UNKNOWN ARTEFACT: Sound Engineers, apply here!

[sohara]

Hello, CMDR's.

There are a number of working theories about how to determine the origin of the Unknown Artefacts that have recently been discovered - In order to explore all avenues without drowning out legitimate lines of investigation, this thread caters for the armchair sound engineer within you!

A number of CMDR's have taken great time and effort to provide us with some decent recordings of the Unknown Artefact - It appears to emit a sequence of high and low tones, accompanied by 'insectoid' like chittering and what's being called whale noise or howls.
- digitalscream part 1 | part 2 | rep
- Murp 109 Virginis | Sol | rep
- saman | rep
- Glynie | rep

Our job is to listen to those recordings and attempt to extract a meaningful message. Above all, please don't forget to give these guys some rep for the recordings!

As the only clue from FDEV so far is to listen to them, that's what we're going to do!

Please refrain from discussing alternative theories here - this thread is for analysing the audio signal produced by the Unknown Artefact only.

Good luck, CMDRs!

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EDIT: 05/07/2015
It's been suggested that the 'chittering' section is simple but stylised morse code, representing a planetoid or station in proximity of the UA. This indicates that it is aware of it's surroundings. This is not yet conclusive. [LINK TO FOLLOW]

---

What am I listening to?
We are listening to the Unknown Artefact, a recently discovered and alien object. It 'sings' when inspected, producing the following signal:

Example audio

How do I listen to the Unknown Artefact?
Simple! Jettison it from your cargo bay, target it and point your ship nose towards it. Just make sure to scoop it back up again before the Artefact decays - it doesn't like being out of your cargo hold for long.

What we know
Clues
- Michael hinted that we should attempt to listen to them. This is the only official forum clue.

Purrs
- The purrs speed up and become higher pitched over time. Linked to UA degredation?
- It is suspected that each purr represents a binary bit; 1 for a high purr, 0 for a low.
- Almost all sequence blocks contain 7-bits.
- Some blocks with 6-bits have almost imperceptible 7th bits - double and triple check all blocks with less than 7 bits!
- The chittering and purrs never overlap.
- (new) There are no reports of a pattern repeat, indicating that the message is very large, timestamp encoded or simply procedurally generated garbage.

Howls
- The howl interval remains consistent at approximately 30 seconds.
- There are two variations of the howl - alternating every 30 seconds. Does this indicated block-pairs?
- The Unknown Artefact appears to glow each time a howl kicks in.

Chittering
- (new) The 'insectiod' chittering after each whale noise has certain 'human' qualities when the tone is boosted by two octaves.
- (new) The chittering section is identical in most recordings, however, there is evidence that more variations exist.
- (new) The chittering and purrs never overlap. Is the chitter a cipher?

Negative points
- (new) All known recordings are capped at around 5-6 minutes. This is because the Artefact currently degrades over time.
- (new) After observing background noise, we can postulate that any 'voices' are in fact computer generated instead of deliberate recordings. This implies that any vocal chittering (if discovered) may be nonsense.

How can I help?
- Use third party audio tools to decompose the UA signal to discover its meaning. Audacity is free!
- Transcribe the patterns of high/low purrs to produce binary blocks.
- (primary) Identify more variations of the chittering section.
- Listen to the UA in different system to determine whether it makes a difference to the signal.
- Identify a repeatable method to 'stabilise' the Artefact so that we can obtain a longer sample.

I'm no sound engineer! Is there anything else that I can do to help?
Original Thread
The UA - Hafnium connection
UNKNOWN ARTIFACT: the rare commodity price angle

 

[Extreme_One]

Aphex Twin has, in the past, hidden images in his audio tracks that were visible when viewed with a Spectrogram.

http://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10

Worth a try?

 

[Matt Goodman]

Had a looked under an FFT analyser just now and nothing sticks out at the moment especially not a smiling face

I'll see if I can make more sense of it when I have time but it is probably not hiding anything..

..probably

 

[ev3slay3r]

I am by no means an expert audio engineer, but I've been friends with a pro studio owner for 10 years (he wouldn't "waste" his time on this sadly, i'm sure...), learned enough from being in his studio and his band in the past to mix and edit audio well enough to produce my own "rough" tracks.... also have other friends who are amateur engineers much like myself.

I'll see if I can manage to get the time to mess with the files at some point this week, another friend of mine might also (he doesn't play ED, but is a gamer, and would probably enjoy the whole "puzzle" aspect of it).

Not making any promises, but I'll do what I can - might be Sunday before I get a chance due to work.

I'd sort of feel like I was cheating to do so though... heh. I kind of doubt the devs intend for us to use external programs to try to figure out in-game "secrets".... if it wasn't eventually being released on console, I may think otherwise.

Regardless... yeah, I'll do what I can some time this weekend.

 

[Twelvefield]

I doubt that the answer lies within its engineering, like an image being formed by the wavelength.

There's much repetition in the elements, so I figure that it's a cypher. Each element represents a letter of the alphabet or some such. Like Whooomp-blappa-blappa-blap = H or W or something like that. The whalesong and the glow is likely the loop point. Without a Rosetta Stone, it would be hard to decipher the code. I imagine the most common element would be a vowel like E or A.

My reasoning is that this thing would have been thrown together quite quickly and dumped as a project upon the art department who would already be busy as it is. They would have relied on the fastest solution that also didn't take up much game bandwidth. So Dan Brown need not apply.

EDIT: I assigned letter values to each of the sound elements. After that, it was easy to plug in the letters using a simple cryptographer's ring. The message is, and I quote:

BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE

 

[feugan]

So, instead of speeding up the audio to listen for Highs and Lows, (which I believe is clouded by the erratic 'heart beat' sounds it makes, causing there to be no discernible pattern) I listened to it at plain old 1X, and I hear a pattern of 7 notes. First four (ending with the iconic foghorn note), then three. These repeat, without fail, every time. AND they coincide with when the UA 'lights up'.
Now, I'm not fully convinced that the Thargoids 'want' us to find them, because if they knew our culture they would just emit a message in english (for example), but for now let's assume that for simplicity, we can use all our human tools to decode it.
I took the seven notes and corresponded them to notes on a keyboard.
The first is D (27) - A (34) - D (27) - D (3)
The second is F (30) - C# (2) - D# (28)
I'm trained in music, but by no means a tone expert so I would love for someone to check me. This results in seven alpha notes, or 12 numeric digits. These twelve digits could be used to make a 3-axis coordinate system, with 4 digits each. You would result in (27.34, 27.33, 02.28)
Just one of the many ways to interpret the sound, but I believe looking at the notes themselves is more reliable than the binary system of highs and lows, because there is a definitive pattern, and it's not just high and low, there are multiple notes being used.

 

[Arjin]

From my post in the original thread,

"From Steve Laws sped up version, the honks are clearly a tube instrument, and the roar part if you listen closely is a chainsaw when you pull on it and it doesn't start. I still think it's possible that the sounds may be musically aligned to notes or chords, or perhaps an easier to understand morse/binary. low-high-low high-low-low high. just thinking out loud...."


Unfortunately I haven't been able to test this out more, you know work, RL stuff. Anyone able to match the notes played to musical notes or cords on a synthesizer? the letters matched may spell out a name?

 

[Strychnine]

If I see an artefact floating in space, I'm leaving it ALONE! I have no desire to become 4 of 12!

 

[ev3slay3r]

Sent my friend the link to this thread and he says there's a pattern.... Low-High-Low-High-Low-"Warble"+Whalenoise

Haven't had a chance to listen yet myself.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I loaded some of the MP3s into my iZotope program (an audio repair prog - I use it for cleaning up recordings from 78s or LPs). Nothing looks like it has been 'hacked'. Looks perfectly clean. And, really, no sign of a 7th tone (in the space after the whale) in most cases.

 

[Arjin]

Sent my friend the link to this thread and he says there's a pattern.... Low-High-Low-High-Low-"Warble"+Whalenoise

Haven't had a chance to listen yet myself.

Exactly if you speed it up you can clearly discern the pattern, low-high-low high-low-low-high-high-low, the wailing part is the start of the loop and just noise.

 

[Archvillain]

Does the same artifact make the same binary pattern in the same system, or has the "message" never been observed to repeat?

Does the binary span multiple drops (recordings) before repeating? Does it start repeating after a spore release?

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

Aren't you looking too far into this, trying to find a pattern and all? Sounds pretty straightforward to me: there's something organic and alive in that thing, awaiting for the right moment to burst out.

I have a feeling that by bringing and selling those things in stations, we're actually assisting the Thargoids in their (surely violent) come back.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Here's a zoomed in picture of one of the whales. Really, nothing unusual to see at all.

- - - Updated - - -

Aren't you looking too far into this, trying to find a pattern and all? Sounds pretty straightforward to me: there's something organic and alive in that thing, awaiting for the right moment to burst out.

I have a feeling that by bringing and selling those things in stations, we're actually assisting the Thargoids in their (surely violent) come back.

Agreed.

But we know they are coming at some stage. Might as well prod them with a sharp stick. If we don't, Michael will ...

 

[Nagual]

Aren't you looking too far into this, trying to find a pattern and all? Sounds pretty straightforward to me: there's something organic and alive in that thing, awaiting for the right moment to burst out.

I have a feeling that by bringing and selling those things in stations, we're actually assisting the Thargoids in their (surely violent) come back.

Love the conspiracy idea..

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

Love the conspiracy idea..

Well I think we may very well read on Galnet soon enough that multiple stations have ceased answering for "unknown reasons"...

Eggs, I tell you! EEEEEGGGGGGGS!

 

[ev3slay3r]

So, instead of speeding up the audio to listen for Highs and Lows, (which I believe is clouded by the erratic 'heart beat' sounds it makes, causing there to be no discernible pattern) I listened to it at plain old 1X, and I hear a pattern of 7 notes. First four (ending with the iconic foghorn note), then three. These repeat, without fail, every time. AND they coincide with when the UA 'lights up'.
Now, I'm not fully convinced that the Thargoids 'want' us to find them, because if they knew our culture they would just emit a message in english (for example), but for now let's assume that for simplicity, we can use all our human tools to decode it.
I took the seven notes and corresponded them to notes on a keyboard.
The first is D (27) - A (34) - D (27) - D (3)
The second is F (30) - C# (2) - D# (28)
I'm trained in music, but by no means a tone expert so I would love for someone to check me. This results in seven alpha notes, or 12 numeric digits. These twelve digits could be used to make a 3-axis coordinate system, with 4 digits each. You would result in (27.34, 27.33, 02.28)
Just one of the many ways to interpret the sound, but I believe looking at the notes themselves is more reliable than the binary system of highs and lows, because there is a definitive pattern, and it's not just high and low, there are multiple notes being used.

Repped, this could end up being helpful.

Wiki on Galactic Coordinates
Wiki on Galactic Quadrants

At work so I can't really read the whole articles or dork around with the numbers, but if someone has the time, could be worth figuring out where those numbers lead to (even in other variations). Might want to use the Rectangular coordinates (explained in the first article) if I'm understanding them properly.

Not sure about if there's a tool to look them up online somewhere - I'd guess there probably is.



Also, fixed the text color for you. Can't read black/gray text on the "normal" forums, as the background is black

 

[Zenith]

Listening to the audio at the speed it was recorded, I notice 3 distinct "parts".

The growl/wail.
High frequency chittering.
The up down up growls

Sped up 3x, those sounds become easier to relate to in everyday terms.
The growl/wail is actually the sound of a chainsaw failing to start combined with notes on a clarinet.
The high frequency chittering has complexity and possibly repetition.
The up down up growls become 2 notes (low and high) played on a brass instrument like a tuba or trombone.

The chittering always starts alongside the growl/wail, and fills the gap until the "tuba" starts it's set of 7 tones.

From the other thread...

These are the numbers I got from the new recordings:

010011
101011
1011001
0100110
0100101
1001010
1001001
0101011
001001
1100100
1010110

11011
100100
011011
110010
010110
010010
100110
0110101
0101100
0110010
1100110

01100
101001
0101100
0011011
1011001
0010010
0010100
0100110
011001
1001011
1010110

00110
0011001
001100
0011010
1010110
0010011
0110110
1001101
1001100
1001011
101001

101101
011010
010101
0101011
1001001
0110010
1010110
101010
0110011
0101001
110100

All of digitalscream's recordings in decimal:

19 43 89 38 37 74 73 43 9 100 86
27 36 27 50 22 18 38 53 44 50 102
12 41 44 27 89 18 20 38 25 75 86
6 25 12 26 86 19 54 77 76 75 41
45 26 21 43 73 50 86 42 51 41 52
36 18 75 37 25 106 26 37 26 54
4 36 53 18 75 102 82 86 25 51 54

No discernable pattern I'm afraid

My own contribution in the other thread was this...

Independently from you I came up with these...

UA1
010011 0101011 1011001 0100110 0100101 1001010 1001001 0101011 0101011 1100110 1010110
19, 43, 89, 38, 37, 74, 73, 43, 43, 102, 86

UA2
11011 100100 011011 110010 010110 010010 100110 0110101 0101100 0110010 1100110
27, 36, 27, 50, 22, 18, 38, 53, 44, 50, 102

UA3
101100 101001 0101100 0011011 1011001 0010010 0010100 0100110 0110010 1001011 1010110
44, 41, 41, 27, 89, 18, 20, 38, 50, 75, 86

UA4
00111 0011001 001100 0011010 1010110 0010011 0110110 1001101 1001100 1001011 101001x
7, 25, 12, 26, 86, 19, 54, 77, 76, 75, ?

UA5
101101 011010 010101 0101011 1001001 0110010 1010110 0101010 0110011 0101001 1101001
45, 26, 21, 43, 73, 50, 86, 42, 51, 41, 105

VERY similar, with occasional differences between what we both hear which could be just down to personal audio range.

There are differences in our binary streams, so it might be worth others independently coming up with their own binary stream and comparing it with others already published.
Different ears have different capabilities. Ayo might be able to hear something that I miss, or vice versa. The more ears we have listening, the better the chance we've got the structure accurately.

 

[Cougar]

In my opinion, there is something speaking strongly against the hypothesis that these are binary encoded numbers.

I have seen a lot of transcripts now, and have done a few by myself.

In all the transcribed binary strings, I have not seen *a single instance* where a digit repeated itself more than twice. If these seven-digit groups would encode numbers, this is extremely unlikely - what should be the reason that only numbers with this property appear in the set of coordinates (if they are coordinates)?

I can see only two possibilities at the moment:

(1) A different encoding than just binary numbers which has the inherent property that a digit can only appear twice in a row
(2) A pseudo-random pattern, generated to fit this property with the intention that "it sounds better that way" (which would be sad)

 

[Zenith]

I can see only two possibilities at the moment:

(1) A different encoding than just binary numbers which has the inherent property that a digit can only appear twice in a row
(2) A pseudo-random pattern, generated to fit this property with the intention that "it sounds better that way" (which would be sad)

Or possibility (3) RNG audio to mess with the heads of people like us.