Wednesday, October 07, 2015

A Playlist for Aliens: What Would You Add?

What song would you send to space to introduce humanity to the universe?
In 1977 we sent the "gold record" on Voyager. The BBC created a playlist that you can listen to here. It's cool, but outdated. Take a listen here:

We sent Bach, Louis Armstrong, Aboriginal singing, animal noises, panpipes and drums, and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode," among others.

Basic assumptions:
1. Aliens can hear
2. Aliens have complex thoughts
3. Aliens have emotions that can be stirred by music
4. Aliens have record players

Just go with it. 

So, what would you add? 

Add a comment below, or just think about it. It's a great mental exercise to try and narrow your choice to one.
Here's my choice, a piece called "Time" by Hans Zimmer, written for the movie "Inception," which I have not yet seen. It has no vocals, so there is no language barrier, and it's designed to evoke an emotional response. (In humans. I've been playing it on repeat and the cat shows no signs of feeling uplifted or nostalgic.)


While we're at it, I'd also add a photograph, the Hubble Deep Space Field. The view from our planet when we stopped and focused our telescope on a seemingly empty and dark slice of space only to discover thousands of galaxies, millions of stars, and maybe life. Maybe some alien species out there will get this image, take a look, and say, "Hey! That's us!" and then reverse engineer their way to Earth. 

*If you haven't seen the video explaining this image, it's definitely worth 6 minutes of your life.