Mysterious Radio Signal Unlikely to be From Aliens, Astronomers Say

A mysterious spike in radio signals detected by a Russian radio telescope last year led astronomers to think that ET has phoned Earth. However, further analysis has ruled out the possibility that the signal came from aliens.

According to scientists, the mysterious signal picked up by the Russian radio telescope RATAN-600 believed to have come from a star in the Hercules constellation actually came from Earth and not from an alien civilization.

"In the framework of this program, an interesting radio signal at a wavelength of 2.7 cm was detected in the direction of one of the objects (star system HD164595 in Hercules) in 2015," the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SAO RAS) wrote in a statement.

"Subsequent processing and analysis of the signal revealed its most probable terrestrial origin."

SAO RAS, however, did not make any mention about what sort of "analysis" they had made.

Additionally, a report was posted online on Tuesday morning by Steve Croft from the Berkeley SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life Institute) Research Center, saying that the Breakthrough Listen Initiative -- a project that searches for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth using radio telescopes across the world -- searched for the signal in archived data. However, there were no counterparts detected from the Naval Radio Astronomy Observatory Catalog, which is unlikely had the signal been real.

Ars Technica also offered its theory about the signal, saying that there was a "significant chance" it came from Earth and likely due to some military activity.

RATAN-600 had first detected the signal that came from the star HD 164595 in the Hercules constellation on May 15, 2015, but only recently did the SAO RAS publicized their findings. Seth Shostak and his colleagues from the SETI Institute immediately worked on verifying the signal using the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California. Shostak, however, suspected that the signal is not extraterrestrial.