Altering the frequency of the radio he had built himself, the noise of static could be heard once again, but turning the tuner further, he came across a voice that he was expecting, as he had been here many times before, trawling through the fm, am and medium wave frequencies to try and discover a signal, sound, or even voice, that did not come from this world.
The voice he heard now was that of a taxi firm, telling one of its cabs that there was a pickup outside a hotel. He always listened in on the police, ambulance and taxis. With a microphone attached, he could speak with whoever he listened to, but he chose not to do that. It was reserved for any one, or any thing that tried to make contact through the airwaves.
He had converted his shed in the garden into a small station after he had retired, to send and receive airwave transmissions, rather like pirate radio. On top of the shed there was a satellite and a large aerial, enabling him to listen in on broadcasts from Europe, including their emergency services, but he didn’t speak German, or Italian, so what they were saying had no meaning to him.
Instead, he concentrated on the UK, listening, most of the day, for a broadcast from outer space. It was the reason he had converted the shed, convinced that if aliens were to make themselves known, it would be through radio waves.
He was in there most of the day. As when he wasn’t he was usually always thinking: ‘What if they are trying to contact now?’, so he had made the shed his second home, with his headphones on, listening to static, or white noise incase there was something he didn’t recognise, waiting for alien communication.
He decided he would try the radar frequency, even though he didn’t have the correct equipment for it to work properly. It did however, let him listen to airplane transmissions, but they never said anything exiting, simply saying something about coming into land, with the station saying that they are now cleared to land, so he didn’t bother much with listening to them. When he did, he found himself falling asleep with boredom.
If he’d had proper radar, he would be able to scan the skies for any objects that could be deemed unidentified. However, having enquired at an army base in the midlands, he was told they couldn’t let him buy any, so he had to make do with minimal radar equipment that allowed certain pulse radio broadcasts to be listened in on, such as that of the airplane, and sometimes ships that were in nearby waters, but they were just as dull as the airplane broadcasts, so he hardly listened to them either.
He switched the radar scanner to that of microwave frequency, higher than that of normal broadcasts, and heard something he had not heard before at this level. It was a high pitched tone, or whistling, fused with a crackling sound, like when listening to a radio station not quite on the exact frequency, with the whistling being what is broadcast.
“Hello, hello, is there anybody out there?” came a voice. He was stunned, frozen with shock. This had to be from outer space, without question.
This frequency was not used for communication, as it would not be audible without the correct equipment, rather like regular radio and mobile phone communication. If they all operated on the same level, then everybody’s calls could be heard, and it would be like listening to hundreds of voices at once, or in a crowded place, such as a pub, or an audience at an interval. Voices can be heard, but not one word can be made out.
This level was never used as a form of contact, until now. He nervously fumbled with the microphone to try and plug it in, and when he did, he shouted a few hellos and told them he could hear them. He then asked:
“Where are you from?” and the voice replied:
“We are from a planet called Earth”.
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