During one of my most recent Wikipedia deep-dives, I found an article about the Voyager Golden Record: a disk attached to the Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 that contains 116 pictures and sounds of life on Earth. The collection is meant to serve as a representation of the diversity of life and culture on our planet; it contains greetings in 55 languages, sounds of nature and animal life, and pictures of humans doing human activities. The cover of the disk contains an instructional guide in pictures (shown above) so that a lonely extraterrestrial who might find it is able to play it. President Jimmy Carter has the final greeting on the disk: “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”
Jimmy, I think that’s beautiful. Unfortunately, the past 50 years have been quite tumultuous for the Earth. We are not surviving our time. We’ve expedited global warming by a few thousand years, gone through a global pandemic, and experienced the internet. I fear that if extraterrestrials found the disk, they would not be given an accurate depiction of life on Earth as it exists today. So, here are some proposed additions to the Voyager Golden Record.
- An photo of the Breezewood highway interchange, to show all of the fabulous colors we have here on Earth
2. An image of the Capitol insurrection, to make it clear that humans are animals too
3. Kanye stealing the stage at the 2009 VMAs, to show the importance of sharing
4. Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, to show our beautiful ecological landmarks 
5. “HELP” in many languages, to display our linguistic and cultural diversity
6. Black Friday, to show our love of competition
7. Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump meeting, to show the importance of friendship #bffs
8. Audio of me screaming, just because
Ah, humanity. These are just some of the many possible things we could add to the record. Unfortunately, we’ll likely never know if anyone finds the Golden Record; the Voyager’s communication powers are projected to die in 2025. But on the chance that they do find the record, I hope they enjoy a small slice of all that we have to offer here on planet Earth.
“The 2009 VMAs to show the importance of sharing” I’m losing it
This feels like it was written in a dark place, Elle. I appreciate your sarcastic pokes at humanity, though.
First of all, are you OK?? Second of all, I genuinely laughed out loud reading this. The “love of competition” and “importance of sharing” are my favorites. I would also love to hear said audio of you screaming if you ever record it!
You’ll make the aliens not want to invade the planet anymore. Really saving the world.
We are the greatest when it comes to destroying everything!!! HUMANS NUMBER ONE BABY!!!