Locked Gate at Dawn: A Letter, a Signal, and a Missing Hour

Locked Gate at Dawn: A Letter, a Signal, and a Missing Hour

Fear tightens as a methodical man is found outside a padlocked gate at 22°F with a fresh palm laceration and a letter postmarked the same morning containing a radio-frequency sequence matching that night's recordings-what happened in the missing hours between his log and his discovery? Could a signal at the 1.6 GHz “watering hole” and a mysteriously timed envelope be the only traces of whatever pulled Grant McCarthy out of the observatory?

In this episode, we tell what unfolded at Cerro Seco Radio Observatory the morning Grant McCarthy walked out into the cold and could not explain why. Hear the timeline of his shift, the anomalous radio pulse at the hydroxyl frequency, and the envelope placed under the observatory door-why does the recorded signal end long after his log does?

Person: Grant McCarthy
Date: November 14, 2011
Location: Cerro Seco Radio Observatory
Temperature: 22 degrees Fahrenheit
Signal frequency: ~1.6 GHz (hydroxyl frequency)

- Grant McCarthy was 38 years old and had worked the overnight shift at Cerro Seco for six years.
- His observation log ended at 3:58 AM mid-sentence; the recorded signal stopped at 5:51 AM.
- Pamela Henderson found Grant standing by the padlocked gate at 7:19 AM after he had been outside for roughly three hours.
- A laceration across Grant’s left palm suggested grabbing chain-link fencing and he was treated for mild hypothermia.
- An envelope addressed to "The Overnight Operator, Cerro Seco Observatory" was postmarked November 14, 2011 and contained a repeated column of numbers matching the night's recorded signal.

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