'Bad news' about radio signals 'sent from the most Earth-like planet'

A scientist from the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), confirmed that the signal received by the Chinese telescope was from humans - but not aliens.

Dr. Dan Werthimer, a researcher from the SETI Institute and at the University of California at Berkeley - USA, is also a co-author of the first research project on the signal believed to be emitted by Kepler-438 - an Earth-like planet. most, belonging to the constellation Lyra - just had an interview with Live Science.

He asserted that the narrow-band radio signal that the Chinese announced in their hopeful statements about an alien civilization did indeed fall under the probability of "interference from human equipment". which the Chinese group briefly mentioned in their statements.

Dr. Werthimer was not skeptical, but confirmed to Live Science that it was interference.

China's "Sky Eye", super telescope has detected strange radio signals - (Image: Xinhua News Agency)

He said natural sources do not typically produce narrowband radio signals. Scientists captured three of these signals, seemingly from space, in 2019 and 2022 using the largest radio telescope in the world - the Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope 500 m (FAST), nicknamed "Sky Eye", is conducting a preliminary survey of exoplanets in preparation for the upcoming five-year sky survey.

News of possible signals of alien origin first appeared in a report published on June 14 in the official newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, which stated: that the team has discovered "several cases of possible technological traces from extraterrestrial civilizations".

The statement quickly went viral on Chinese state media and China's Weibo social media platform before being reported by international media and Live Science.

"The big deal and the problem in this particular case is that we're looking for signals from extraterrestrials, but what we've found is a million signals from people on the ground. They're very signals. weak, but the instrument on this telescope is super sensitive and can pick up signals from cell phones, televisions, radars and satellites. And there are more and more satellites in the sky," he explained.

The SETI scientist further commented: "If you're fairly new to the game and you don't know all the different ways these noisy signals can get into your data and corrupt your data, it's pretty easy. It's easy to get excited."

Some of Werthimer's Chinese associates also expressed caution. "These are some of the narrowband electromagnetic signals that are different from before, and the team is now working on it further," said Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of the China Extraterrestrial Civilizations Research Group at Beijing Normal University. stated in the report.

According to Mr. Tongjie, the possibility that the suspicious signal is some kind of radio interference is also very high, it needs to be further confirmed and ruled out.