Has anybody ever shown mutual exclusiveness of "zyz" and "wyw"? If not, it wouldn't be of any further consequence, that "797" was declared a "zyz", even though it bears life. If we interpret "zyz" as gas giant (derived from "y": place and "z": liquid), maybe "wyw" would have to be interpreted more along the lines of "terrestrial planet" instead of "habitable planet" - otherwise the distinction would only make sense is a gas giant was necessarily uninhabitable. I'm nearly convinced now, that the image in line 3 of message 8 is an image if home-world as seen from the pole. The temperature at the pole is lower than at the equator and to make sure, that we understand what they are talking about, they made clear, that it was "2". I'm interpreting lines 3-5 in message 8 the following way: "the following is an image of our world [image] the point shown in the middle has a temperature of ... C, the points at the circumference have a temperature of ... C". The two "zyz" closest to the sun carry a "9", so this could mean something like "hospitable". On the other hand, one could expect the gas giants closest to the sun (i.e. the warmest ones) to have the weirdest chemistry and the most violent storms in their atmosphere. Thus "9" could as well mean "violent", which would make 0^9^0 something like "don't come close to us, we bite". Is it possible, that the "-" modifier makes a concept to a verb? You show a set of ascending numbers {1,2,3} to indicate, that -{1,2,3}- means "to increase"? -{3,2,1}- would be "to decrease"? -X=1- would be "to equate"? In this case, "2", which means "home" or "birthplace" would be transformed to -2- being "to dwell" or "to be born". The third to last line in message 8 could then read: "2 -2- 0 -2- 2", i.e. "tau Cetians originated on home-world" (as opposed to "just live here, but came from somewhere else") What is the verb associated with infinity or the universe? Maybe an abstract concept like "to be true" or "to exist"? "X+0=X is true"?? If "3" contains the "m", the universe, /and/ "-m-", existence itself, what is "3"? Spirit? Mind? God??? I don't see, why the Cetians shouldn't put philosophical or religious ideas into their messages just as well as physics, math, planetology ... I figure, "3" could be some state of mind, something like satori, which "contains the infinite" and "contains existence itself"... (Or maybe "3" is some weird drug, the sending Cetian is smoking ...) Any ideas out there, why there is no mentioning of protons or neutrons in the first couple elements? "Helium has 2 electrons" is nice, but "Helium has two protons" would add to the credibility of the translation and "Helium has 1 or 2 (X)" would make the translation waterproof (and introduce (X) as symbol for neutron) The time elapsed between two messages in days: 3 5 10 7 5 8 5 and since then there have been 18 days without a new message ... Oh well ...