Alien Signal or Not?
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.
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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]