SETI extraterrestrial signal
Home » SETI Mystery Signal Elicits Hopes for Alien Contact

SETI Mystery Signal Elicits Hopes for Alien Contact

The big story today revolves around a mysterious signal that was detected by SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The signal apparently originated from a sun-like star some 94 light-years away, HD 164595. Now, UFO nerds enthusiasts like myself are remembering the “Wow!” signal that SETI found in 1977, a spiking radio signal from space which was intriguing, but no conclusions could ever be made regarding what caused that signal. Now we have another seemingly “Wow!” signal, and the talk of aliens is ramping up again. But is it an alien civilization trying to contact us? Or something more mundane?

Alien signal detected by SETI
Come late-January, we may all be wishing for this…

A recently detected SETI signal could end up being this generation’s version of the famous “Wow!” signal of 1977: an intriguing mystery that keeps astronomers guessing for decades.

In May 2015, a team of researchers using a Russian radio telescope spotted a strong radio signal coming from the vicinity of the sunlike star HD 164595, which lies 94 light-years away from Earth.

The signal is consistent with something an alien civilization might send out, astronomers have said. But that’s just one scenario, and not the most likely one, researchers cautioned; the signal may also have resulted from a natural celestial event or terrestrial interference of some sort.

Without a follow-up detection or confirmation, humanity may never know the signal’s true origin, said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California. (Shostak was not part of the detection team.)

“If they can’t find it again, and if we [at SETI] can’t find it, all we can say is, ‘Gosh, I wonder what it was,'” Shostak told Space.com.

That’s pretty much all that astronomers can say about the Wow! signal, a 72-second-long event picked up by the Big Ear radio observatory at The Ohio State University in August 1977.

The 1977 signal received its name after a volunteer astronomer named Jerry Ehman wrote “Wow!” on a computer printout of the signal’s transmission record. Ehman made the comment after finding the radio signal was 30 times stronger than background emissions.

Astronomers never discovered any evidence linking the Wow! signal to an alien civilization, and, despite recent efforts from the SETI Institute, a repeat detection of that signal has not been made. Researchers did conclude the signal was coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

“There are going to be signals that you see once and don’t see again,” Shostak added. “It’s like people who see ghosts. If you see it once, but when you go back, with a camera and all that, it’s not there, what do you conclude from that?”

The May 2015 and Wow! signals are analogous in another way, Shostak said: Both seemed to appear and then disappear quite quickly. This doesn’t seem consistent with a signal from an orbiting satellite, which would be in range of the radio telescope for longer stretches, he said.

“The thought is: Well, that wouldn’t be a satellite. A satellite would be on, and maybe it’d be on for a minute or something like that. It wouldn’t just go up and down right away,” Shostak said.

Astronomers know that HD 164595 houses a roughly Neptune-mass world, but this close-orbiting planet is likely far too hot to host life as it exists on Earth. But it’s possible that other planets lie undiscovered in the system, Shostak said.

The team of astronomers who spotted the May 2015 signal apparently studied the HD 164595 system 39 different times but made just the one detection, Shostak said. The detection team has not yet published a study of its findings. Instead, the researchers plan to discuss the signal next month at the 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The detection of the May 2015 signal was made public on Aug. 27 by Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster, who wrote that one of the astronomers on the detection team forwarded him the IAC presentation.

In hopes of learning more about this possible extraterrestrial signal, astronomers from the SETI Institute focused the Allen Telescope Array in California at HD 164595 Sunday night (Aug. 28) and Monday night (Aug. 29), Shostak said.

Like any paranormal phenomenon, science is the key here. Can this signal be replicated? Can it be found again, coming from the same system? Because unfortunately, without replication, this can’t be considered conclusive proof of anything. And I’m glad Mr. Shostak mentioned ghosts here, because I feel like this is one of the major problems plaguing the paranormal community: the lack of significant replication is ignored, or explained away by self-fulfilling internal paranormal philosophies. If a “ghost” lights up a K-II meter once, it has to do it every time the question is asked, and the same answer has to be given. But this is a lecture for another time. For now, this new signal is just an anomaly. A one-off. And until the signal can be detected again, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.