In a newly published paper, a team of scientists has admitted that anomalies detected from a number of different stars are “signals probably from extraterrestrial intelligence,” explaining that the signals “have exactly the shape of a signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this [extraterrestrial intelligence] hypothesis.”
The Paper – “Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars,” written by Ermanno F. Borra and Eric Trottier of Université Laval in Quebec, Canada – explains why these signals, recorded by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, are likely to be from an alien civilisation – a series of repeated bursts – but concedes the unlikely possibility that the anomalies could be generated by chemical reactions within the nearby stars.
“The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis,” Borra and Trottier write. “Although unlikely, there is also a possibility that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars.”
Some in the astronomy field, though, are understandably sceptical of the claims posited by Borra and Trottier.
“Apparently several — more than three or four — referees have been disinclined to see this published,” Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, told Astronomy Magazine. “I am quite skeptical, in particular of the data processing that can take spectrally sampled data, and infer time variations. So I’d be a little careful.”
Image courtesy of JMP New Approaches.
