Morse Message (1962)

The Morse Message was a series of brief radio messages in Morse code that were transmitted from the Evpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR) complex and directed to the planet Venus in 1962.^[1][2]

The message consisted of three words, all encoded in Morse code: the word “Mir” (Russian: “Мир”, meaning both “peace” and “world”) was transmitted from the EPR on November 19, 1962, and the words “Lenin” (Russian: “Ленин”) and “USSR” (Russian: “СССР”, the abbreviation for the Soviet Union — Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, Soyúz Soviétskikh Sotsialistícheskikh Respúblik)^[3] were transmitted on November 24, 1962.^[4] In Russian, the Morse Message is referred to as the Radio Message “MIR, LENIN, USSR”.

The message was the first radio broadcast intended for extraterrestrial civilizations in the history of mankind.^[1] It was also used to test the radar station (though not for measuring the distance to Venus, since the EPR relied on a different technology, a coherent waveform with frequency manipulation, for distance measurements). The signals reflected off the surface of Venus and were received back on Earth 4 minutes, 32.7 seconds and 4 minutes, 44.7 seconds later (for the November 19 and November 24 broadcasts, respectively). The ongoing search for life on Venus has not yet found any life-forms, let alone any capable of receiving the message.

The signals are currently in transit to the star HD 131336^[5] in the Libra constellation. The famous star Gliese 581, the addressee of the modern interstellar messages A Message From Earth and Hello From Earth, is also located in Libra.