Micro-waves are indestructible. Once generated on Earth, they radiate out into the universe and continue on forever. If there are extra-terrestrial intelligences similar to ourselves out there and they are scanning the stars, as we do, searching for neighbouring ETs, it is our television pictures that they will first detect.
    Cringe at the thought that, once our deep-space message is decoded, the rest of the galaxy will view us in terms of Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy, news footage and soap powder advertisements. What will they think of us? Something not too far from the truth, I suspect. It’s hardly the way we would like to present ourselves, although considerably closer to the truth than any ceremonial show or politically correct message, or clinical scientific formulae. Get Smart and Dallas have far more truth to tell them than Carl Sagan’s sterile Voyager message could possibly hope for.