Chinese researchers have revealed that the country’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) may have picked up signs of alien life.
The super-massive telescope in Guizhou, that became fully operational in 2020 with the goal of detecting alien life, picked up electromagnetic signals that are suspected to come from extraterrestrial civilizations, said a research team from Beijing Normal University.
"There were several cases of possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations from outside the earth," the university’s report said.
Zhang Tonjie, chief scientist of Beijing Normal University’s extraterrestrial civilization search team, said that the team spotted two sets of intriguing signals in 2020. Another signal was picked up this year in data gathered on exoplanet targets.
However, Zhang also underscored the possibility that the signals are products of radio interference.
"The possibility that the suspicious signal is some kind of radio interference is also very high," he explained, "And it needs to be further confirmed and ruled out. This may be a long process."
Dan Werthimer, of the University of California, Berkeley, who works with the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) researchers from Beijing Normal University, was also quick to pour cold water on the red hot alien phone call claims.
"These signals are from radio interference; they are due to radio pollution from Earthlings, not from ET," he told Space.com.
"The technical term we use is ‘RFI’ – radio frequency interference. RFI can come from cell phones, TV transmitters, radar, satellites, as well as electronics and computers near the observatory that produce weak radio transmissions.
“It’s getting hard to do SETI observations from the surface of our planet. Radio pollution is getting worse, as more and more transmitters and satellites are built. Some radio bands have become impossible to use for SETI," he added.
Bad news for all you The Truth is Out There freaks...
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