Message 'sent from aliens' might just have been an accident, scientists warn

It wouldn't be the first time that scientists have mistaken something earthly for something far more alien – last year it emerged that scientists had picked up interference from their microwave and thought it might have been sent from outer space A strange signal originally thought to have potentially come from aliens might actually have emerged from somewhere else entirely.
Rather than being a telegram from a distant alien civilisation, the message that scientists got excited about earlier this week probably came from “terrestrial disturbance”, researchers close to the team that found the event told the Russian state news agency TASS.

Last week, some scientists searching for life out in space said that they had found a signal that was up to 10 times brighter than the one they’d normally expect. It came from deep in space, and scientists hoped that it might have been sent by another developed civilisation.

But people working close to the discovery have now looked to calm down that speculation – arguing that it’s just as likely that the message came from something on Earth, or near it.

"Last and this year, the telescope’s work has focused on searching for sun-like stars," said telescope researcher
NewsScienceMessage 'sent from aliens' might just have been an accident, scientists warn

Aliens may have sent ‘strong message’ from deep in space

"There have been no scientific results within the framework of this research so far. Some time ago, in the spring of this year, an unusual signal was received but its analysis showed that it was most likely a terrestrial disturbance.”

Some scientists working on the Seti project to find life on other worlds had already looked to shoot down the findings – which were brought to light through a blog, and hadn’t been especially well publicised by the scientists themselves. Sceptics said that there was no reason to think that the message was genuinely a signal, not least because it had only been heard once and thus doesn’t meet even the minimum criterion for getting excited about.