Star Man Waiting In The Sky

What will you do when you meet your first alien? Ask Henk Swanepoel of Smithfield – he’s got the reception all worked out…

Text and Photographs by Chris Marais & Julienne du Toit

Pigs in Space

Despite its Bohemian name, The Pig-Out Restaurant in the southern Free State town of Smithfield is wildly popular. Where else in the world can you enjoy a brace of lamb chops under a whirring windmill while tracking the boundless Out There for extra-terrestrial life?

In the front yard of the old home doubling as the Pig Out and the UFO Research Centre are two huge satellite dishes pointing up at the sky. And inside the house, there’s a skinny man with wild hair. This would be Henk Swanepoel.

Henk is an amateur astronomer who loved the movie Indiana Jones, drinks Jameson’s, is a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and could eat croissants with basil pesto and tomato all day long

One room to the side is linked to the Universe and it emits a steady stream of pings and blips. On the other side is a kitchen where, judging by aromas, another kind of magic is happening.

Storm Centre

The Centre has three computer screens, all showing strange signals, like an elaborate electrocardiogram monitoring the skies.

Henk explains that the one is listening to the storms raging on Jupiter, one is listening to the sun, and the other is listening to the background hiss of the Universe.

His hobby is called, on his business card, “The Search for Complex Signals”.

And he’s living in a time when amateurs can make as much of a contribution as professionals. The real astronomers are devolving the grunge work, the repetitive, mostly unrewarding stuff, to amateurs.

Hiss of the Universe

For example, they track the weather on the sun and Jupiter. And they check out for complex signals, anything other than the background static sound that is basically the hiss of the Universe moving apart, the faint remains of the unimaginably huge explosion that was the Big Bang. And all that.

Radio astronomy, which lends itself to this inter-galactic investigation, is cheaper than the optical variety.

Henk tunes into 1.4 Gigaherz, which is “the frequency something would use to say ‘I’m here’.” It’s the quiet part of the spectrum.

“I have picked up anomalies, but later on found out it’s a bloody satellite overhead.”

Henk belongs to Nasa’s Radio Jove project, which does research on Jupiter, and of course, SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence – Project Argus.

Take me to your Nanobot

His motivation: “Well, if you do find something major, it will have a profound effect on the world. And if we don’t find any life outside Earth, it’s actually just as profound. It shows just how special we are.”

“The chances are that our first contact with life outside will be through robotic intelligence, rather than biological intelligence. It’s so much easier to send nanobots to go and explore than risk life itself.”

In the same way, obviously, as we have done on sending unmanned spacecraft to Mars.

We sit at his hi-tech desk, and he turns up the volume on the Jupiter tracker. It sounds like the giant planet is experiencing a pebble storm.

“It’s probably easier to predict the weather on Jupiter than the weather on Earth,” grins Henk.

So what do you do if you detect something odd, but aren’t sure whether it’s a satellite, a night-time hot air balloon armada – or an alien visitor?

Aliens Ate My Bakkie

During the Cold War, says Henk, NORAD was set up. It tracks anything bigger than a baseball in the space above Earth. It keeps a close watch on space junk and all kinds of satellites.

“So before you run to the press with your big news, you first check with them.”

In fact, there’s a whole “Discovery Protocol”. Once you’ve ruled out all other possibilities, and checked with Norad and then with SETI’s project Argus, you may be onto something.

“But there’s a kind of gentlemen’s agreement not to run to the media first. Also, you must pick up the signal at least three times, coming from the same place.”

Henk is a true Karoo eccentric. In his office is a book called The Idiot’s Guide to String Theory and a small poster advertising Thomas Dolby’s album “Aliens ate my Buick”. Also several other books: Alien Abduction Mysteries, and Aliens: Encounters with the Unexplained.

He often speaks to people who think they’ve seen UFOs. In fact he wants to be contacted.

“I especially enjoy meeting pilots, because they’re mostly intelligent, observant people who are familiar with the normal stuff you might see in the sky, the weather anomalies.

“People usually talk about bright lights in the sky and strange planes. They see things land and everything goes quiet. Or they’ll say ‘I’ll tell you what I saw, but don’t tell anyone else. Then there are people who think they’ve been abducted.”

Some people just need therapy, says Henk.

Take Notes When Abducted

“Listen, people! You’ve all got cameras these days. If you see something weird, take a picture. Try to calculate how big it is, how far away, and exactly where. And if you are abducted by alien spacecraft, for heaven’s sake, bring back a memento.”

Unfortunately, the popular press is quite pervasive when it comes to observations.

“For example, there’ll be an image drawn, say, of that grey alien with big eyes and a big head. Then suddenly that was the kind of alien everyone was seeing.”

Has Henk seen any aliens?

He sighs. “No. I wish I could. I’d love to be sexually abused by a couple of three breasted women with coneheads, but I don’t think that will happen.”

But there are alluringly credible accounts. Not too long ago, some septuagenarian tourists saw something come down between here and Rouxville, but by the time they got close it was gone. The next morning they found burn marks and the CSIR came and took samples. Henk was working for the SABC at the time. No one heard anything further about the Rouxville Landing.

“I would love to get physical proof of life out there. People think people like me do pseudoscience, but it’s real. At the moment there is no credible South African centre where you can send your reports. I have, however, a good questionnaire for those who have encountered alien life.”

A woman comes in for coffee and chips. She says she once saw a UFO. She and her husband were in the south of France. She was lying in a hammock and then she saw lights in the sky.

“They would stop, then go, then stop and went off in a zigzag. I said to my husband it can only be a UFO.”

Alien from Karoo Space

Chris has brought his own pet ET to town. We photograph him all over Smithfield, including a smiley pose outside the local tourism signs. One of them is the UFO Research Centre’s sign.

We show Henk the image. Even though he knows it’s a set-up, he gets excited.

“Hey, where did you find him?”

“Oh,” says Chris. “We were walking around town this morning and this little guy came up and asked us the way to the UFO Research Centre. So we directed him. Hasn’t he pitched?”

**  Famous physicist Stephen Hawking said recently that we shouldn’t don the makarapas and blow the vuvuzelas and cheer at the first sight of aliens landing on Earth.

He told the Times (UK):

“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans...”

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