Cape Canaveral, FL – Astronomers at the Deep Sky Correspondence Facility reported Tuesday that a series of anomalous, repetitive radio transmissions are circulating across the Orion Arm, bearing what experts now fear are the first documented cases of galactic chain letters. The transmissions, deciphered late Monday evening, instruct receivers to “forward this message to ten intelligent civilizations” or “risk unquantifiable cosmic misfortune.”
Dr. Isobel Marrow, director of Interstellar Signals Integrity, confirmed the phenomenon during a National Space Agency press conference. “We’re detecting a statistically significant recurrence of the phrase, ‘You have been selected as a worthy recipient of stellar legacy,’ embedded within the modulated hydrogen bandwidths. The message is followed by a detailed promise of prosperity for compliance and doom for non-compliance.” Marrow estimates the communication originated 400 parsecs away, radiating outward with increasing entropy and frequent typographical distortions.
In what officials are calling “a profound escalation,” an emerging intergalactic pattern reveals that neighboring solar systems have simultaneously begun distributing nearly identical digital missives, each requiring amplified forwarding instructions. Analyst Mubarak Thal, from the Pan-Universal Trustworthiness Board, warned, “Our simulations indicate a scenario wherein every civilization with radio telescopes becomes simultaneously enlisted as an unwilling participant.” Thal’s team observed that each message’s footer includes increasingly specific invocations, such as, “If you break this chain, three planets in your system will experience resource anomalies within a galactic fortnight.”
International space regulators are convening emergency meetings to address the potential fallout. Preliminary recommendations from the Committee on Cosmic Causality include blocking all incoming frequencies ending in the hexadecimal suffix 0xFA4, as well as establishing a cross-species spam task force. Meanwhile, dozens of Earth-based SETI labs report significant uplinks of what appear to be hastily translated chain letters, with the majority marked as “urgent” and many addressed to individuals no longer in active astrophysical service.
Despite efforts to contain the transmissions, side effects are surfacing. Mars rover Perseverance’s inbox has reportedly filled with “Guaranteed Prosperity Nebula” offers, and the Moon’s South Pole water extraction pilot was delayed twelve hours after its central computer entered an infinite reply-all feedback loop. Experts warn that as these chain letters proliferate, exponential data overload may soon eclipse genuine scientific communications, as entire galaxies become embroiled in what Dr. Marrow calls “a likely self-replicating, pan-Milky Way pyramid scheme.”
When pressed for a solution, policy advisor Oswald DeWillis offered, “We are cautiously optimistic that interstellar etiquette will evolve to address this unprecedented challenge. Until then, we recommend forwarding all suspicious cosmic correspondence directly to the sun.”
At press time, the chain letters showed no sign of slowing, and astronomers quietly reevaluated the wisdom of listening to the stars in the first place.
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