[ WP ] In 1977 , the Voyager spacecraft was sent out into deep space with a message from the people of Earth . Today we had it sent back to us .

Our radio astronomers at Green Bank were the first to notice back in 2014. The Doppler shift did n't quite look quite right - all the velocity vectors were backwards. They dismissed it as a bug in the system, until the same error cropped up every time they ran the numbers. Only one thing could explain it: *Voyager 1* had been *turned around*. Something - or someone - out there 128 AU from Sol had taken the fragile probe and managed to bring it from 8 km/s to a stop, and sent it right back where it came from at the same speed. According to their calculations, *Voyager* was on a collision course with Earth and would impact this year: 2051. 
 
 The news seemed absurd. What could possibly have done this, and why? Was it just a misplaced minus sign in the math? Every available array that could pick up *Voyager*'s faint 22-watt signal was pointed towards it. They all came to the same conclusion, over and over again. For 11 years we watched the probe, until in 2025 its internal reactor finally went dead and we lost the signal. By then, we had calculated its trajectory with incredible precision, and NASA had come up with a plan to catch the derelict spacecraft. 
 
 In 2049 the unmanned *Hermes* spacecraft was launched. Its fusion engines made it mankind's fastest vehicle by far, and it had to be: *Voyager* was now screaming towards Earth at dozens of km/s, sped up by decades of falling towards the sun. *Hermes* was tasked with intercepting the speeding probe and safely inserting it into LEO. The mission was a resounding success, and two years later humanity's first interstellar ambassador circled just 200 km above our heads once more. 
 
 The world held its breath as a brave crew of 5 astronauts were sent up to rendezvous with *Hermes* and investigate the returned probe. No one dared suggest bringing it down to the surface - who knew what alien contaminants it may hold. *Hermes* had n't been blessed with an abundance of cameras, so details on the probe's condition were still unknown. We only got answers when Commander Bowman first pulled back *Hermes*'s containment fairing. *Voyager* was intact, all right... antenna, magnetometer, radioisotope generator all in place. Bowman then maneuvered around to look at the other side of the probe. 
 
 No one alive would ever forget what they saw next. 
 
 *Voyager* had been launched carrying the Golden Record: a gold-plated disc containing information about Earth; sights, sounds, diagrams, all wrapped up to explain to any alien who we were. But now the Record was gone. In its place on *Voyager*'s frame sat a glowing, translucent tetrahedral crystal, about a half-meter on its side. Bowman was at a loss for words, as was the rest of the world. 
 
 We had sent out the probe with a record of our world. Someone had sent it back with a record of theirs.
