Answer, Please Answer !: A dire warning from space that humans do not want to hear

Summary

Two army draftees, both astronomers of different types, are sent to spend six months at the South Pole, monitoring weather patterns. The tensions of cold war between the US and Russia have increased to the breaking point and each nation has mobilized for imminent nuclear strikes. A sort of peace still exists but just by the narrowest margins. Sitting in their tiny igloo beneath the ice, the men talk about their jobs of searching the stars for intelligent life; one using visual means and the other using radio frequency means. In doing so, a strange anomaly is noticed in a star 600 light years away. It appears to be a regular signal of some type. Absurd of course but having little else to do, these two scientists try to crack the code, if indeed there is one, as a way to pass the time. They do. And the message is most definitely not one they wish to get. Listen to this story by the astronomer and master story teller Ben Bova and think about the consequences of our world's current armament race.