Is Voyager 2 sending us Alien Messages

33 years ago (August 20, 1977), NASA launched Voyager 2 out into space, the probe was intended as both a time capsule and an attempt to contact Alien intelligence. To this end Voyager 2 carried a Golden Record that contained a voice message in 55 languages welcoming any Alien it may encounter in the vastness of space. Also on the record were sounds from nature and a selection of classical music from all over the world along with 115 images encoded in analog form.

Written on the exterior of the craft was a message from the US President of the time Jimmy Carter:

We cast this message into the cosmos? Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe...

Destined for deep space, Voyager 2 continued sending a signal out, and back to earth continously and in 2008 the human time capsule became the fourth human object to escape the solar system (after Pioneer 10 & 11 and Voyager 1).

By this time signals from Voyager 2 took more than 13 hours to reach earth. On the 22nd April 2010 these signals became distorted and eventually stopped altogether.

After 33 years of space travel, could Voyager 2 have simply worn out or even run out of electrical power, or has an Alien intelligence interfered with the spacecraft?

Electrical fault or mechanical breakdown could be a possibility, on the 30th November 2006 a command sent to the probe was misinterpreted and consequently the heaters of the magnetometer were switched on.

These heaters remained turned on until December 4, 2006, and during that time, there was a resulting high temperature above 130 °C (266 °F), significantly higher than the magnetometers were designed to endure. Could this extreme heat have caused a malfunction more than 3 years later?

According to NASA the signals were expected to continue for some time yet (years) and are busy trying to come up with a solution.

They have so far advised that spacecraft itself is essentially healthy and the problem lies with the flight Data system. This system is responsible for formatting the data to send back to Earth. This would explain the garbled messages being returned. As a precautionary measure until they figure out how to fix the issue, NASA have switched Voyager 2 into a mode that transmits only health and status data.

German UFO "expert" Hartwig Hausdorf has theorised that Voyager 2 has been tampered with by Aliens or even taken on board a ship but has offered no actual evidence or even a plausible theory.

Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, after which it had an extended mission and flew by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, taking advantage of a once-in-176-year alignment to take a grand tour of these outer planets. Along the way it has witnessed some of the true wonders of the solar system.

It was Voyager 2 that discovered Neptune's Great Dark Spot and 450-meter-per-second (1,000-mph) winds and detected geysers erupting from Triton (one of Neptune's moons).

Working with Voyager 1 it also helped discover actively erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io, and waves and kinks in Saturn's icy rings from the tugs of nearby moons.

Weekly reports are available from Voyager Weekly Reports (although this was last updated on the 2nd April 2010 at the time of writing) and despite being 33 years old, Voyager 2 still takes advantage of new technology including regular Tweets of it's current location, along with messages from the command centre.

If you want to find out more information about Voyager 2, Nasa has an official website: Voyager 2 website which also has links to lot's of educational resources about earth, the solar system and beyond.