Johnny B. Goode

On March 5, 1979, the United States of America sent a deep space probe on an escape trajectory from our solar system, headed for a date with interstellar space. On this probe they included a golden record, or rather, a gold-plated copper disc, much like a vinyl record, with a cartridge and needle necessary to play its recordings. The audio on the disc included greetings in 55 languages, 35 sounds from life on Earth such as laughter, whale songs, wild dogs, the surf, wind, and fire, among other things, as well as 90 minutes of music, which included pieces from Mozart and Bach all the way to rock n’ roll like Chuck Berry. It also included 115 images of life on Earth and came with a message from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter. In it, he said, 

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”

On August 1, 2012, Voyager 1 succeeded in its mission of entering interstellar space, leaving behind the solar system it was built in and entering the grand unknown…

The Voyager 1 ran out of power and ceased contact with Earth in late October 2025. On September 9, 2062, we now know that it was found. We also know that the beings that found it listened to the record and for some reason, liked Chuck Berry. When what we now know as the Nazalqar ships arrived, they broadcast two and a half minutes of the rock and roll masterpiece Johnny B. Goode to every possible receiver and speaker in the world. By the time the end of the song had occurred, skylines across the globe were cast in shadow by monolithic ships, that even the most conservative news stations cited esteemed scientists reports as saying that it was made of a metal unknown to our solar system, undoubtedly alien in nature, incredibly dense, and seemingly impenetrable by any radiation. Resistance would be futile. Advanced alien lifeforms had arrived. All because we sent a record out to space. 

People lost their minds. There were religious riots, mass-suicides, the stock market plummeted and then ceased to exist, and nations collapsed overnight. The ones still managing to hang on poured every single cent they could into the scientific research of their alien visitors. The U.N. welcomed all remaining nations into their midst, and surprisingly none refused. The warmongering nuclear discussions were never brought to the table, as humanity instinctively knew they were utterly outmatched.

Yet the Nazalqar did nothing but orbit ominously. They remained around the Earth, playing daily at 6:18am Pacific time, Johnny B. Goode, throughout every speaker in the world. Entire careers were made trying to explain the numerical significance of this exact timing or why Chuck Berry – to no avail. No one ever knew the truth behind it. Most just ended up throwing away their radios.

There was debate as to whether the Nazalqar ships even held lifeforms or if they were solely operated by artificial intelligence. There was no resounding evidence one way or another as all scans proved useless.. They were clearly capable of course correction, as could be quantified by scientific calculations noticing readjustments based on magnetic pole drift, so they had some sort of reason about them. Yet, all communication efforts by humanity were met with deaf ears, with the only response being Chuck Berry.

“Go Johnny, go, go! Go Johnny, go, go!”

The Berry estate made billions in royalties and shuttered the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Artists around the world went even hungrier than they had before. Poets became doomsday prophets. The arrival of the Nazalqar ships changed the fabric of humanity in so many different ways.

By the way, we call them Nazalqar ships, as that was the closest English pronunciation of a series of glyphs identifiable at the bottom of every ship. People wondered if that was the name of the species that surrounded us or if it was a message. Some asked if it was the name of the company that had created the ships. Imagine driving a town over and being forever known as Toyota.

Anyway, I will quit my rambling and get to the point of the matter, as this recording must fit on another gold record.

My name is Tahib Moorey, and I am the Speaker on behalf of the United Terran Space Corps. We send the following message to anyone who might listen. There is evidence of intelligent life in the Universe. We know this to be undoubtedly true because of what we witnessed. 1 year and 9 months after the Nazalqar ships arrived to our planet, the Nazalqar ships moved and merged together to completely surround and encapsulate the Earth. For the first time in our planet’s history, we received no light from our star. 

Now, this is where it gets hard to explain for me. It was a cataclysmic event. I am not a scientist, but I know what I experienced. We did not feel its effects immediately. Of course, we instantly noticed the darkness… that shocked us all as we scrambled for lanterns and power generators – but nothing else was instant. The temperature, however, did begin to drop, and they never stopped dropping continuously; all photosynthesis stopped, solar panels worldwide became useless, and electricity consumption skyrocketed. All private utility companies were mandated to become public entities, and as such, had we not already been in a crisis, the power crisis on Earth would have been solved.

After a week of darkness, the average surface temperature of Earth was -17 degrees Celsius. We were on the advent of a new ice age. There were mass exoduses from multiple locales to areas with more geothermal activity. Plant life around the globe had begun to falter. Life as we knew it was soon to be over. Aliens had destroyed the planet. Yet, every morning, we heard Johnny B. Goode through our radios.

That was until the day came where the sky lit up green as the Nazalqar ships glowed intensely with heat and moaned under the stress of massive temperature changes for precisely 37.15 minutes before then cooling back to their cold and dark hardened grey. The shield began breaking apart. Some pieces of the Nazalqar ships began to float away lifelessly, while others, still operable, dispersed themselves or drifted away into the Sun. It was as if they had finished what they were made for, their purpose complete, and they would no longer protect us. Almost immediately after, certain areas on the Sun-facing side of the planet began seeing the light again. What was seen as humanity’s mass extinction event became the day we all saw the light.

Not long after, scientists measured the remnants of a gamma-ray burst from a nearby star cluster that had recently had a massive and rapidly rotating star collapse upon itself, creating a black hole. Were not it for the Nazalqar ships, or rather, the Nazalqar shield as it is now known, humanity would never have gotten to send this message to you at all.

So, if you can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: Now we humans of Earth have banded together, and we send this message to express our gratitude to whoever sent the Nazalqar ships to our system, for you have not only saved our species as well as countless others… but you have broken down our borders, and have genuinely welcomed us to a community of galactic civilizations. We no longer see ourselves as disparate or divided. We no longer have nation states. We are now globally united. For that, we have the Nazalqar to thank, whoever they might be. We cast that first golden record to the stars with hope and determination and were met with goodwill in a vast and awesome universe. We hope that some civilization will hear our story and know of this exchange, and know that we in kind welcome any other galactic civilizations, and will offer that same goodwill, in the efforts of spreading peace and prosperity, as the Nazalqar ships provided us the time necessary to achieve just that for ourselves.

With that said, we hope still that whoever was out there listening the first time receives this message as well, and can perhaps tell us in simple terms, ‘Why Chuck Berry?’

Featured photo by NASA on Unsplash