TO SIGNAL MARS

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1933, Page 5

TO SIGNAL MARS

INTENSE LIGHT BEAM.

PROJECTORS ON JUNGFRAU.

London, Jan. 10.

What appears to be a practical attempt to signal to Mars from the summit of the Jungfrau, the Swiss mountain which rises 13,700 ft. above the level of the sea, is likely to be made shortly by a group of British experimenters, states the Auckland Star’s correspondent.

The idea is to send out an intense beam of light from a special observatory erected on the mountain, and to give Morse code messages to the heavens with this beam in the hope of attracting attention’on Mars and receiving a reply, if there is any intelligent life on the planet. Apparatus for this trial has been designed by a firm of lighthouse engineers in Smethwick, Staffordshire. Plans provide for three grouped lighthousetype projectors on a giant scale. Each projector will concentrate the light from a supremely powerful electric arc, and the three beams will merge together a short distance above the earth into one single ray of light of no less than fifteen thousand million candle power. Never before has apparatus been designed for generating a light beam of such intensity. It will be the greatest artificial light ever seen and it will have to travel 34,000,000 miles to get to Mars. “We are hoping this scheme for signalling to Mars will be carried through,” said Harry Price, of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research. “A number of people are interested in the project. “Naturally the cost will be heavy. The estimate for the projector apparatus alone is about £6OOO. Then it will have to be conveyed to Switzerland and erected in a substantial building on the mountain top. I think, however, the funds will be forthcoming. There will be no difficulty about the permission to carry out the experiments on the mountain. “The Jungfrau has been selected for the site because there is adequate electrical power at the summit. Also there is an observatory on the mountain from which watch can be maintained for the possibility of any return signals. “While the experiments are in progress a look-out will be kept from every observatory that can train its telescope on Mars. “If there is any intelligent life on the planet the people there should be able to see the signals from this abnormal column of light. Our chief aim, of course, would be the possibility of some Kind of answer from the other planet. “The engineers have taken up the matter with a great deal of interest. They are convinced the .projectors they have designed provide the only means of obtaining a light beam of sufficient intensity for our purpose.”—(N.A.N.A.)