Did China's Telescope Hear Alien Activity?
Chinese scientists' claims that their "Sky Eye" telescope could have picked up signals from intelligent aliens have been met with skepticism by an American colleague.
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00:00 This month Chinese scientists claimed that their gigantic Sky Eye telescope
00:05 could have picked up trace radio communications from intelligent aliens
00:09 but it turns out it may have just been a case of mixed signals.
00:13 So on June the 14th Chinese astronomers came out with claims that while they were using China's
00:23 gigantic 500 meter aperture fast or Sky Eye telescope they picked up three signals which
00:31 they think could have come from intelligent aliens. One in 2019 and two in 2022. Now narrowband radio
00:39 signals aren't usually produced by nature but humans use them a lot in satellites, TVs, cell
00:45 phones, radar. So when scientists see them coming from space they think there's a possibility that
00:53 there could be some form of intelligent life form that may have been sending them. Maybe we were
00:58 just sent an intergalactic what you up to or we intercepted some alien daytime TV. Either way
01:06 there's a possibility when we see narrowband signals that it comes from intelligent life.
01:11 The story quickly started making headlines around the world and appearing all over social media
01:16 before Dan Wertheimer, an American SETI or search for extraterrestrial intelligence scientist who
01:23 worked closely with the Chinese scientists in finding the signals, came out to say that they
01:28 were almost certainly not from aliens but from human technology instead. But how can Wertheimer
01:34 know for sure? Well Wertheimer said to us that the big problem with the gigantic radio telescopes
01:41 that scientists use to intercept all of these radio signals is that they're so sensitive they
01:47 can measure radio signals that are beamed from earth from light years away. Now that may be
01:54 amazing for finding things from distance but it means that they're also incredibly susceptible to
01:59 the zillions of homegrown signals that we produce every second. Now some of these signals even to
02:06 a trained scientist could fool them and appear like they genuinely came from deep space. We call
02:13 these errant signals RFIs or radio frequency interference and Wertheimer says that if you
02:20 haven't been studying them for that long then it means that you're much more likely to get hoodwinked
02:27 by a subtle interference effect. Despite the error having spread around the world the scientists need
02:33 not feel too embarrassed. This recent false alarm is far from the first time that alien hunting
02:40 scientists have been led astray by noise from chattering humans. In 2019 for instance astronomers
02:47 thought they spotted a narrowband radio signal beamed to earth from Proxima Centauri which is
02:53 the nearest star to our sun. But further studies made two years later revealed that it was most
02:59 likely from malfunctioning human equipment. Another famous set of signals which bewitched scientists
03:06 between 2011 and 2014 was also supposed to have come from aliens until scientists realised that
03:15 it was actually made by their fellow researchers microwaving their lunches.
03:21 [Music]