NASA installed a 12-inch disk containing music and greetings in 55 languages in case intelligent extraterrestrial life ever found it.

But now the spacecraft is sending back what sounds like an answer: Signals in an unknown data format!

The best scientific minds have so far not been able to decipher the strange information – is it a secret message?


Alien expert Hartwig Hausdorf said:"It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth" Read more in Bild

Engineers are working to solve the data transmissions from the Voyager 2 spacecraft near the edge of the solar system, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said today.

The spacecraft late last month began sending science data 8.6 billion miles to Earth in a changed format that mission managers could not decode.

Engineers have since instructed Voyager 2 to only transmit data on its own health and status while they work on the problem.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, explored the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and kept on going. Nearly 33 years later, they are the most distant human-made objects.

Voyager 1 is 10.5 billion miles from Earth and in about five years is expected to pass through the heliosphere, a bubble the sun creates around the solar system, and enter interstellar space.

Voyager 2 will follow after that.

Source

I wonder, was the Voyager 2 programmed to send back data once in a while? -Maybe in certain circumstances?
If not, it would be even stranger. Maybe Voyager 2 actually completed it's mission: Contacting intelligent alien lifeforms... Who knows.

I hope they can translate the data to clearify this.

This really got my attention.
It would be great if it where aliens, but i don't get why they don't keep downloading the stuff O.o
Anyway I featured the story.

The reason for sending out the voyagers was not a message back. More a proof of hey there are others out there, we are humans. If you are interested, the solar system after the alpha centauri, turn right and a few lightyears from there is our solar system. Then look for the blue/yellowish ball thats us

Yea so it really is scary that it sent stuff back.

Bull.

Hey welcome back.
Could you please say why it's "bull"?

*Shrug*
It just is.

It is ment to send data streams towards earth since its launch in 1977.
Now on April 22, 2010 the stream of information suddenly changed.

It looks like someone reprogrammed or hijacked the probe.

I know there is alot of stuff just raging around space where it is now, perhaps it got lightly damaged,
or damaged over time cos it is in use for over decades.

If aliens were checking it out, i doubt it would be lined up with earth for us to receive anything from it anymore.

Well about the lineup, they usually send it in all directions instead of just one specific one.
So it would be enough if the dish would be just pointing in our direction, that's a 50/50 chance

maybe it's recieving some galactic radiation noise, there is a lot you know.

or it got indeed bugged or hacked.

I'm not sure if you can reprogram the thing from earth.
If you can then you probably need giant antennas, etc like nasa has.

im sure if aliens touched they will definitely find a way to send something back

._. They send a message away finally get something back and still aren't happy with what they actually wanted. Weird logic and besides that i have no theory but to say it is probably not the aliens

According to nasa it was a computer glitch where a bit randomly flipped causing all of this:

Updated May 20, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. PDT

Engineers have successfully corrected the memory on NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft by resetting a computer bit that had flipped. Reset commands were beamed up to the spacecraft yesterday, Wed., May 19, and engineering data received today confirm that the reset was successful. The Voyager team will continue monitoring the engineering data, and if the bit remains reset, commands to switch to the science data mode will be beamed up to Voyager 2 on Sat., May 22. Receipt of science data would then resume on Sun., May 23.

Updated May 17, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. PDT

One flip of a bit in the memory of an onboard computer appears to have caused the change in the science data pattern returning from Voyager 2, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Monday, May 17. A value in a single memory location was changed from a 0 to a 1.

On May 12, engineers received a full memory readout from the flight data system computer, which formats the data to send back to Earth. They isolated the one bit in the memory that had changed, and they recreated the effect on a computer at JPL. They found the effect agrees with data coming down from the spacecraft. They are planning to reset the bit to its normal state on Wednesday, May 19.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-151

I myself still think that it's a bit fishy..