[ WP ] American satellite started transmitting 46 years after being abandoned in 1967

LES1 should n't have even been able to transmit a signal at this point. It had been made over eighty years ago and left for dead in the junkyard that was our orbit. It was one of the many early failures of human space travel. The satellite had sparked up once before almost forty years ago, but back then there had n't been a machine to pick up what it was saying. The LES1 program was added over the course of the year after that, more out of curiosity than anything. 
 
 I leaned back in my office chair and looked at my third monitor. I'd been regulated to working on the watch board for the past 3 years. We did n't do much save for looking at screens and waiting for something irregular. LES1 counted as irregular. I took the time to put down my coffee before I opened up the flashing window. 
 
 LES1 was sending me static. It was remarkable that it was sending anything at all, but it was a let down to not have some sort of alien sending me a transmission. Sure our contact with the Zephryn had n't exactly been peachy, but I'd wanted to make my place in history. I took another look at the static. There was n't even a pattern to it. 
 
 I rolled my eyes and opened up another window on the computer. If I was going to have to look into this I was going to do it right. We had installed the encryption program that the Zephryn used against us onto all of our transmitters. I opened up the program we housed it in and began to run it. 
 
 The static stayed. Whatever the transmission was, it was n't Zephryn. 
 
 I rolled my eyes and stood up from the computer, the static continued to play. I needed to get working on the forms about this encounter. Even if it was just white noise there was something to be said about LES1 coming back online. It was interesting and all, but I'd gone to university for xenolinguistics, not'sitting at a computer waiting for space to say hello'. 
 
 I pulled out the piece of paper and signed my name at the top. The static jumped a few times before it cut out. There was silence in the room save for the hum of monitors and my scratching pen. 
 
 `` Hello,'' a voice rang out from my computer, `` We are requesting permission to land from the United Nations of Earth.'' 
 
 I slowly looked up from the computer. That had to have been a joke. I did n't need a degree in xenolinguistics to understand English. I looked over to the desk on the other side of the room, Debra was still out on her smoke break. 
 
 I was supposed to get permission from her before calling something in, but someone higher up needed to hear this now. 
 

