SETI discovers the source of the ‘alien’ signal reported earlier in the week

Earlier this week, a strong radio signal detected by Russian scientists set off questions from serious observers about whether it came from an advanced alien race.

However, it is now thought to be a signal coming from one of our own communications satellites.

Questions arose after scientists at the SETI Institute, a private organization that looks for signals coming from extraterrestrial life, announced they were looking into an “interesting” radio signal reported by Russian astronomers. Media reports ensued, and many of these, including one from redOrbit, mentioned some experts were warning the signal might be interference, possibly from a manmade satellite.

Debunking a Mysterious Signal

Picked up in 2015 by the RATAN-600 radio telescope at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, the discovery drew interest due to its composition, SETI said. The organization said it could not identify the signal. The signal had originated from the same direction as the star system HD164595, which does contain a known planet. However, that planet isn’t thought to host life as we know it.

In an updated blog post, SETI cited a Russian media report that quoted the Russian Academy of Sciences as saying the signal “is, indeed, terrestrial interference.”

“We, indeed, discovered an unusual signal. However, an additional check showed that it was emanating from a Soviet military satellite, which had not been entered into any of the catalogs of celestial bodies,” Alexander Ipatov, the director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Russia’s TASS news agency.

The signal had been detected only once out of 39 observations of the section of sky around HD164595. SETI said it had been unable to find this signal using its own Allen Telescope Array.

“That would be consistent, of course, with it being terrestrial interference, such as a military satellite,” the organization’s blog post said.

The prospect of an alien signal was particularly tantalizing because it may have required more than 1 trillion watts of energy to generate. This indicates that a civilization much more advanced than ours would have generated it.

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Image credit: Thinkstock

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