Unemployed technician photographed seven hotspots in the Gobi that shouldn't exist. Three months later, he stood on a Pacific research vessel, staring at the regular hexagon at a depth of 5,800 meters under the sonar screen. It's forty-five kilometers under the sea, and it's been here for four billion years, sending the same set of signals. No one knows what it says. No one knows what it will cost to hear it.
There is something underground.
Four billion years.
When you look at it, it looks at you.
What you don't know is:
Seeing yourself is valuable.
Cheng Wang photographed six pale yellow infrared spots on the Gobi northwest of Gecheng. Arranged in a regular hexagon, there is another one in the center. Buried deep underground, the temperature is abnormal.
He posted the data to a forum for fringe researchers. A retired geological team member said he saw the same thing twenty-seven years ago. A PhD in mathematics said that distribution can be described by formulas. One girl said she could "hear" sounds that the device couldn't detect. Six people pooled together 30,000 yuan in equipment fees and lit up one after another in the darkness.
They discovered there was more than one. Twelve groups of identical hexagons were found from satellite data, distributed in a strip across the territory of China. They have appeared one by one every year since 1999, and the frequency is accelerating. Deeper, at 5,800 meters under the Pacific Ocean, there is an even bigger one. It's sending a signal.
No one has heard it in 43,000 years. Now someone heard it.
Then everything started to change.
