The Message Ep. 1

[MUSIC] I'm Nicole Tomelin, and you're listening to Cypher Cast. [MUSIC] Now, who wants to hear one of the most highly classified? I'm talking top secret radio transmissions ever recorded. [MUSIC] I know, I know. This is supposed to be native tongue, my little linguistics podcast, but native tongue is now Cypher Cast. [MUSIC] Because from now on, I'll be recording it from Cypher. [MUSIC] Cypher is a private cryptography firm run by my two heroes in the fields of code breaking and encryption. [MUSIC] So, how did I score an internship with my all time idols? And more importantly, what the hell was that about a highly classified transmission? Well, here's what happened. [MUSIC] Okay, so I guess I'm going to take a message. That's Jeanette Callan, one of the brilliant code breakers who works at Cypher. Not someone who should be answering phones. I'm just saying if I was there right now, I'd be the one taking the message. Okay, so basically you have a linguistics degree from the University of Chicago, but you want to make us coffee for free if what? I guess. If you let me podcast about the work you guys do. >> Mm-hm. >> Okay, hold on a sec. >> At this point, Jeanette puts me on hold for a long time. I know it's a Hail Mary. Why would Dr. Robin Lyons and Professor Ty Waldman, two of the nation's foremost code breakers, veterans of the NSA, beloved campus fixtures at Amherst, ever allow me to podcast about their private consulting enterprise? Five minutes pass, then 10. Then- >> Ms. Tomlin? >> Nikki's fine. >> I'm supposed to tell you to take the 120 train to Albany and someone is going to pick you up from the station. >> What? >> Yeah. >> Okay. I'm also supposed to tell you to bring your recorder. >> Now on the Amtrak from Penn Station to Albany heading into some pretty hardcore unknown. Those of you who've been with me since July, and God love you, will remember my episode on Ty Waldman and Robin Lyons. I mean, I'm not going to meet them, obviously. I'm never going to meet them. Except they are sending a car. There isn't even a receptionist in the Cipher Lobby. I'm left waiting there for close to half an hour when I hear a voice behind me. >> You're the pod person, right? Or the podcaster? That's you, right? >> Robin Lyons, executive director of Cipher and basically the woman I want to be. >> Yes, but Nikki's working? >> Mike? Yeah, all of it? >> Yes, it's great. Follow me. >> Okay. I follow Robin into her office trying not to drop any of my stuff, and bam, there's Ty Waldman. Just hanging out, just drinking a cup of water like he's not the coolest person ever. I'm freaked out. I think maybe 30 seconds past before I even notice there's another person in the room, an older man in uniform. >> Am I allowed to give her your name? >> Lieutenant Colonel Perry U-Banks, ma'am. >> Hey, should I just-- >> So, not necessary. >> Colonel U-Banks, it turns out, is an old colleague of Robin and Ty's from their NSA days. >> And just to clarify, Nikki, your recording equipment is live right now, yeah? >> Yes. >> So, Perry, if you really meant what you said about this being declassified, you won't mind saying it right now. >> Can we sit down first? >> Right after you repeat the thing on the record. >> The NSA would like to hire Cipher to decode a message. We have reason to believe was transmitted by an extra terrestrial. >> Crazy town, right? >> Now, can we sit down? >> I'll say a part, you wouldn't be the first, a number of internal teams have taken a crack at it since 1945. >> You kept this a secret for 70 years. >> So, it turns out, in all that time, like 200 people connected with the NSA have tried to analyze this message. Colonel U-Banks put me in touch with one of the few guys still living, who actually worked with those teams. He's retired Warren officer Ronald Pequay. Pequay is a former signal technician at station Hypo in Pearl Harbor, and check it out. He actually knew the guy who was on deck the night this bizarre transmission came in. >> Can you imagine what that poor guy must have felt? >> It was just a 19-year-old petty officer who was then stationed at Hypo. On the evening of July 21st, 1945, this kid was simply monitoring wartime communications for fleet radio unit Pacific, you know? >> Static all day long. The occasional transmission, most of them friendly, it's boring stuff. And then he hears that. >> So, he was pretty weirded out. >> Just about to hit his pants. Can you imagine the guy blown on an overnight getting hit? >> Well, we really don't know what it is. Voices, music, breathing. Have you listened to it here? >> Not yet. We're having a discussion about that. >> Oh, yeah. I bet I know what that's about. The curse, right? >> Hold that thought. We'll come back to that. But let's rewind back to yesterday. >> And Colonel U-Banks dropping that bombshell on Robin and Ty. >> Why bring this to us now? >> There's a documentary supposed to come out in the fall. Family members from two different decryption teams talking about messages from outer space. The government won't admit their loved ones were paid to translate. Just enough accurate info to make my colleagues uncomfortable. Now, standard practice in my field is deny everything and just wait it out. What I argued was, what's the point of standard practice here? It's 70 years old. What possible security interests are we protecting at this point? Why don't we just release it first and take the wind out of their sales? >> And they went for that. >> With every sentence, this sounds more and more like a conversation I shouldn't be here. >> Right, so your basis for legitimately believing this transmission is an extraterrestrial origin is what exactly? >> An earlier team determined that it met all five of steady standards for intelligent life. >> So your basis for trusting their conclusions? That team was led by Lewis Crull. >> The mention of that name freezes the cup of water to ties lips. >> If we do this and I'm not saying we are, we do it publicly. This Tomelon here will record it on our podcast or there will be an accessible document of the work we do. >> You're not going to call my bluff here, Robin, because there's no bluff to call. I'm serious about this. I know it's a weird thing for a guy in my field to say, but I really think that open source is the future. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Thanks, Gary. >> Well, obviously before we do anything, we're going to have to check everybody's work. >> We're going to take it step by step. >> Right. >> At this point, Ty goes into his office to review the data that you banged left behind. Now, Cypher's not Ceti, the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, but they can review the NSA's findings to see if they genuinely do meet Ceti's standards. With Ty off taking this first stab at this, I take the opportunity to ask Robin. >> So you guys have 14 years of collaboration under your belt? >> God, is it that much? >> I mean, that's longer than most marriages last. >> Well, our actual marriages would probably like to see a bit more of us, but yes, it's one of those situations where two colleagues complement each other. >> It seems like it's working. >> Well, the money's a little, let's just say, a contract like this, both lucrative and amazing PR, it could really be important for us. As long as it's not tinfoil hat nonsense. >> At this point, Ty comes back from the other room looking very, very quiet. He hands his tablet loaded with UBank's data to Robin. >> I don't want to see anything, just read it. >> As Robin disappears in the adjoining office with the tablet, Ty sits in the kind of silence where there is no right words to break it. I try anyway. >> It seems like there must have been like at least something in the materials or pretend that for some reason you wanted to know absolutely everything about me, right? So, you sneak into my house while I'm at work. And you go through everything. I drawers, computers, back of the closet, under the bed, the whole house, inch by inch. And the whole time, you keep looking right past the empty carton of orange juice on the desk in my study. [laughter] If you notice it at all, you just think I guess I'll go to the slot. But what you don't know is that for basically my entire marriage, I've been drinking orange juice straight from the container and putting it back in the fridge. My wife has asked me to stop doing this for literally a decade. She is at her whittest. So this morning when she finds yet another empty carton in the fridge, she places it prominently on the desk in my study. Yeah, it'll be nothing to you snooping around my house. But when I next step her my study and see it, it will say things to me that could never be said so powerfully in words, no matter how carefully chosen. Wow. Yeah, if it is real, if this is a real thing, we're not going to be able to crack it through any conventional means. There is going to be a carton of orange juice. It's going to be right in our faces and we're going to keep staring right through it. So we don't want to do it? That's why I do want to do it. About 10 minutes later, Robin comes back in with the same glassy look in her eyes that Ty just had. The two of them deliver a master glass, a nonverbal communication. They silently agree to call you banks together. Are you guys going to make me a happy man or what? All I'm agreeing to is to take it to the team for a more thorough vetting, but just back at the envelope looks promising. And provisionally pending review. Well then, I am a happy man. How about that? So when can I play it? I'm sorry, is it the podcast lady? Yeah, look, why don't we follow up with this? Can I play it on my show? Yeah, this is. Yeah, we'll get back to that. But I don't get an answer to this question. At least not today. No one says why, but I've kind of got an idea. This is a bit I didn't play you before from my interview with Ronald Pekai. Have you listened to it yet? Not yet. Oh yeah, I better know what that's about. The curse, right? I'm sorry. Did you say the curse? Yeah, yeah, the curse of the message. Somebody's told you about this yet. Well, there's an outside chance that it kills people. For more on this curse, and hopefully the world premiere broadcast of the message itself, join me next week for part two of Cypher Cast.