to the point we are at without using an audio editor with patience, the different tones are distinct enough at normal speed that you could use them to determine that they are binary
 

Lorke

L
Fact of the matter is that a repeating pattern should emerge if nothing in the environment changes. If the 5hr audio cut does not have a repeating pattern then I'd have to conclude that the tones are either randomly generated or that the barnacle is communicating a ens novel (or some other overly long duration message).
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
Lorke said:
Fact of the matter is that a repeating pattern should emerge if nothing in the environment changes. If the 5hr audio cut does not have a repeating pattern then I'd have to conclude that the tones are either randomly generated or that the barnacle is communicating a ens novel (or some other overly long duration message).
Click to expand...

Well yeah. :(
 

Anjin

Anjin
Part of me can't help but wonder that MB chiming in to announce he won't say anything is a kind of tacit confirmation there is something to this.

Of course it could just be that MB happened to be reading the thread at that moment and felt a need to shut down any clue-begging before it got out of hand, even if there was nothing to give clues about. Dead-end lines of investigation are all part of solving mysteries, frustrating though they might be. (I do get sometimes get self-conscious about my posts getting read by MB on this thread, knowing he lurks from time to time. In my mind I see him shaking his head, and thinking "Poor fool, hasn't got a clue...")

----

But, if there is something to it, and it's not just a pseudo-random sequence, I would certainly expect to see a looping pattern of a kind. Of course, if it's the complete works of Shakespeare being slowing eked out in two toned binary, that looping pattern could be very very long. We might need some super long recordings to find a pattern.

Also, since there doesn't seem to be any distinct word or letter breaks, maybe it IS binary. I tried putting some of the samples through a binary to ASCII converter but that didn't yield anything intelligible. Though I might have started at the wrong offset, and there is no guarantee it's 8-bits per character. 6-bits are more than enough for A-Z, 0-9.

Another idea I was toying with was: what if it's a bitmap? I tried converting a sample to a monochrome image, using differing raster-line lengths, and while I didn't get anything conclusive, my pattern-matching brain can't help but see almost-symbols, or contours...

Code: 
██ █  ██ █ ██  ██    █ █ █
█ █  █  █ ██ █    █ █  ███
 █    ██ █ █ █ ██  ██ ██ █
 ██ █ █ █ █  █  █  █ █ ███
█  ██ █ █  █ █ ██     █  █
██ ██   █   ████ ██ █  ███
█  █ ███ █ █  █ █   █    █
█ ██  █ █ █ █ █ ███  █ █ █
 ██  █ █  █ ██ █ ██      █
   █ █  █ █ ██ █ ██ █  ███
 █ █ █ █  █ ██  █ █  ███ █

██ █  ██ █ ██  ██    █ █ ██ █  █  █ ██ █    █ █  ███ █    ██ █ █ █ ██  █
█ ██ █ ██ █ █ █ █  █  █  █ █ ████  ██ █ █  █ █ ██     █  ███ ██   █   ██
██ ██ █  ████  █ ███ █ █  █ █   █    ██ ██  █ █ █ █ █ ███  █ █ █ ██  █ █
  █ ██ █ ██      █   █ █  █ █ ██ █ ██ █  ███ █ █ █ █  █ ██  █ █  ███ █

----

As for needing software to decipher this, maybe FD felt it was all right this time around since people DID use software extensively to assist with decoding the UA Morse before.
 
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Han_Zen

Han_Zen
If we can't find a separator, it's rather pointless to decode as Morse. If it was a short repeating message it could be done, but this one does not seem to repeat in a long time.

On the UA ship plot, there was a fixed number of characters(one triangle = 3X2 letters). This could be something similar.
 
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