If looked down upon from space
our planet, Earth, would be seen
to be a shining blue sphere
teaming with possibilities
and full of potential;
however, you would never be able
to see everything and everyone
that exists on our beautiful world from orbit
because you would be too removed -
but if you were able to listen to what humanity
broadcasts, transmits, and has shared
every moment of every day,
for over half a century now,
then you might find it hard to understand
everything that everyone is saying to one another;
however, if you were to travel farther from Earth -
say fifty light-years away -
then you would be able to receive
the transmissions of humanity
that left our planet fifty years ago,
and it would be like
discovering a message in a bottle,
or an audio signal of an era in time,
that travelled at the speed of light from its source
to be heard by anyone or anything that
was listening in Earth’s direction.

Earth has always been a world full of stories,
of civilisations, of beliefs, and our ideas
about why things are the way that they are,
and Earth has always been a world of invention
and of dreamers who hope to be given the answer
to the question of whether we are alone in the universe…
for all of human existence, groups of individuals -
such as scientists, artists, musicians,
and believers in a particular religion -
have sought to reach out their grasp
and touch the face of the unknown,
and reveal the truth about the meaning of life
and why we are here;
and since we have had the means and the resources
to send living beings into space to relay back
what awaits us far beyond the clouds -
from dogs, to chimpanzees, to humans -
as well as robotic sojourners capable
of sending back images of the planets
and the moons of our solar system,
as well as photographs of the extraordinary
phenomenon of our galaxy,
humanity has been uncovering
the history of the universe
as well as the possibilities of reality.

In 1977, two gold disks were launched
along with their respective Voyager spacecraft
containing a greeting from the people of Earth,
as well as images and depictions of
human anatomy and the building blocks of life,
the location of the sun and our solar system,
and also recordings of some of the sounds
that can be found and heard on our planet -
such as the sound of waves crashing,
birdsong, whale song, and a selection of
some of the human languages that our species
has evolved to use for communication
between one another for centuries…
even now, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 -
not to mention all the other probes
we have sent out into space -
continue their mission and their journey
into the great unknown,
hopefully to be one day found
by another, similar, space-faring, intelligent,
innovative, and inquisitive race of beings
who might wish to see whom it was that
chose to take a leap of faith and send
an invitation to a fellow member
of the galactic community to visit a beautiful planet
that is full of people, plants, animals,
and other things that need to be seen and heard
to be truly believed and understood;
however, it’s entirely possible that
we have already been visited by an intelligent
interplanetary extraterrestrial species of explorers,
who were drawn to our world a long time ago
and who have already bore witness
to the wonders of our planet,
and who have long since become obsessed
with the infinite number of the sounds of Earth.