Alien messages? When human telescopes detected mysterious signals from space

Did China recently discover a sign of aliens, of life on another planet? Beijing has apparently tried to bury reports regarding the mysterious signals detected by its Sky Eye telescope.

But this is not the first time that suspicious interstellar activity has been captured by telescopes on earth.

The most famous case is of the 'Wow' signal, picked up in 1977 by Ohio State University's Big Ear telescope. A strong, electromagnetic signal flared at a frequency which intelligent alien life might use, sparking widespread speculation. The first astronomer to see the data wrote 'wow' on the printout. The signal's source is still unknown, but a star in the Sagittarius constellation is under investigation.

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Decades later, suspicious signals were detected between 2011 and 2014, raising fresh possibility of alien life. However, in a poor anti-climax, it emerged that the signals were being caused by microwave ovens in the facility.

Recently, in 2019, scientists detected a signal from the Proxima Centauri star system. It was a narrow-band radio wave typically associated with human technology. Subsequent studies said a human tech malfunction could've probably caused the readings.

So, what did the Chinese telescope recently pick up? The Sky Eye telescope detected narrow-band electromagnetic signals, and this discovery was called a possible sign of alien life in Chinese media reports.

However, China's state-backed Science & Technology Daily later deleted the report. The Sky Eye telescope launched a search for alien life in September 2020. Sets of suspicious signals were found in data collected in 2019 and 2022. It is possible that the mysterious signals could be due to radio interference.

While trying to look for aliens, humans have also sent messages into space on the off-chance that they are detected by intelligent life. In 1974, a message was beamed from the Arecibo Radio Telescope. It was beamed towards the M13 globular star cluster, which is 21,000 light-years from Earth. The message consisted of information regarding our solar system, DNA, and also a human stick figure.