So You Want to Talk With Aliens
Is music the universal language?
In Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the aliens communicate using a system combing color and musical notes. Notice in the clip below the hand signs given at the 15-second mark by French scientist Claude Lacombe, played by François Truffaut.
These hand signs were invented by Rev. John Spencer Curwen (1816–1880), to help with teaching music.
The sequence of notes used in the film is D, E, C, C (an octave lower), and G. The film also associates colors with each note. D is red, E is orange, C is purple, C (an octave lower) is yellow, and G is white.
It seems as though the aliens have their five-tone signal which the humans study. The humans then apparently combine those musical tones with a system of colored lights. The reason for doing this is never made plain, but what the humans seem to have done is…
