Guardian of the Gate: The Interim

After spending a few hours online, Eldon placed a call to Wanda. “It looks like the signal was just a satellite data stream.” He sighed. “I’m sorry if I got your hopes up, but it was still nice seeing you again.”

“We should get together more often. Maybe we could discuss pulsars and other radio signals from space on my podcast.”

“I’d have to get permission from Professor Pike for any public appearances. I’ll let you know. And thanks for the URL to that sound editing software. It’s a time saver.”

Eldon went back to work on his Master’s project. For the next few weeks, he immersed himself in his work. Occasionally, the strange signal would reappear during high school tours. Eldon noted the time and went back to his research. After several months, he had a notebook full of data on the occurrence of the odd signal. He also had reached the end of his study.

Deciding that a break was in order, he called Wanda to confirm that her office was still available before securing permission to appear on her podcast. Professor Pike was enthusiastic about the idea and even loaned several of the observatory’s recordings to Eldon for the podcast.

“Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of The Interim. This week’s guest is a former schoolmate of mine. Say hello to Eldon Speck. Eldon is a radio-astronomer working at Red Rock Radio Observatory and he’s brought with him some music of the stars. Say hello to our listeners, Eldon.”

“Hello, people out there on planet Earth. I’m Eldon Speck and I’m happy to be here.”

“I understand that you brought along some tapes of radio signals from some objects in the night sky.”

“Not all of them are night sky objects. You can hear radio signals in the daytime as well. We often focus our legacy antenna on the Crab Nebula during school tours and let them listen to the Crab Pulsar, which happens to be the first recording I’m going to play.” A slow, steady clicking noise like the sound of a metronome fills the studio. Eldon quickly adjusts the volume. “Sorry about that. Anyway, what you are hearing is the slow steady pulse from the Crab Nebula pulsar.”

“How would you describe the next pulsar we are about to hear?”

“B1933 emits a strong regular beat, much like the ticking of a loud clock.” Eldon played several other recordings of pulsars with shorter periods as the hour wore on before ending the podcast with the sound produced by a local doppler radar station.