According to a researcher working on the project, the "alien" signal from China probably originated from people

What a terrible letdown.

 

An American researcher's allegations that Chinese scientists' "Sky Eye" telescope could have picked up signals from sentient aliens were met with scepticism by a colleague in China. The Chinese scientists made the assertion.

 

According to Dan Werthimer, a researcher for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) at the University of Berkeley in California and a co-author on the research project that first spotted the signals, the narrow-band radio signals that he and his fellow researchers found "are from [human] radio interference, and not from extraterrestrials." This information was provided to Live Science.

 

In most cases, natural sources do not create radio signals with a limited bandwidth. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), also known as "Sky Eye," researchers were conducting a preliminary scan of exoplanets in preparation for an upcoming five-year-long sky survey when they came across three of these signals that appeared to originate from outer space in the years 2019 and 2022. These signals were detected by scientists using the largest radio telescope in the world.

 

The claim that the team had discovered "several cases of possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations from outside the Earth" was initially made in a report published on Tuesday (June 14) in the official newspaper of China's Ministry of Science and Technology. The report stated that the team had found "several cases of possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations from outside the Earth."

 

An official from FAST who was not directly involved in the investigation stated that it was "probable" that the signals originated from somewhere other than Earth.

 

The assertions were swiftly shared across Chinese official media and the social media network Weibo in China before they were brought to the attention of the foreign press and Live Science. But Werthimer claims that even while the signals are undeniably artificial, human beings are nearly undoubtedly the originators of them rather than extraterrestrials.

 

Werthimer said in an interview with Live Science, "the fundamental problem, and the problem in this particular case, is that we're looking for signals from extraterrestrials, but what we discover is a billion signals from terrestrials." "They are feeble signals, but the cryogenic receivers on the telescopes are susceptible and can pick up signals from cell phones, television, radar, and satellites- and there are more and more satellites in the sky every day." It's pretty easy to become enthusiastic when you're relatively new to the game and don't know all the numerous ways that interference may get into your data and corrupt it. However, if you know all these different ways, it's still pretty easy to feel thrilled. "

 

Despite this excitement, Werthimer's Chinese associates were careful to hedge the more dramatic remarks, emphasizing that the signals were most likely generated on Earth in the end.

 

Zhang Tongjie, head scientist of the China Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group at Beijing Normal University, quoted in the report, "These are several narrow-band electromagnetic signals that are different from the past, and the team is currently working on further investigation." "There is a great probability that the strange signal is some form of radio interference; nonetheless, this hypothesis needs to be verified or refuted before further investigation." This may take some time.

 

The most recent false alert is just one of countless times that scientists on the hunt for extraterrestrial life have been led astray by noise caused by human activity. In 2019, astronomers discovered a signal sent to Earth from the star system Proxima Centauri, which is the star system closest to our sun (located approximately 4.2 light-years distant) and is home to at least one planet that may be habitable. Because the signal was a radio wave with a narrow band, commonly linked with things manufactured by humans, researchers were tempted to consider the exciting prospect that it originated from alien technology. According to a study that Live Science previously published, studies two years later revealed that the signal was most likely caused by human equipment failing. Similarly, a well-known group of signals that were formerly thought to have originated from extraterrestrial beings and that were discovered between 2011 and 2014 were determined to have been produced by scientists microwaving their meals.

 

About the instances involving the microwave lunches, Werthimer stated, "A lot of very competent astronomers looked at that, and we couldn't figure out what it was for a long time." Finally, somebody worked out that these were taking place during lunchtime, "the speaker said."

 

Due to the FAST telescope's large size and high sensitivity, radio interference presents a significant challenge for the instrument. The radio telescope has a dish with a diameter of 500 meters (1,600 feet), and its power enables it to identify radio devices similar to those used on Earth that are located many light-years away. The data that it collects contains just under 40 billion observations per second. In this configuration, Werthimer told the publication Futurism that getting a false positive is comparable to getting twenty heads in a row when flipping a coin. While this may appear to be a remarkable outcome when viewed in isolation, it is not so remarkable considering that the coin has been flipped at least trillions of times.

 

And the likelihood that a particular research team may miss a subtle interference impact increases in proportion to the length of time the team has spent working with a particular radio telescope. Werthimer claims that the receiver of the FAST telescope can view 19 different locations in the sky at the same time. Even seasoned researchers can be misled if the interference only appears in one of the 19 tests, as it did with all three of the supposedly "alien" signatures detected in this case. Scientists are accustomed to excluding interference if it appears in all 19 tests. However, if interference only appears in one of the tests, it can be difficult to rule out interference.

 

Werhimer believes that the severity of this problem will continue to escalate as the number of satellites operating in orbit above our heads continues to rise.

 

"A century ago, we had little understanding of how to carry out SETI. According to Werthimer, "In one hundred years, I don't see how we'll be able to accomplish it by working from the ground up don't see how we'll be able to accomplish it by working from the ground up." "This may be the only time in our history as Earthlings when we have the opportunity to conduct reasonably successful SETI searches since not all of the relevant radio bands are being contaminated by our transmissions," said one researcher.

 

There is also the possibility that if extraterrestrial beings are communicating with us or unintentionally leaking signals across the vast cosmos, those signals might not be encoded in radio waves but rather in ways that we have not yet developed the technology to comprehend. This is another possibility.

 

"It would not shock me if we were going in the wrong direction." If you look at the history of SETI, the initial ideas that were proposed around 200 years ago were things like "Let's build some big fires on Earth", "Let's have some big mirrors that reflect sunlight to the Martians", or "Let's build some mile-long right-angled triangles to show aliens we know about Pythagorean Theorem." Now we look back and say those guys were idiots because we now know that they were "According to Werthimer." "When people look back at us in two hundred years, they might wonder why we didn't use tachyons or subspace communication. What's to say that won't be the case? However, it would help if you focused on doing things within your capabilities. "

 

SETI astronomers are still relatively sure that we are not alone in the universe, despite the disheartening possibility that these signals have a source on Earth. And the possibility that one day, amidst all of our chitchat, we will unearth something true.

 

"To my thinking, it would be odd if we were the only ones. If you look at the figures, there are five times as many planets as stars in the galaxy; specifically, there are a trillion planets. A substantial number of them are little planets like our own, Earth. Many of them have liquid water, which means that intelligent life, while not as widespread as bacterial life, could still be prevalent, even though it is more prevalent. According to Werthimer, It's possible that they don't want to interfere with primitive civilizations like ours because people in those societies still regularly kill each other. Perhaps they keep us caged in a vast zoo for everyone to gawk at. Or perhaps they are more interested in music and poetry now that they have become somewhat wary of technological advancement and economic development. "

Article source : https://www.livescience.com/china-did-not-detect-aliens

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