Ping by Pigeon

In 2001, Linux users in Bergen sent a real ping over a mountain by carrier pigeon. The fastest reply took 3,211,900.8 ms. A printed packet from that day is up for auction at Christie's this week. Fly the packet. Beat the bird.

Bergen · 28 April 2001 · RFC 1149

You are the network.

Tap anywhere to flap. Carry the ping over the mountain, wait for the scanner, then fly the reply home. Stay high for the tailwind. Don't join the other pigeons.

Here 1 second = 1 minute. Target: the real fastest reply, 3,211,900.8 ms (53.5 min).

Keys: space or ↑ to flap

ping 10.0.3.1 via pigeon

Reply received

Odd News Desk28 Apr 2001 · at auction Oct 2026

What actually happened

On 1 April 1990, RFC 1149 described, as a joke, a "Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers": print the packet, tie it to a pigeon's leg, scan it at the other end.
On Saturday 28 April 2001, the Bergen Linux User Group in Norway actually did it. They pinged a computer roughly 3 km away "as the bird flies", over the small mountain Løvstakken. Each packet was printed, rolled up with a rubber band on a pigeon's leg, flown, and scanned back in.
They sent 9 packets and got 4 replies: 55% packet loss. The reply times ran from 3,211,900.8 ms (about 53 minutes) to 6,388,671.9 ms (about 106 minutes).
It wasn't all flying. One pigeon landed on a roof and cleaned its feathers first. Another group, said Peter Hansteen, "joined up with a few other pigeons and were having a ball flying around over the valley, and after about an hour they broke off." Two pigeons escaped before anyone tied a packet on, leaving the team, in their words, in a "NO CARRIER condition."
This week, a Christie's online sale of printed books, manuscripts and science lists a lot described as "one printed IP/ICMP 'ping' packet sent by carrier pigeon per RFC 1149." It was on the Hacker News front page on 2 October.
Pigeons kept winning, too. In 2009 a South African pigeon named Winston carried 4 GB about 60 km in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds; the ADSL line racing him was just under 4% done.

What the game makes up

In 2001 each packet had its own pigeon and nobody steered; here you fly both legs, there and back. The tap-to-flap, the tailwind, the gulls, the 4-second scanner wait, the rubber-band tapping and the map are ours, and 1 second here counts as 1 minute. The terminal text is styled like a real ping, but the address in it is made up. Real: the date, the mountain, the 3 km, the 9 packets, the 4 replies, the 55% loss, both reply times, the roof preening, the pigeon party over the valley, the escaped birds, and the auction.

Sources

Wikipedia: IP over Avian Carriers (Bergen 2001 figures; Winston, 2009) Peter Hansteen: The implementation of the Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol, RFC1149, 25 years later Salon: The pigeon protocol (10 May 2001) Bergen Linux User Group: RFC 1149 event page RFC 1149 (1 April 1990) Christie's: Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol (lot 150) Hacker News: "The first packet sent via RFC1149 avian carrier is up for auction at Christie's" (2 Oct 2026)

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Ping by Pigeon

You are the network.

Reply received

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