Alien Signal or Not?

Live Science

Chinese scientists' claims that their "Sky Eye" telescope could have picked up signals from intelligent aliens have been met with skepticism by an American colleague.

Transcript

00:00 This month, Chinese scientists claimed that their gigantic Sky Eye Telescope could have

00:05 picked up trace radio communications from intelligent aliens.

00:09 But it turns out it may have just been a case of mixed signals.

00:17 So on June 14th, Chinese astronomers came out with claims that while they were using

00:22 China's gigantic 500-metre aperture FAST or Sky Eye Telescope, they picked up three

00:30 signals, which they think could have come from intelligent aliens, one in 2019 and two

00:35 in 2022.

00:37 Now narrowband radio signals aren't usually produced by nature, but humans use them a

00:43 lot in satellites, TVs, cell phones, radar.

00:47 So when scientists see them coming from space, they think there's a possibility that there

00:53 could be some form of intelligent life form that may have been sending them.

00:58 Maybe we were just sent an intergalactic "what you up to?"

01:01 Or we intercepted some alien daytime TV.

01:04 Either way, there's a possibility when we see narrowband signals that it comes from

01:09 intelligent life.

01:11 The story quickly started making headlines around the world and appearing all over social

01:16 media before Dan Wertheimer, an American SETI or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

01:21 scientist who worked closely with the Chinese scientists in finding the signals, came out

01:27 to say that they were almost certainly not from aliens, but from human technology instead.

01:32 But how can Wertheimer know for sure?

01:35 Well, Wertheimer said to us that the big problem with the gigantic radio telescopes that scientists

01:41 use to intercept all of these radio signals is that they're so sensitive, they can measure

01:48 radio signals that are beamed from Earth from light years away.

01:53 Now that may be amazing for finding things from distance, but it means that they're also

01:57 incredibly susceptible to the zillions of homegrown signals that we produce every second.

02:03 Now some of these signals, even to a trained scientist, could fool them and appear like

02:09 they genuinely came from deep space.

02:12 We call these errant signals RFIs or radio frequency interference and Wertheimer says

02:20 that if you haven't been studying them for that long, then it means that you're much

02:24 more likely to get hoodwinked by a subtle interference effect.

02:29 Despite the error having spread around the world, the scientists need not feel too embarrassed.

02:35 This recent false alarm is far from the first time that alien hunting scientists have been

02:41 led astray by noise from chattering humans.

02:45 In 2019 for instance, astronomers thought they spotted a narrowband radio signal beamed

02:50 to Earth from Proxima Centauri, which is the nearest star to our sun.

02:55 But further studies made two years later revealed that it was most likely from malfunctioning

03:01 human equipment.

03:03 Another famous set of signals which bewitched scientists between 2011 and 2014 was also

03:10 supposed to have come from aliens, until scientists realised that it was actually made by their

03:16 fellow researchers microwaving their lunches.

03:21 [Music]

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