The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), nicknamed “The Eye of Heaven,” detected signals that could be from extraterrestrial civilizations, according to a report on June 14 in China’s Science and Technology Daily. Operational since 2019, FAST specializes in scanning deep space for potential radio signals that might reveal extraterrestrial life. When examining data from 2020, researchers found two narrow-band radio signals that might originate from artificial sources. Later in 2020, during the survey of known exoplanets, they found an additional peculiar narrow-band radio signal, bringing the total to 3 signals.
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FAST Radio Telescope in Guizhou, China. Photo: FAST
Since all these signals are narrow-band radio waves typically used by human spacecraft and satellites, they could potentially be generated by extraterrestrial technology. However, the research team emphasized that their discovery is still preliminary and requires careful examination before conclusive analysis.
“These are narrow-band electromagnetic signals different from what we’ve encountered before, and researchers are delving deeper into the investigation,” said Zhang Tongjie, the lead scientist of the Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group at Beijing Normal University. “The possibility of interference in these suspicious signals is also high, and thorough confirmation is necessary. The process may be lengthy.”
This is not the first time scientists have been puzzled by radio signals from deep space. In August 1977, a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) study conducted by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope detected a powerful one-minute burst of radio emission at a frequency believed to be used by extraterrestrial beings. However, subsequent searches in the same area of space yielded no results. The study later concluded that the signals could have originated from a star similar to the Sun in the Sagittarius constellation, but the source remained an enigma.
In 2019, astronomers discovered a signal reaching Earth from Proxima Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun (about 4.2 light-years away) with at least one potentially habitable exoplanet. This signal was a narrow-band radio wave commonly associated with artificial objects. However, a study published two years later suggested that the signal was most likely due to technological interference.
Tonjie emphasized that his research team is planning to repeat observations of these mysterious signals to rule out any radio interference and gather as much information about them as possible.
(Source: Live Science)