In the Hypothetical Scenario of an Interception of the Voyagers by an ETI Probe

Abstract

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were first launched in 1977 and have been travelling in deep space ever since. Currently they are outside of the solar heliosphere at a distance of approximately 163 and 136 AU respectively. The Voyager probes were also designed to carry a Golden Record in the case of contact with an extraterrestrial civilization or its representative robotic probe so that they may learn about humanity. In late 2023 the flight data subsystem on-board Voyager 1 began transmitting unusable data that differed from the usual data stream. An investigation by the engineers found that in fact the downlink transmission contained a readout of the entire system memory. In this paper we speculate on a hypothetical scenario where the data issue is indicative of an attempted forced downlink, to include command data, from a passing ETI probe that may have been curious about the Voyager 1 spacecraft origin, nature, function and purpose. This is not a claim that this was the cause, but more the construction of a scenario for the consideration of other probes that may be launched in the future. Keywords: Voyager, SETI, Probes