That morning I cut myself on a computer case while I was replacing the floppy disk drive. It was a tiny cut, but refused to stop bleeding.
I was licking the wound when my boss Don knocked on the door of my office in the Computer Centre. “Brian, you might be able to help this lady. She wants to get information about a newly discovered planet. I’ll leave her with you.” Don disappeared. At the ‘historically black’ University of Fort Hare in what had been the homeland of Ciskei in South Africa there were all sorts of tensions I did not understand, as well as tensions I understood all too well.
The slightly built grey haired lady looked relieved “I’m Phyllis Morrison”, she said, offering her hand in a manner suggesting I ought to recognise her. I’m Brian Butcher, I said warily. Phyllis had an East Coast American accent. “I want to get some information from my University back home”. My husband Phil teaches at Massachusetts. He cant get in here. He uses a wheel chair. They’ve found a new planet. We need to contact them today. He’d like to talk about it in his lecture.
I explained about the Computer Centre. We had a bandwidth 256 Kb/s for the whole university, that is one eighth of the bandwidth now needed for one video shared between 200 computers. The computers all had used the Microsoft Windows operating system and virus issues were problematic. “Not really enought to get data about other planets. “We only use Unix in Boston”, said Phyllis.
I helped Phyllis send an email. and that afternoon get a reply. I saw enough of the email address to believe it was from Cornell University. And there was a paragraph paragraph starting ‘Sagan says’. I was starting to think this could be more than an outbreak of little green men. I showed Phyllis how files could be transferred by using FTP in a Windows computer terminal. She thanked me, saying “Are you coming to Phil’s Lecture”.
I told Phyllis I knew nothing about the lecture. She tutted, and told when and where it was to held. “You are welcome to come”.
“It was Phil and Cocconi’s paper that started it”, said Phyllis. I nodded. “They discovered the 21cm window”. Now I know enough about physics to know that the 21cm. window describes the wavelength of radiowaves which don’t get absorbed by the earths atmosphere or interstellar gases. It is this frequency which will be used between planets.
I was intrigued enough to tell everyone I met about the lecture. One of them came; no one else. He and I were the only people present. Not one member of the physics department, nor of the maths department. No Africans(3), no Afrikaaners, just me, a British volunteer and Axel, a white South African geography lecturer of German settler stock.
Phil talked for a while about SETI, the search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence of which he was a founder member. He introduced me to the ‘Drake Equation’.
I hung around in case Phil needed help getting his wheelchair back home. He was puzzled, and Phyllis was offended that no-one had come to his lecture. He said he had been unable to see the Vice Chancellor, but had been welcomed by the two deputies. He clearly had spoken with the professor of Mathematics. He doesn’t believe in Relativity, “It’s a Jewish Theory”(4).
I spontaniously said “What!” at such an extraordinary statement. “A professor of Applied Mathematics who does not accept relativity”. “On what basis.?”, I asked. “Einstein and Oppie are Jewish”. I was Oppenheimer’s student. This was getting bizarre: Albert Einstein created both theories of Relativity and Robert Oppenheimer work lead the development of the first three atomic bombs. Perhaps two of the 20th centuries most signifigant scientists.
“You seem to know some physics said Phil.” “I taught physics to ‘A’ level I explained - University entry. But I have worked though some of Feynmans ‘Lectures on Physics’. I’m a Feynman fan. He’s a brilliant teacher”. “We shared an office said Phil”. This was the third great 20th century physicist. “Phil was a physics team leader at Los Alamos”, explained Phyllis.
Uncertain about talking to a man who, if he was to be believed, must have known enough secrets to provoke a new James Bond movie I said, “I was a member of CND, I’m strongly in favour of Nuclear Disarmament. Phil replied “I agree; I used to be a member of the Communist Party”.
I AM HERE ABANDONING THIS STORY. THERE ARE TOO MANY STRANDS. SOME STRANDS ARE DISTRESSING. SOME STRANDS ARE FRIGHTENING. SOME STRANDS NEED A LOT OF EXPLANATION. SOME ARE PLAIN INCREDIBLE. THE MORRISONS STAYED IN FORT HARE FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS. I WILL TRY TO WRITE SMALLER PIECES COVERING THIS THREE WEEKS.
I did not realise it at the time, but some of the tensions in the University arose from the large numbers who were HIV positive. (The majority of the students). Don died some months later. Africans have rarely ever admitted to having AIDS. Don was Zambian and sadly he died of AIDS a year later, leaving a wife and two school age daughters.
GIUSEPPE COCCONI & PHILIP MORRISON. Searching for Interstellar Communications, Nature volume 184, pages844–846(1959)
I came across this professor. An Afrikaaner, he cut the coax cable supplying the computer science department in order to speed up the maths department computers. He was in favour of a Boer ‘homeland’, independent of Mandela’s South Africa. I believe it more likely he shunned Phil out of anti-English sentiment.
It could be that African students and staff did not come to Dr Morrison’s Lecture because disabled or sick people are kept away the public eye at home. Phil had developed Polio in early childhood.