In order to increase interplanetary communication in the galaxy, an interstellar radio message was sent to space in 1974. The target was a globular star cluster called M13.

Interestingly, this communications system, as well as the entire plan was to highlight the advancements made by humanity in the field of technology- rather than any real motive behind establishing a series of communication channels with extraterrestrial entities. But considering the quality of the images sent, it did seem quite dubious if the interplanetary systems did attach some meaning to the images. This message was sent to outer space through radio waves at a ceremony that marked the renovation of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.

Arecibo Radio Message Sent To Space In 1974 By Scientists Received ” A Reply” in 2001

The Arecibo radio waves led to a phenomenon called the Arecibo answer. A crop circle appeared in 2001 near the Chilbolton Radio Telescope located in Hampshire, UK. This was portrayed as a response sent from the extraterrestrial recipients with the original message imprinted- except for a few changes. The crop circle featured the same 23×73 grid simply because the numbers were prime and most of the data regarding the chemicals were the same except carbon which was changed to silicon. At the bottom of the circle, the entire human figure was turned into a large, bulbous head.

Skeptics claim that this is an “obvious hoax” and that pranksters made the crop circles, however, no evidence is presented to support one or the other side of the story. No one was caught on camera or admitted to creating it. Such formations would require weeks of careful planning and teams of people to create them properly. Yet, the crop circles appeared unnoticed in a short period of time. Crop circle enthusiasts think this is a “genuine response”: 

Most skeptics are of the opinion that if extraterrestrial beings had to establish contact with our planet, why couldn’t they simply send radio waves back rather than create a crop circle in the middle of nowhere? Crop circles are a very interesting phenomenon countless witnesses claim that complex formations appear overnight, yet many scientists remain skeptical and rarely bother to investigate it well enough. 

Stephen Hawking Warned Us About The Perils Of Interplanetary Communication

The Arecibo message and the resulting crop circle wasn’t the only message sent to outer space. Before his demise, Stephen Hawking and a Russian billionaire had an idea that a message would be sent to outer space which could be very specific to humanity as a whole. This program would also be a way of discovering any extraterrestrial life form.

This is why the scientists had asked people to think of what could be written as the message- but no development has taken place ever since the passing of Stephen Hawking. On the side of the spectrum, there are scientists and theorists who believe that if the beings were to send a response back to earth, it wouldn’t be in the form of a crop circle or radio waves but something more dangerous. 

This is why Stephen Hawking, in a 2010 documentary, spoke about the perils of sending radio waves into space. He warned that there could be beings in outer space who were looking to wipe us out, and sending radio waves would simply put a target on our backs. What Hawking considered to be a worse possibility would be when extraterrestrial beings wipe us out by accident by believing that our radio waves were an act of aggression. He believed that this would be similar to the condition of the Native Americans when Christopher Columbus invaded their region.