US Navy Was Ordered To Listen For Martian Broadcast 154
MarkWhittington writes "It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars."
Re:Not Mars (Score:5, Informative)
For your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qxWGr8VhzQ [youtube.com]
Specifically... (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't until the 1950s, I believe, that scientists began to realize that Venus and Mars were both utterly inhospitable. Indeed, the first Mariner photographs of Mars, that showed it to be almost moonlike, blasted with craters and seemingly ancient and dead, came as something of a shock to the academic community.
Re:tone, tone, tone (Score:3, Informative)
That works out to $3.52 trillion in today's dollars, if you use London Good Delivery bars (400 oz./bar * $1100/oz * 8 million).