On Saturday the 10^th of February 1996, at approximately 7:05 am, a report was aired on BBC Radio 5 Live's morning news that should have stunned the world into silence. A report so profound that it should have entirely changed the human races attitude to the world in which we live, and forever changed our perception of life, the universe, and well, everything! The report stated that the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project had picked up an unusual signal coming from one of the planets that had recently been discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope. The signal was believed to be artificial in nature.

Now a story of this magnitude should have been all across the worlds media within a matter of hours. Experts should have been dragged from their weekend relaxation to give their insightful analysis on this most remarkable of events. The content hungry, all consuming, rolling news networks now in existence should have provided wall to wall media coverage, 24 hours a day for a captivated audience, because at last it would be official that the human race is not alone.

With the above in mind it will undoubtedly come as a shock to some readers that apart from the BBC, I have only been able to find two other sources that reported what should have been the most remarkable event in the history of the human race. So why was this report not more widely covered by the mainstream news media? Was it a hoax, false information, a false alarm, or was there something more sinister behind the distinct lack of coverage? In my opinion these questions needed to be answered, so following in the footsteps of countless other intrepid investigators before me, I set off in pursuit of the truth.

EARTH LISTENS TO MARS

Strange as it may seem, reports of signals being received from outer space are not as unusual as they at first may sound. The first report comes from the father of radio himself, Marconi, who whilst experimenting with his new invention managed to pick up a series of coded signals that appeared to be similar to Morse code. Despite intensive study these signals could not be decoded, and after racking his brains Marconi's only possible explanation was that they had to have originated from space. It was therefore a very surprised and somewhat bemused American press who heard the announcement in New York by J.C.H. MacBeth, the London Manager for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, that the Earth was in the process of communicating with beings from the planet Mars!

Needless to say the signals received by Marconi have still not been explained to this day, but they did, in part, inspire the now almost forgotten "Listening In" project during the summer of 1924. The aim of this project was to silence all terrestrial radio communications for 5 minutes on the hour, every hour, for a period of two days during Mars' closest approach to the Earth. This would hopefully create the optimum conditions to listen for any radio broadcasts that may come from the red planet. The project utilised the newly developed "radio photo message continuous recording machine", which produced flashes of light which were then recorded on film whenever an incoming message was detected.

After 36 hours of recording, the film was developed and Francis Jenkins, the machines inventor, told a stunned press conference that the device had indeed received signals and that in addition to a fairly regular arrangement of dots and dashes the film also showed "a repetition at intervals of about a half hour what appears to be a human face, and it's a freak which we can't explain". What was surprising about this project was that it was fully supported by the United States Government, who used all of their diplomatic influence to try to persuade other countries to observe the radio silence. This government support does, of course, not tend to support the current vogue theories of cover-ups and misinformation campaigns, but then again 1924 was before Roswell.

THE VOICE OF GLON

All of these reports almost inevitably involve only a few witnesses or individuals working alone, however there is one report of a signal from space that was witnessed by literally millions. On the evening of the 26^th of November 1977, viewers of TVS, a regional TV station in England, and listeners of LBC, a regional radio station in London, were amazed when their normal programming was interrupted by the "Voice of Glon" from the "Asteron Galactic Command". Glon, who claimed to be broadcasting from space, went on to say how disappointed he was by the human races stewardship of the planet Earth, and in a very similar vein to many of today's abduction accounts, Glon told a stunned audience that our planet was only decades away from destruction. The broadcast was heard over a large part of southern England with the result that police switchboards were swamped with calls from the general public who were alarmed and frightened by the mysterious message.

Although this transmission was widely passed off as a hoax perpetrated by a high spirited student, a TVS official was later forced to admit that "our engineers are trying to discover exactly what happened. We can't imagine how it was done, but it appears that someone must have managed to transmit a signal directly over ours. The equipment used would need to be very sophisticated and expensive.". So did the authorities, via the media, try to suppress this story by claiming it was a hoax? I must admit that it could certainly be seen that way by many of the conspiracy lobby. Broadcasting on any commercial frequency without permission is a serious offence in the UK, but despite an extensive police investigation no one was ever suspected, let alone charged for the offence, and hardly any mention of this bizarre message has ever been repeated.

THE SETI SIGNAL

With this colourful and eventful history of mysterious signals from space behind us, let us turn to the matter at hand. The broadcast in question stated that this most recent signal originated from the star Virginis 70, which is believed to be of a similar type to our Sun, and specifically that the signal was coming from the planet that had recently been discovered in orbit around the star. When I first heard the report I was with someone, who although not versed in the possibilities of ET contact, was nevertheless just as stunned as I was by this announcement which could possibly lead to the confirmation of an extra terrestrial civilisation. It was therefore quite amazing that I could not find any other mention of this report on the TV or radio news for the rest of that day, and totally dumbfounding when the Sunday papers that I managed to read did not give the slightest mention of the signal. The next step had to be to check with the BBC to see if the content of the broadcast was accurate, and if so then to try to find the source of that report in order to validate the claims. On the 13^th of February I sent a letter to BBC Radio 5 asking for any additional information that they had on the report. To date I have not received a reply to either that letter, or to the subsequent telephone calls that I have made with reference to it.

As I have already mentioned I have only been able to track down two other reports about the signal. The first is a rather sketchy account from the United States about a report on NBC News during the evening of the 28^th February. Apparently the report mentioned that the Hubble Telescope had recorded a 'strange pulsating signal' coming from the Virginis system, in addition to showing photographs of the newly discovered planet. The second report comes from the Observer News Service and is perhaps the most detailed. It states that the signal was discovered by scientists working on the Serendip 3 project which is part of the SETI program. The signal was picked up by instruments dedicated to isolating any unusual, repetitive signals that may indicate an intelligent origin. When they studied the Virginis system they found that some of the signals were highly unusual and of a repetitive nature, which has prompted the group to undertake a new search of space near the star later this year. It is curious as to why there would be any delay in trying to find out more about this signal.

IN CONCLUSION

In conclusion I must admit that I have the strong feeling that we, the general public, are not being told everything about this signal from the stars. Why would one of the most respected broadcasting companies in the world run a story and then have no record of it only a few weeks later? Why have only two other media sources mentioned the signal, and then only briefly, and why have the astronomers, who should be the first to know about this signal, not heard anything at all about it?

As much as I am loath to admit it, it seems that a cover-up could very well have been in operation, but why go to all this trouble to suppress what should have been the most remarkable news report ever?

Well there is a theory that we, the human race, are just not ready for contact with an extra terrestrial civilisation and that our governments are acting in our own self interest in protecting us from the truth. Other theories state, despite almost incontrovertible anecdotal evidence to the contrary, that there is in fact no life outside of our solar system and that the Earth is the only planet capable of supporting life amongst the undoubted billions of planets in the Universe. However there is also another theory which suggests that our governments are scared of what ET contact will mean for the citizens of the planet Earth. They fear a breakdown in social order. They fear a 'complete' breakdown in conventional religion which is already in serious decline. They fear the loss of control.....

I'll let you make your own mind up.