The MIT radar that beamed vaginal contractions of ballerinas to the universe

In the late 1980s, an MIT radar beamed recorded vaginal contractions of ballerinas to the nearest star systems. The message was broadcast for a few minutes before the US Air Force noticed and shut it down.

In the late 1980s, Joe Davis, a research affiliate in the Department of Biology at MIT, recorded the vaginal contractions of the Boston Ballet using a “vaginal detector” built specifically for this purpose. 

The detector consisted of a water-filled polyallomer centrifuge tube mounted on a hard nylon base that contained a very sensitive pressure transducer. It was so sensitive that it could detect voice, heartbeat, and respiration from the contractions. 

Davis translated the contractions into text, music, phonetic speech, and radio signals and used electronic music software to match the frequency of the contractions to the English speech. 

Called the Poetica Vaginal, the message was broadcast for more than 20 minutes using MIT's Millstone radar to Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, and two other nearby star systems.

Only a few minutes of footage was transmitted before the US Air Force, which had jurisdiction over the facility, shut the project down.

Source: Gizmodo.com, Newscientist.com