ET could be phoning home, but we’re ghosting him, a new study has suggested.
The search for alien life often brings up images of men in black and cover-ups at the highest levels of government.
But why alien life has yet to be discovered could be as simple as space weather, according to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.
The institute’s findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, said hunting for extraterrestrials involves listening to the heavens for sounds.
Think, for example, of the Wow! Signal that excited astronomers in 1977. The radio detection has never been properly explained or seen again.
There could be more of these signals being beamed to Earth, but the space weather caused by the sun could be ‘smearing’ the frequency, SETI said.
Dr Vishal Gajjar, astronomer at the SETI Institute and lead author, said: ‘[Traditional] Searches are often optimised for extremely narrow signals.
‘If a signal gets broadened by its own star’s environment, it can slip below our detection thresholds, even if it’s there, helping explain some of the radio silence we’ve seen in technosignature searches.’
By ‘technosignature’, Dr Gajjar means evidence that technology might have been used or is being used by alien life.
SETI figured out how space weather from stars could smear such clues by looking at radio transmissions from spacecraft in our solar system
Cool and dim red dwarves, which account for 70% of stars in the cosmos, are more likely to distort technosignature, the institute said.
What is space weather?
Space weather doesn’t mean there are rain clouds casually floating in the depths of the cosmos.
Instead, it refers to the conditions and events in space that can impact Earth, mostly those caused by the sun.
Our star, after all, is a gigantic ball of angry fire and gas that regularly coughs out plasma and radiation, called solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
When these angry particles smash into our atmosphere, they can cause satellite-frying geomagnetic storms and the Northern Lights.
This is why many space agencies and weather services – including the Met Office – keep an eye on the sun
In other words, we need to change how we detect signals to take into account volatile space weather.
Grayce C Brown, co-author of the study, added: ‘By quantifying how stellar activity can reshape narrowband signals, we can design searches that are better matched to what actually arrives at Earth, not just what might be transmitted.’
We’re ‘unintentionally ghosting aliens’ says expert
This gives decades-long alien hunters like Mark Christopher Lee hope, he told Metro.
Lee said SETI’s paper could answer the Fermi Paradox, the idea that if the universe is billions of years old, where are all the aliens?
He said: ‘It’s like trying to tune into a radio station during a solar storm; the signal gets broadened and slips below our detection thresholds, effectively “ghosting” us unintentionally.’
Lee said that from a UFO perspective, the sun’s plasma may also explain why sightings typically describe them as behaving erratically.
‘Perhaps alien tech is designed for interstellar travel but gets scrambled by our solar system’s “weather”,’ he added.
‘If true, it suggests we’re not alone, but the universe’s natural barriers are keeping the conversation one-sided.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Closest look yet at mysterious ‘UFO comet’ astronomers thought might hit Earth
MORE: Mysterious never-before-seen egg-like structures found on Mars
MORE: Hacker claims US government has UFO photos and list of ‘non-terrestrial officers’
