Subtitles by explosiveskull
Is that a plane?
What the hell is that?
Excuse me, Professor Hendricks?
Why didn't I get credit for number five?
You didn't write anything.
You missed a trivial solution x=0 and y=0.
I didn't miss it. I didn't think it was important.
Find all solutions.
You understand the definition of "all", Mr. Echevaro?
"Sometimes non-trivial solutions can be found,
sometimes they can't. Paradoxically, it is when
the trivial solution is the only solution that it's the most important case."
Exactly. This is a homogenous system of equations
and the important question is whether there are any non-trivial solutions.
If that's the important question then why didn't you just ask us
if there are any non-trivial solutions?
Because I want you to mathematically find all solutions.
But the most important question is whether the trivial solution is the only one.
Indeed.
That is the case with this problem.
So, why is it trivial if it's so important?
Now, I saw x=0 and y=0 was the only one so, I didn't waste my time with it,
AKA trivial.
I believe you're convoluting your words.
I'm not. It's very misleading. The book even says, "paradoxically."
Sit down.
Anybody else before I finish up here?
Thank you.
So, in the lab for next time
you should do problems one through 43.
The GDP of Assumption Land is 30,000,
the price level is 28,
the money supply is 560,000, right?
So, if the government decides to flood the market,
increase the money supply by a factor of 1.31,
what economic variable will be affected,
and what will its new value be?
Why does every problem have to take place in Assumption Land?
Can't they just say, like, a real country?
Well, it's easier than saying "Let's assume," every single time.
You did know that's why it's called "Assumption Land"?
- Speaking of flooding the market, - NATALIE: Hey!
did you know if everyone stopped using condoms,
it would actually lower the rate of STDs?
There would be more people without STDs doing it.
So, the chances of catching something would actually be lower.
You do not pay me enough for this crap.
Hey, Derek, you want to do that lab tonight?
Get it over with before the exam?
- Derek? - Did you hear about this?
"Flight operations at Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport
were temporarily suspended this afternoon after reports of a mysterious aircraft
hovering above the airport.
Witnesses included route mechanics and other airport employees."
This article says it looked like
a silver disc the size of a dime just below the clouds.
Dude, Natalie does not want to hear about this.
"A United ramp mechanic who wished to remain anonymous,
witnessed the aircraft and saw it depart.
However, he was surprised to hear radio chatter
between a pilot and ground control several minutes later
at 3:12 pm when someone in the tower said,
'It's still here.'"
People in the tower work with times all day long, okay? Very specific times.
There's no way that they would get something like that wrong.
So, the fact that one guy is saying one thing
and everyone else is saying something else, it doesn't make any sense.
How long did you watch it for?
- I ran away. I was scared. - Why were you scared?
- Because of the noise. - What did it sound like?
- Like someone was playing the flute. - Was it very loud?
- What's the case number? - RW-11-02-04.
Rebecca Watkins, Omega, Georgia.
- Access code? - Blue-15-EOXC.
What can I do for you, Mr. Ahls?
I'd like to archive this case file.
Insufficient evidence;
subject is being released from surveillance.
It felt like all the air was running out
and that the plants were going to die and everything was bad.
The contents are being accessed now.
Would you like me to see who's accessing them?
No, cut it off.
Okay, BLACKBOX-RW-11-02-04 has been archived
and is no longer remotely accessible at any clearance level.
Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Ahls?
No. Thank you.
- Ahls. - We got a call from DHS
about a sighting in sector 6, UTC negative 4, 39.04319 latitude,
negative 84.65842 longitude, ground elevation 896,
UAP elevation approximately 2,800.
It was right over Cincinnati Airport.
Radio?
We intercepted a signal across all frequencies.
We're sending you the radar feed from the time of the sighting.
We interviewed all the witnesses,
and we now believe it was a small drone...
Roland Junger, Airport Director.
I would have suggested that you fly directly here...
I hope your, uh, cameras are up to DHS specs
because I'm going to need the footage from every single one
in this entire facility.
All terminals, gates, hallways, stores, employee locker rooms,
baggage claims, runways, fences, hangars, parking lots.
I'm also going to need all the tower recordings,
passenger manifests, and my team is going to need four rooms,
conference rooms preferably.
I don't have four conference rooms here in the terminal.
You have two, plus the EOC I will take those
and one of your larger rooms, and I will tell you which one.
So, you want me to shut everything down
and start kicking people out of their offices in the middle of the day?
No, nothing gets shut down.
Everything continues as normal. There is one other thing though.
The man who is giving a press conference out front,
we do need to shut him down, immediately. Thank you.
Thousands of passengers from all over the world fly through CVG every day,
but what about the ones from out of this world?
Well earlier today, airline employees and passengers
claimed they saw a mysterious object
hovering over the airport for several minutes
before it shot off into the sky, cutting a hole in the clouds.
So, what do four billion light years
of frequent flyer miles get you?
Well, not so fast. Airport spokesman, Dave Ellison,
held a news conference to address that incident.
We interviewed all of the witnesses
and we now believe that it was a small drone.
Four to five feet in diameter, that drifted into our airspace.
That's what's gonna happen if Amazon does this whole drone delivery.
Dropping Kindles in the middle of the runways.
It wasn't a drone okay. The descriptions don't match,
the times don't match.
The route mechanic said it was the size of a...
Of a what?
Dime held at arm's length.
Does that match what was on TV?
What that guy said, four to five feet?
No way.
I mean, how do you even calculate that?
You don't know how high it was.
Well, somebody said that it was about 100 to 200 feet below cloud cover.
- How high was cloud cover? - That's about 3,550?
- No? - Shut up, Lee!
It was 2,900 feet, so 27 to 2,800.
So, let's just say 2,750.
Dude, don't you have exams to study for or something?
Don't you have exams to study for or something?
- Yes. Yeah. - That's what I thought. Bye.
So now, how big is a dime?
Seventeen point nine millimeters.
Now, what's arm's length? Like...
What is that? Like two feet. Maybe a bit less. 20 inches?
- Twenty-two inches. - Oh crap.
I forgot about Professor Magg's Panel.
It's this weekend.
You know that thing I'm setting up, helping on the door.
You're still coming, right?
- Derek? - Yeah.
Well, I'm not going to stay late
because I've got to take the practice GRE the next morning.
Where's that at?
It's over by Xavier. It's like a 30-minute walk.
Uh-huh.
- I'll drop you off. - You don't have a car.
- I'll borrow Lee's. - Is Lee okay with that?
Well...
Can you make sure? Because I can't miss this.
- I can't miss this. - Yeah.
X equals 88. It doesn't match!
X equals 88. He was lying! The guy on TV was lying.
It's not four to five feet. It's way bigger.
- Hello? - Uh, hi. Mr. Ellison?
- Yes. - I was just wondering
if we could ask some questions about the sighting at the airport.
- I'm sorry. Who is this? - My name is Derek Echevaro,
and I got your cellphone number
from the voicemail at your office.
Who do you work for?
The News Record. We just had a few questions
we wanted to ask based on eyewitness accounts, there were things we learned...
I've never heard of The News Record. Is that out of Ohio?
- Is that based out of Ohio? - University of Cincinnati.
University? You mean...
- Yes? - I think we got disconnected.
Do not call this number again.
I just want to know why you thought it was four to five feet in diameter.
Witness account says it was about the size of a dime held at arm's length.
Cloud cover was 2,900 feet, it was about 100 to 200 feet
below that which would make it 88 feet in diameter.
Sir, Whitley is in the field with a potential witness
and she's claiming to have heart problems.
There are plenty of other witnesses they need to talk to.
Call an ambulance and have them move on.
Paramedics will have to take her to Edgewood instead of Florence anyway.
Excuse me.
I keep getting calls from this guy.
He's saying he knows the aircraft was 88 feet across.
Did you get his name of this person?
Derek Echevaro.
Thanks, Dave.
Did any camera get a visual on this UAP?
- Pull up Gate A8. - Yes sir.
No, nothing there. How about A18?
Do we have a clearer shot of the south runway?
I'm not seeing anything. How about the north side perimeter?
There you go.
There's nothing. Let's go back inside the terminal, A4.
Yes sir.
All right, freeze that.
I want the names of all those passengers.
Now, take me to the ticket counter.
Freeze that. Okay, rewind it.
I want all those employees and anyone else from the ground
in Conference Room A.
I've been told that this is a federal investigation now.
So, you should know that if any of you talk to anyone,
your coworkers, your friends, your family,
including your spouses,
you could be charged with obstruction of justice.
Where's everyone else? Why's it just us here?
Yeah, why is it just us here?
What's going on?
They're saying it's a plane now. Natalie texted me.
Look at this.
Okay.
"After reviewing the witness testimony,
federal officials have come to the conclusion
that the mysterious aircraft
seen over Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport,
was in fact a Gulfstream IV airplane with a length of 88 feet...
Eighty-eight feet...
"It matches witness descriptions and investigators are confident
that the mystery has been solved."
He's using my math!
He's using what I told him on the phone to cover it up.
I bet you there is no record of a Gulfstream IV coming in
or out of the airport that day.
Go to ATCAudioLive.com. Look up Cincinnati.
Uh...
ATCAudioLive.
- Somebody must've taken it down. - No, it's live streaming.
People listen to that stuff all day, every day.
Somebody recorded it.
We'll be out soon, okay?
You'll never be alone.
United maintenance flight
is just joining alpha from the international,
what's your number, again?
United maintenance 44.
Hey.
Hey! When are we gonna do the lab?
Uh, I don't know.
Today's not so good. I didn't go to Diff. EQ.
Why not? Didn't you have an exam?
Where are you?
I'm at Cincinnati Airport.
This terminal is crawling with federal agents.
Why would they still be here
if they already figured out what it was?
It is an airport. How did you get in?
Bought the cheapest ticket I could find.
Derek! We need to start the lab today.
I can't get a B in Hendricks' class.
Professor Hendricks?
Hi. Um...
I was just wondering, it's such a crazy time.
Uh, with my midterms one after the other, I was just wondering...
If you are asking for an extension, the answer is no.
Why?
Derek, you are one of the brightest students I have ever had,
and you are also the most disruptive and argumentative.
Even when you know other people are right, you argue your point.
Well, that trivial-non-trivial stuff is so confusing...
No, it isn't... not for you.
You're on scholarship from the Akamai Foundation.
Yes, I read my students' files.
And you got that scholarship because you placed in the Olympiad
which is one of the top math competitions in the country
and you are failing my class.
Is there something we need to talk about?
No.
I've been at CVG a long time
and I've never seen an object like this.
What was it like at the airport after the sighting?
Chaos, I imagine?
It was fairly chaotic.
The government showed up after about two hours
and there were agents everywhere. And then they brought us all
into a conference room, everyone who had seen it.
They didn't tell us what was going on.
They took away our phones;
they kept us there for about ten hours.
They didn't let us call home, didn't let us use the internet.
It was... It was terrifying.
The airline employee said he heard radio chatter
from pilots and other airport workers
about the unidentified object.
However, despite repeated requests,
the FAA has yet to turn over
any transcripts or recordings from the tower radio that day.
You really think someone's gonna have this recording on here?
Is this a... is this part of that airline forum thing?
It's a chatroom on Tor.
What's Tor?
It's one of the ways to get into the dark web,
which is where people do things that are illegal
because it's very hard to trace.
"Their Plans Against Us"?
Whose plans against us?
It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.
Hmm, "ATCronnie, Pilot81604,"
You know, these are just a bunch of people in Yoda outfits
making up fake accounts.
It might not be the pilot of a 747,
it might be someone who flies little planes...
Yeah, or it might be someone who was born on August 16th, 2004, right?
What are the numbers at the end? 81604?
Probably 13 years old.
Here we go. "CincyDawn" says they have them.
Dawn?
D-A-W-N? Like the name Dawn?
- What's her deal? - Oh, God.
What? She probably goes to UC.
She's probably not interested.
- Probably real smart... - Probably 13.
- Right. - Right.
Why are there so many files?
United, American, these are all the different frequencies.
Here we go, here's the tower.
United 367 preparing for takeoff.
Not sure if you're picking this up on radar,
but to our left looks like a stationary drone, some sort of drone.
On the runway?
No, south of that. Down by you guys in the tower;
altitude maybe 2,700 feet. Please advise.
I'm not seeing anything, but I'll have a look.
The hell was that noise?
You have eyes on it now?
It's not moving, just hanging out there.
Copy that, three six seven. Stand by.
Anyone else hearing this?
What is it, Hal?
Three six seven, I'm getting confirmation down here that it's still there.
What'd she say? Did she say Al?
- Copy that, three six seven, standby. - Anyone else hearing this?
What is it, Hal?
Sounds like "Hal." I heard an "H."
Three six seven,
- I'm getting confirmation. - Yeah.
- Tower. - Hi, I'm looking for Hal.
Hal, Al, Hal.
Hal Lapierre?
Yes. Is he on shift right now?
Let me check.
Good luck with Hal, dude. I'm going to get you a drink.
Hey, yo, Zach! Where's that vodka?
two, three... 523...
Five over...
Hello? Who's calling?
Sir, you couldn't have seen it.
Who is this?
They said you saw the UFO, on the radio.
They said that you said that it was still there.
Are you a reporter? I can't talk about this.
Why not?
Because I can't, okay. I'm sorry.
No, no, wait, wait. I understand that somebody told you
you're not allowed to talk about it but...
- No, I never said that. - There's no way
that you could've seen it, you would've had to been
- looking almost directly up, and - It wasn't that...
there's an overhang on the tower that would've blocked your view,
I know you could get in trouble
- That's not... - for talking, but there's no way
you'd have seen it even if it was there.
I never said I saw it! I...
Mr. Lapierre?
He didn't see it, he heard it.
The static.
Wh... what about it?
That's what he heard.
The interference is from the UFO.
Yeah, it's not moving, just hanging out there.
Copy that three six seven, stand by.
It's a sequence of tones. Each is one-tenth of a second
represented here by these circles, and then the dashes are one-tenth
of a second of silence so in total, it's 2,623 symbols
which comes out to four minutes and 23 seconds.
And then it started to repeat itself,
but it stopped. I have no idea why.
You think it's some sort of signal?
What's that? Nine four three three?
Well, I was thinking maybe it was binary
like a 32-bit computer looks at chunks of 32, 64 at 64.
I have no idea how to break this up, but I think that it's a 14-bit
because you've got 14 circles here at the beginning and at the end.
- Hmm. - So, if it is 14,
this chunk comes out to 9,433 okay?
Or you could bring it into two seven-digit chunks,
one is 73 and one is 89.
- You gonna come over again? - Do you wanna help figure this out?
No, I have to study.
I don't get anything done when Lee is around.
Will you at least take a copy home?
Afternoon.
Non-homogenous systems.
These are systems that might not have any solutions at all.
It's open.
Hi. My name is Natalie,
I'm in your Linear Algebra class,
and I was wondering about letters of recommendation.
I only give letters of recommendation to students who finish with an A,
so I will talk to you at the end of the semester.
Right, okay. Sorry if I'm jumping the gun.
Um...
Would it maybe be possible to get an extension on the lab?
- I already told Derek no. - Yeah.
He's got a lot going on right now.
From what I've read, a lot of the best mathematicians
do their best work in their early 20's; Einstein, Ramanujan...
Riemann, Abel, Galois, I know the list.
You.
Look, I've made my contributions.
Now it's your turn, but you have got to do the lab.
Either get him on board, or do it yourself.
Okay. Thank you.
Hello, leave a message.
Lee, I've figured it out. It's dates.
And it's close to 0.007297.
That's the Fine-Structure Constant, but it's in 14-digit chunks.
I think maybe they're trying to figure out how smart we are.
Or they're trying to tell us they're from a planet
that has the same physical laws as ours.
But they're not from five billion light years away...
He's already figured it out. It's the FSC.
Isn't the lead singer like the main part of the band?
So, it may as well be a cover band with,
you know, it's like the same guitarist and everything,
but I just feel like on a basic level, like,
it's pretty different right? I mean, I don't know.
Lee, did you get my message? They're using basic math
as a way to communicate: 1+2=3, 3-2=1.
Okay and the Fine-Structure Constant is in there.
So maybe they're trying to tell us they're actually from somewhere nearby
or maybe they're just trying to establish a common mathematical language
so we can actually decode it.
I mean, anyone who knows basic math
and physics, knows numbers like 3.14159 and 0.007297.
Yeah, of course. What is this 38?
That's binary.
Then there's 2,623 times 2,953.
Okay so 2,623 is the total number of bits in the signal.
Each one is one-tenth of a second long.
That comes out to roughly 774,572 seconds.
So that's almost exactly nine days, okay.
So, Tuesday, the day of the sighting,
plus nine days, that's next Thursday.
That's six days from now.
Okay, so what's happening Thursday?
Maybe it's coming back.
I'm not an astrophysicist so thank you for coming.
I just want to ask you a few questions about the Fine-Structure Constant.
I'm told that you could shed some light on it, how it could be used
as a benchmark for determining intelligence
or pinpointing a location in space.
Using the FSC to determine intelligence
is fairly straightforward,
but using it to pinpoint a location in space is problematic.
Say the FSC is different in different parts of space,
which there's essentially no evidence of.
If the FSC did depend on things like local density,
and if two places, way far apart from each other
had the same local density,
they might also have the same FSC.
And if you gave that number to someone,
how would they know which place to go?
But if we had more than one, couldn't we use them
the same way we use pulsars to pinpoint locations?
Over a much greater distance, obviously?
The idea that it's different in different parts of space
isn't really the focus of research now.
You know, I have a room full of scientists who haven't been able
to explain anything to me.
The mystery continues concerning the object seen
hovering over CVG this past Tuesday
which the FAA says is no longer unidentified,
but was actually a Gulfstream IV airplane.
Reports of more bizarre activity around the time of the sighting have surfaced,
including widespread disruption of radio and cellphone signals.
Verizon, AT&T and Sprint all confirmed
major service interruptions in the Ohio and Kentucky area
near the airport, with T-Mobile being the least affected.
Were you open last Tuesday?
Did you hear about the thing at the airport?
No, I didn't see, but I heard about it.
And I think it might have messed with my cellphone.
I kept getting all this static.
Hey! Were you open last Tuesday?
So, if this was a UFO, right?
- And there were aliens on it... - Mm-hmm.
...what do you think they would look like?
You mean, do I think they're like little grey people with big black eyes?
- Yeah. - Okay. Uh...
Think about this.
I can take these two shakers, right?
Put them in front of you and count them. One, two,
- Mm-hmm. - because they stay in place,
- right? - Mm-hmm.
But if I was from a liquid planet,
and I don't mean a planet that's just covered in ocean,
but one that is molten all the way through,
by the time I put the second one down,
- the first... - Will burn up!
- No, Lee. The first one... - Or it would be gone.
well, it could have moved off.
Mm.
You know, I asked what they would look like.
Well... they probably look like...
something so far beyond what you could possibly imagine.
"Found something in the signal. I'll tell you
if you come to the party tonight."
What party?
It's probably that Sigma Kai thing.
Is that... is that Natalie?
9,433 is a prime number;
the multiplier at the end of the signal.
Nine thousand four hundred and thirty-three times 38.
So, what does that mean?
Well, a sequence of prime numbers
could mean it came from an intelligent lifeform,
but one on its own doesn't mean anything necessarily.
- So, you're going? - To what?
To the party that you just agreed to go to.
We're heading over at eight.
You're right, this is stupid. I'm can't, I'm sorry.
This is first...
Text me if you change your mind.
Campus Police.
Yeah, hey, I just got home,
and someone has broken into my apartment, okay.
All my stuff's... oh, shit.
My webcam's on.
There's an executable running in the System Processes
and my webcam was on. I didn't turn it on.
Could you possibly have a virus?
It's not a virus. It's not behaving like a virus.
Did anyone physically break in here?
Yeah.
I just have one more question. Whose is this?
There was an executable running in the background
and I had no idea what it was.
I tried reformatting the computer,
but it just showed up again.
It was on Lee's computer too.
Hello, leave a message.
- I saw something in the activity monitor. - He's still not answering.
It looks like somebody was...
Had tried to change the size of...
Twenty-six twenty-three doesn't have any other divisors
other than 43 and 61, does it?
Those are both prime.
So, if I resize the window 61 by 43...
it's a grid!
All the dots line up! Why didn't I see this before?
They wanted us to know that 2,623 meant something,
like the Arecibo Signal.
The signal that Frank Drake and Carl Sagan
sent out into space in the '70's, right?
That was a semi-prime number too.
We have to go. Professor Magg's panel discussion;
it's today.
Nine four three, three times 38, Nine four three, three times 22;
what do these two lines mean?
I wonder if they've got anything to do with the Fine-Structure Constant.
Can anyone explain to me how this can be used
for determining intelligence?
As well as pinpointing a location in space?
How come we don't know everything there is to know about this number?
People?
I guarantee you, if this was the Manhattan Project
or you all were trying to decode the Enigma machine,
things would be a little bit different in here.
So, I'm gonna try to put this in a little bit of perspective for you.
Ten to the sixteen watts of energy.
Now, I know you're all familiar with the Kardashev Scale,
Type I, Type ll, Type lll civilizations.
Type I is a global civilization that controls an energy level
roughly equivalent to all of the solar energy
striking the planet's surface.
Ten to the sixteen or seventeen watts.
Type ll controls all the energy from a star
and Type lll is galactic.
Right now, we are about a Type 0.7.
We are becoming a global civilization,
but we are not quite there yet.
We control... roughly ten to the 13 watts of energy.
Now, scientists like you,
have calculated that we might possibly make the transition
to a Type I in the next hundred years or so,
if we don't destroy ourselves first.
We should see evidence of Type I, Type ll, Type lll civilizations
everywhere in the universe, if they existed,
but what have we found so far?
Nothing, which makes me think
it's either very rare or impossible
to make that first step to becoming a Type I,
but whatever, or whomever, showed up
at CVG the other day,
traveled huge distances to get here.
They have a mastery of space travel that,
well, we can't even begin to understand.
Chances are they have made that first step,
maybe even the second.
And we need to find out how they did it
and learn from that
because I don't know about you, but...
I'm pretty sure we can't do it on our own.
It's eight o' clock, have you tried calling Lee at all?
He's going to be fine.
The second you sat down, you had your computer open
and you were working on that crap!
I bet you totally forgot about tomorrow.
You're taking the practice GRE at 9:00, I'm driving you.
Now will you please just... will you come with me
because there's something I want to show you.
Derek, I'm going home.
I didn't sleep at all last night.
I'm sure Lee didn't either.
What if he gets kicked out of school?
His Dad's a huge benefactor at UC.
Okay, now will you come with me? Please?
Over here.
Okay, so if this is the distance between the Sun and the Earth,
how far do you think the next closest star is?
Proxima Centauri?
Twenty feet?
See, 71?
About twice as far as that, 4.3 miles.
Now, if that's our scale,
how big do you think the galaxy is?
You'd have to keep walking in that direction
until you got right back here; all the way around the world,
and then do that three more times.
And that's just our galaxy.
There are at least 100 billion other galaxies out there.
Derek, do you know why I did that panel today?
Because I live on Earth. And I need to get in good with Professor Magg
so he'll give me a recommendation for grad school.
What's your plan? What are you doing?
'Cause it seems like the only thing you care about is that signal.
It is the only thing I care about.
When I was a kid, I saw something.
I was in the diner where my Mom used to work...
and I saw these lights outside.
Not like a helicopter light, or airplane, or whatever.
I mean, they were... They were moving together.
And it wasn't like some grainy video
where you can't see anything.
I saw it.
I tried to tell her about it, but she didn't listen to me.
What was she supposed to do?
Believe me.
Do something.
- I don't know. - Put yourself in her shoes.
You know, your kid starts talking about aliens.
You know what I think?
I think she just didn't care.
Okay, so you have some baggage.
Doesn't give you the right to treat everyone else like shit.
Hundreds of years go by...
and people make tiny, little improvements.
And then there's an opportunity to take a giant leap forward.
Like with relativity, or going to the moon.
When it's your finals week,
you cut yourself off from everyone.
You go to the library, you drink 100 cans of Red Bull.
You don't talk to anyone for, like, four days,
because you know everything is riding on it.
This is my finals week.
What are the most important questions in the world?
"Is there a God?"
"What happens when we die?"
And... "Are we alone in the universe?"
If anyone answered any one of those questions,
it would change everything.
We're never as alone as we think we are.
Hey, we've... we've been trying to call you.
Phone's dead.
What, did they give you a fine or what?
Mm-hmm.
You're not going to get kicked out of school, are you?
Lee, I... I didn't know that stuff was in there,
but I think someone's monitoring our computers.
Who?
What the fuck are the police going to do about it?
Right. I probably should have called the FBI.
So basically, I got in trouble for nothing.
We almost figured it out, okay?
If you put it into a grid, 43 by 61,
it makes so much more sense.
And there are these two lines on it
and I think they might be coordinates.
- Could I borrow your car? - No.
Can you drive me to the airport then?
Oh, man! I have exams. Don't you?
Tuesday, but Dave Ellison has to see this.
And then what?
He's just going to crack and admit to everything?
I don't see how he can deny it.
Can't you take a bus?
The only way I'm going to catch him is if he's coming in or out of work.
And if I can't get into the employee lot,
I was going to follow him.
Home?
This is the last time.
I will never ask you for anything ever again.
That's him!
- Go, man! - Yeah.
Before he gets away!
Mr. Ellison?
Did you know that there was a coded message in the tower recording?
- What? - In the tower recording.
It sounded like interference, but it was actually a signal.
I'm sorry. Who are you?
I'm Derek. We spoke on the phone last week.
Excuse me? Is this the long-term lot? I think I'm lost.
You held a press conference at five o' clock that day.
I saw you on TV and you said that you had interviewed everyone.
Did you do that yourself?
How in depth were they?
Were they five minutes or two hours or...
- I don't know... - So, you didn't do it?
- He didn't say any... - He who?
So, there was only one guy?
And how many people did you interview? I mean, I know about eight
from the news article and you could not have started until...
- Is there a problem here? - 3:30 or 4:00 the earliest.
So if there was one guy, and each one was about a half-hour long,
and there were eight eye witnesses,
I don't see how you could've started a press conference at five.
Is there a problem here?
We spoke to all of them briefly before...
You said that, "We interviewed all the witnesses on that day."
- The actual interviews didn't take place... - But you didn't do them!
Do you know how many threats the airport gets every day?
If it's not somebody threatening to blow up a plane,
they're going to bring on box cutters, hijack it,
gun down people in the terminal, you name it.
In the middle of all of this,
I have some maintenance workers say
they saw something hovering near the runways, but it left,
so we checked surveillance. There's no indication of it.
- Tower didn't see anything. - They couldn't have...
So what are we supposed to do?
Issue a no-fly warning to your aliens?
Try to convince the Air Force to scramble
just to shoot down something that we can't find on radar?
Close down the airport
and have people miss their flights
because of something most people don't believe exists?
Even if the people in the tower said they saw...
- They didn't see anything! - You have eight independent descriptions
- from your own employees... - Did you see it?
We did a thorough investigation...
- The interviews were formality! - We found it was a Gulfstream IV,
- Look at the tower! With overhang - matches what they saw.
- how'd they know? - What the other people saw.
- How would they even know that? - Because it's what I told them to say!
I want them out of here.
Natalie, he admitted it.
Dave admitted it was a cover-up.
- Did you hear what I said? - Yeah.
Are you... Are you mad at me?
What do you need, Derek? Study notes?
What? No.
Then why are you here?
I came here to tell this
'cause you're not answering your phone.
Do you understand how huge this is?
I missed the GRE because of you!
The practice GRE!
Derek, if you had the chance to redo things
and all the circumstances were the same, would you still have left me there?
That's what I thought.
Look, what do I have to do to fix this?
You can't, okay? You had a choice and you made it.
Natalie?
You'll never be alone. You know that, right?
You think it's some sort of signal?
Oh, shit!
Come on!
Hello?
Can I talk to Professor Hendricks, please?
Who is this?
It's Derek. I'm in one of her classes.
It's Derek. He says he's a student.
Derek? How did you get this number?
I know it's late and I shouldn't be here,
- but I have something... - Here?
There are numbers you can call where trained professionals
- are available 24 hours... - You're the best...
- You're the best mathematician I know! - To deal with this issue.
This isn't some bullshit textbook problem, okay?
This is more complicated than anything you've ever seen before.
And if I'm right, I've got 'til three o'clock tomorrow to figure it out.
Where'd this come from?
The tower radio at an airport.
Becca, is everything all right?
Yeah. Go back to bed.
We'll just be a minute.
Sorry if I woke you guys.
No, you're not.
You know there was a man who lived a long time ago,
a brilliant man, an inventor.
He took credit for other people's work.
He conducted dangerous experiments
with radiation that cost his assistant his arms.
He even helped to create the electric chair,
and he used it to kill somebody in order to prove
that his competitor's technology was dangerous.
His name was Thomas Edison.
You strike me as that kind of person, Derek.
Now don't get me wrong, I like electricity,
and the world needs people like that,
but I certainly wouldn't want to be friends with him.
I'm sorry, could you sit down?
You said this came from a tower radio?
Yeah.
There was something hovering over the airport last week.
Yeah, I heard about that.
I think that this is a signal from that, uh, aircraft.
You know what I've never understood about you conspiracy theorists?
Say you parked your car in the same spot every single day outside school.
- I don't have a car. - Let's just say you did.
And say you parked it in the same spot every single day.
And then one day, you came out and your car wasn't there,
and instead, there was an orange cone.
Would you automatically assume that your car had turned
into an orange cone? Or would you assume that...
- Professor... - it had gotten towed, or
that you'd accidentally parked in a different spot?
I don't see what that has to do with anything.
You don't automatically jump
to the most extreme explanations.
You analyze the reasonable ones first.
I've done that, obviously!
And nothing that happened at the airport makes any sense.
At all.
Do you have the tower recording?
No, south, down by you guys in the tower.
Altitude maybe 2700 feet...
I'm not seeing anything, but I'll have a look.
Do you have eyes on it now?
- Yeah, it's not moving... - No.
The signal strengths are different on different channels.
The strongest is the American Ground ops, and then the tower,
and then the quietest is United.
Okay. United is 131.075 MHz,
the tower is 360.85,
American is 460.675.
It gets louder as the frequency gets higher.
Hmm.
The phones.
T-Mobile is 700 to 1700 MHz and above.
The rest are 800, 850...
Every carrier had interference
except for T-Mobile for some calls.
So somewhere between 700 and... thank you...
1700 MHz, it stopped.
Wait, SETI said you should use 1,420 MHz
when you're sending a signal, because it has
the same radiation frequency as neutral hydrogen,
and hydrogen is the most common element in the universe.
Any intelligent life form would know that it's special.
So, maybe they broadcast to all frequencies...
until it built up to 1,420 MHz,
and then they spiked it at 1,420 to draw our attention to it.
What uses 1,400 MHz?
- Wireless telemetry systems. - Hospitals.
Any hospital even remotely near the airport
would've gone completely haywire.
- St. Elizabeth. - Hello, this is Dr., uh, Edison
from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
We were just wondering if you had recently had any issues
with your wireless telemetry systems.
Yeah, I think we did actually. Last week.
We had to send patients to Edgewood.
The only things we don't know are these two lines.
9,433 times 38 and 9,433 times 22.
Maybe they're landing patterns, or maybe they're coordinates.
207,526 meters north.
How would they know what a meter is?
Or a foot, or anything.
Maybe it's not even north and east.
Maybe it's west and south.
Well, the equations are meant to be read left to right and bottom to top,
and so it would make sense that...
the coordinates might be up and over.
But I think you need to talk to a physicist
or an astrophysicist.
I could recommend a couple.
What? Professor.
I know you think that if we stare at that signal long enough,
that something is going to click,
but you can't force it.
And I am certainly not the person
who's going to help you crack it.
I mean, math, science, physics? It's a young person's game.
Riemann. Galois.
Einstein.
Eugène Ehrhart was 60 when he got his PhD.
The Ehrhart polynomial?
Yitang Zhang was 57
when he proved that there were an infinite number
of consecutive pairs of primes
that were separated by less than 70 million.
Two examples.
Schrodinger. Frohlich. Smale.
Okay! Okay.
But I'm telling you...
you can't force it.
And sometimes, you just get stuck.
I know that look.
Okay.
I'm kicking you out.
We are servants rather than masters of Mathematics.
So, you're saying I just have to wait for it to come to me.
Do you know the definition of "we," Mr. Echevaro?
All right, let them through.
Opening up.
We need to be collecting every channel across the state right now.
Afternoon.
Chapter four. Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors.
Now, if we have a square matrix "A"
that represents a linear transformation,
then this matrix times the vector
is equal to a scalar lambda times the same vector.
Now, the "v" is called an eigenvector,
and the lambda is called an eigenvalue,
and these kinds of problems have...
applications in all kinds of things,
like structural engineering, and...
and spin transitions and neutral hydrogen.
And it has a wavelength of 21 centimeters.
That would be significant, wouldn't it?
Derek?
It doesn't matter.
The matrix is double, or half, or whatever.
Twenty-one centimeters.
Twenty-one centimeters, what?
The frequency of hydrogen.
The spectral line of neutral hydrogen
has a frequency of 1,420 MHz
and a wavelength of 21 centimeters.
Two lines, 38 increments east.
And 22 north.
And then you multiply both by 9,433.
And then by 21 centimeters.
The wavelength is the unit of the measurement.
It is coordinates.
Lee? Lee?
Uh. I need to use your car.
Please? I've only got one hour until three.
Go, man.
Go for it.
- Thank you. - Yeah.
We are servants rather than masters of Mathematics.
Remember when I told you that 9,433 was a prime number?
Yes.
That would be significant, wouldn't it?
Derek?
What do you think they would look like?
Here's the key, sir.
Will you gentlemen excuse us, please?
Yes sir.
Let's get those off of you.
The sighting at CVG wasn't the first.
There were others.
And every time we tried to establish contact with them
using a variation of the Arecibo signal, we failed.
They put the fine-structure constant in their message
to build a common mathematical language.
Uh...
I didn't know it could be used for determining intelligence.
In the new signal we received today,
there are 19 decimal places.
We can only measure it to 12.
And this one is much more complex than anything we've seen.
The last one was 14-bit, but this one is 42-bit.
And not only is it laid out on a grid,
it's three-dimensional.
Which tells us a couple of things. One...
They're a hell of a lot smarter than us.
And two, when we're trying to find them,
we might be off by a lot.
In their first signal, they sent two-dimensional coordinates
here on Earth.
In this new signal, I believe they sent...
Three-dimensional coordinates in space.
Well, the focus of research now is not that it changes
throughout the universe, but that it changes over time.
Okay, so we have to work out a more accurate way of measuring the FSC.
Which means developing new technologies, new theories.
And that could take five years or 500.
Or five months, with your help.
And you do understand what this means?
We're not alone.
And then there's this story you may have already heard about.
United Airlines employees who swear it was something other-worldly
in the skies above Chicago's O'Hare Airport on November 7th,
but neither the FAA, nor indeed their own employer,
appears to be taking them seriously.
Chicago Tribune, interviewing several people anonymously,
including maintenance workers, baggage handlers and pilots,
who each have all described a dark gray, saucer-like object
that hovered low over Concourse C
of the United Airlines terminal just before sunset
before shooting off into the sky. Some say it moved so fast,
it literally punched a hole in the clouds.
United Airlines claims it had no record of the sighting,
even though employees say they filled out reports.
The FAA initially told the Tribune
that it likewise had no information on the UFO.
Then, after the newspapers filed paperwork under
the Freedom of Information Act, the FAA turned up a call from
the United Airlines supervisor to the airport control tower
asking whether the object was on-radar. And now, the agency has concluded
it was, quote, "weather phenomenon,"
and it considers this case closed.
Subtitles by explosiveskull