Thousands Sign Petition To Save Holmdel's Historic Horn Antenna

HOLMDEL, NJ — The movement to preserve in place the Horn antenna - a major artifact of the development of the Big Bang Theory - has gone global.

An online petition, originated by three Holmdel citizen groups, has so far garnered more than 6,500 signatures from around the world, asking to preserve the Holmdel site of Nobel Prize-winning research by two Bell Labs scientists.

Regina Criscione, co-president of Citizens for Informed Land Use, said her group as well as Preserve Holmdel and Friends of Holmdel Open Space all worked together to develop the petition in December.

Through the connections of the members of these watchdog groups, the petition has now circulated around the world.

"I was praying to get 1,000 signatures," Criscione said. "I never expected this many," she added.

Through email lists, personal connections, former Bell Labs employees and more, preserving the Horn antenna has become a global cause.

Criscione shared some of the comments from signers of the petition:

A professor at UC Berkeley wrote: “As a cosmology researcher, the Holmdel Horn is practically a holy site. Please preserve it.”

All this international attention is focused on a local property development issue.

The land on which the Horn antenna sits - formerly owned by Bell Labs and then Nokia - is now in private hands.

The property was sold by Nokia to Rakesh Antala, an area technology executive, in January of 2021 for $3.6 million, said Douglas Twyman of Colliers International, who handled the transaction. Twyman said in December that Antala has said he intends to preserve the antenna.

But the site itself is in need of preservation too, the activist groups say.

The 43-acre tract seems integral to the understanding of the scientific significance of the Horn antenna, situated on Crawford Hill on the highest point of Monmouth County, the groups have said.

The antenna on the property at 791 Holmdel Road was once used by Bell Labs scientists Dr. Robert Wilson, who still lives in the township, and Dr. Arno Penzias to study microwave radiation from beyond the Milky Way. Their research using the antenna confirmed evidence of the Big Bang Theory as the origin of the universe. Both scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

A comment by the group leader of the Cosmology and Astrophysics Group at the Brookhaven National Laboratory noted: “As a professional cosmologist I can attest that discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) cannot be understated. This was one of the most important Nobel prizes ever given. CMB continues to be the bedrock of our understanding of the universe.”

Currently, the township Planning Board has voted to study reclassifying the former Bell Labs/Nokia site as an "area in need of redevelopment." The Planning Board voted late last year to undertake the study in the hopes it could better control the future of the site.

There is no Planning Board meeting until Feb. 21, but the redevelopment study is expected to take months, Criscione said.

Meanwhile, others have asked the township to consider creating an educational center at the site.

Fred Carl is a Simons Observatory project controls specialist at Princeton Physics, Princeton University. And he spoke at a recent Holmdel Township Committee meeting to present his vision for what he called a "shrine of cosmology."

As a founder and trustee of the InfoAge Science & History Museums in Wall, Carl offered his expertise to help create an education center for astronomy and cosmology right at the Horn antenna location, he said.

Carl, now an Ocean Grove resident and formerly of Wall, told the committee "I laud you for taking the right steps to save this shrine of cosmology."

While the matter is being studied, support for preservation continues to come in from both local scientists and from those around the world.

For example, a scientist at the Argentine Instituto de Ciencias Astronómicas de la Tierra y del Espacio, National University of San Juan said: “I'm a professional astronomer and I would like to support this petition. I understand the historical importance of the antenna for all humanity as a symbol of technological transcendence that conceived one of the greatest breakthroughs in our understanding of the Universe. This is not just a local town issue, this is important for all human beings.”