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

Part of the ensemble of dishes forming South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope is seen in Carnarvon on July 16, 2016 (MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images)

A strange signal originally thought to have potentially come from aliens might have come from something 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 Tass, the Russian state news agency.

Last week, scientists searching for other forms of life 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 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 researcher Yulia Sotnikova.

“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.”

The observatory where the signal was first received is preparing an official disclaimer aimed at calming down reports that the message came from an alien civilisation.

Scientists working on the Seti project, a group of experts that aims to find life on other planets had already dismissed 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.

It was not the first time scientists have thought they heard a message from aliens only to have it turn out to be wrong. Last year, Australian astronomers thought they might have received a message from aliens – later discovering that it was actually interference from their microwave.

Russian astronomers have been excited by signals that turned out to be far more earthly than expected in the past, the director of the Institute of Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Ipatov, told TASS. During the soviet period he had been part of a team that got excited by a potential message – only to find that it was in fact a little more dull.

"We, indeed, discovered an unusual signal,” Ipatov told the agency. “However, an additional check showed that it was emanating from a Soviet military satellite, which had not been entered into any of the catalogues of celestial bodies.”