“The Murmurs of the Earth” (1977)

Added to the National Registry: 2007

The Golden Record Voyager before launch Golden disc covering

Somewhere, today, right now, floating out in space there is a record. It is a gold-covered copper
disc sealed behind a larger gold disc. It is adhered to the side of NASA’s Voyager spacecrafts.
The unmanned mechanical explorers Voyager I and Voyager II were launched a few weeks apart
in 1977. Voyager II was launched on August 20, 1977; Voyager I went up on September 5, 1977.

These two fastened records, titled “The Sounds of the Earth” (though also sometimes referred to
as “The Murmurs of the Earth” or, simply, “The Voyager Golden Record”) exist as a sort of
message in a bottle, a greeting card of sorts to any other possible lifeforms so that they may learn
about the inhabitants of so-called “spaceship Earth.”

Voyager’s records were not the first time that NASA had attempted to explain itself to other
possible beings. The space probes Pioneers 10 and 11 (launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively),
which preceded Voyager, and both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place
of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them sometime, somewhere, in
the future in the far reaches of space. But the Voyager recordings were the first concerted effort
to explain something about their planet of origin and the people who made it.

The gold disc contains an embedded series of sights and sounds. On the record, are 115
photographic images and illustrations ranging from photos of the earth to photos of trees, plants,
oceans, mountains, animals, insects and marine life as well as photos of various man-made
structures (from simple thatched-roof homes to the Great Wall of China), to stills of various
peoples engaged in every sort of activity from eating (showing how human obtain sustenance) to
hunting to nursing their young. There are also diagrams: of DNA strands, of human anatomy,
and of the solar system as we know it. Many of the photos and pictures contain measurements in
order to give potential readers/viewers a sense of the various proportions of our planet (the
circumference of the earth, the height of the average man and woman). A key explaining these
units of measure is also encoded into the record.

It was these measurements that laid the groundwork for the disc’s next component—its sounds
and music. Since mathematics is closely aligned with music composition and, therefore, all aural
stimuli, it was considered a smooth segue from lengths and distances to rhythms, songs, even
vocalizations. First recorded on the record, there is a variety of spoken greetings, 55 different
voices (male and female) offering “hellos” and “welcomes” in a 55 different, earthen languages,
from Akkadian to Cantonese to Hebrew to Korean to Serbian to a simplified form of Chinese
called Wu. There were also two “official” greetings as well, in English, from then United
Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim and from then US President Jimmy Carter, the then
leader of the probe’s home country. Next, were the natural sounds--of wind, water, rain, thunder,
chimps, crickets, frogs, birds and chimps. Then, the man-made sounds—trains, planes, etc. And,
finally, life sounds: an EKG, brainwaves, even the sound of a kiss.

At the time, of perhaps greatest interested to the earthly masses, was the music that was selected
for placing on the record onboard the space craft. To NASA’s ever-lasting credit, they took a
decidedly xeno-inclusive approach to their selections; they included far more than just the music
of the Americas. The gold disc contains an eclectic mix not only of international flavors but also
of styles. The disc begins with Bach, specifically the first movement of the Brandenburg
Concert No. 2 in F, but also includes: snippets of Australian Aborigine songs, panpipes and
drums from Peru, an Indian raga, and a Navajo Indian night chant, among others. And there are
a few pop and blues excerpts as well: “Dark Was the Night…” by Blind Willie Johnson and
“Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. (At the time, “Saturday Night Live” joked that the first
message sent back from space by aliens would be “Send more Chuck Berry!”). In all, the sound
portion of the Golden Record is 27 minutes long.

(A full list of all of the Golden Record’s content, sound and pictures, can be found, courtesy of
NASA, at: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html.)

As can be imagined, summing up all of human existence in a just a few select images and sounds
was a daunting task. It was one that fell to celebrated astronomer Carl Sagan who headed up the
large committee of historians, anthropologists, musicologists and others who made
recommendations. (It was also Sagan’s wife, Ann Druyan, who submitted to the brain wave scan
that was eventually included on the record.) Sagan would later co-author a detailed book about
the making of Voyager’s disc. Titled “Murmurs of the Earth,” it appeared in 1978. As detailed
there, the selection process, especially its musical component, presented some interesting
challenges: what to include? what could be included? how much of each selection should be
transferred to the disc? Music by the Beatles was chosen but ultimately omitted since copyright
issues could not be resolved. (The Golden Record would eventually be released commercially
back here on Earth.) Various songs by Bob Dylan were considered but eventually not used since
they were often lyrically cryptic and often incomprehensibly sung.

As of this writing, the two Voyagers are still hurtling through space. By 1990, both vessels had
passed the orbit of the former planet Pluto. And, as far as anyone knows, the Golden Records
still exists on them for anyone (anything?) waiting to discover them as what they were meant to
be: as an intergalactic descriptor of our world…and a kind of time capsule.

Similar to the National Sound Registry itself, the Golden Record was an attempt to create a
national—or in this case, world—patrimony. Since the Voyager album is predicted to last for
over four billion years, it stands to reason that by the time whoever or whatever discovers it, the
Earth and its people could be greatly changed or, if some cynics are to be believed, be
completely gone.

The purpose of the Voyager space crafts has always smacked of science fiction. Indeed, its
mission seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to “Star Trek’s” legendary opening refrain, “To
seek out new life and new civilizations.” Since its launch and entry into popular consciousness,
Voyager has figured into a handful of sci-fi plots; both “Space: 1999” and “The X-Files” have
made reference to it. Even the kids’ show “Pinky and the Brain” based an episode around it.
The first big screen “Star Trek” movie partially based its plot on Voyager by fabricating a
fictional Voyager “6” probe that had a profound influence on a race of artificial alien beings.

The record’s possible impact on intergalactic beings is an interesting speculation. The disc’s
outer shell describes, in symbols, two introductory bits of information: where the disc is from
and how it can be played. Upon closer inspection, its engravings look a bit like Egyptian
hieroglyphics which, in a roundabout way, raises the question of just how messages and relics
from other civilizations--those on our own planet--have been discovered, interpreted and perhaps
misinterpreted over the centuries. After all, if our understanding of ancient civilizations is still in
the embryonic stages how can we expect any other group, no matter how advanced, to fully
comprehend and understand us? And what are the inherent risks in providing other species with
such an inherently narrow glimpse of our world?

Of course, whatever risks there may potentially be, they are far outweighed by the greater
importance of knowledge seeking, knowledge sharing, and the basic desire for human expression
and exploration.

Cary O’Dell is with the Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound division of the Library
of Congress. He is the author of the books “June Cleaver Was a Feminist!” (2014) and
“Women Pioneers in Television” (1997). He also served as assistant editor of “The Concise
Encyclopedia of American Radio” (2009) and “The Biographical Encyclopedia of American
Radio” (2010).