The KLEE HoaxThis story can be divided into three parts: 1) Those people that have heard the basic story and marvelled that a TV signal can show up at a receiver three years after being broadcast in a country several thousands miles away from the transmitter.2) Those people that haven't heard the basic story, or the solution, and... 3) The people who have heard the start of the story, but were not privy to the solution that appeared in an electronics magazine in January 1972 (and a hobby magazine four years ago.) |
I first read about this story in a book
by newsman Frank Edwards called "Stranger than Science." I was familiar with
Frank Edwards because at one time he was the News Director of WTTV, channel 4,
Bloomington-Indianapolis, Indiana.
Frank Edwards had collected all sorts of strange stories that had probably appeared on the news wires, or maybe in some other books of weird stories. All of the stories were the type that if you were reading the books at home, alone, at night, and there was a knock at the door...you'd probably run and hide under the bed. Anyway, this particular story dealt with the reception of an American TV station in England three years after the signal was transmitted. It had to be three years since the station in question had quit using that call sign three years before. This story was popular for a long time, but no mention of a detailed study was made until I saw a letter in an electronics magazine in the early seventies. Evidently the magazine had recently printed an article dealing with KLEE and an amateur radio enthusiast wrote in to offer a solution. The author of the letter was the International DX Editor of a newsletter that eventually became the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association. He was responding to an article that had appeared in Electronics World in October 1971 "Interstellar Communications--What Are the Prospects?" He said that the KLEE reception was frequently mentioned and he put together what must have happened if such an event did occur. If there was a "plasma cloud" that reflected the signal, then it would have to be a perfect parabolic shape with an error of no more than 300 meters. It must be astronomically large in order to collect enough energy to return a signal at 1.5 light-years distance. Furthermore, the picture claimed to have been received in England was transmitted at 55.25 mHz AM with negative modulation; audio at 59.75 mHz FM; picture at 525 lines by 30 frames (NTSC). The video (and, by some reports, sound) was received on England's channel 2 with video at 51.75 mHz AM with positive modulation; audio AM at 48.25 mHz; picture 405 lines by 25 frames (PAL). It should be noted that U.S. negative modulation means increased transmitter power causes the picture to get blacker, while a British picture with positive modulation will get whiter with increased power. After the author published these impossible conditions even to a fiction writer, a friend in Sweden stated that he was in receipt of a letter from a British experimenter who admitted transmitting the KLEE test pattern, but was afraid of legal action if he was ever known by name. The hoax was to transmit a picture to a TV receiver that was supposed to be able to pick up distant signals. A proof of reception photograph was sent to the transmitting station for verification. The strange story got started when the former KLEE said that they hadn't used those calls for three years. Sleep well tonight, citizens.
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