Extraterrestrial

Have aliens been attempting to communicate with us for decades?

By T.K. Randall
March 7, 2026 ·  29 comments

Image: OVRO 40 Meter Radio Telescope
Credit: Salvor Hardin / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Astronomers have been listening out for potential extraterrestrial signals for a long time, but what if we've been receiving them all along but simply mistook them for something else ?

According to a new study, one of the flaws in the way we listen out for alien messages is that astronomers tend to focus on sudden, inexplicable radio signal spikes.

The trouble is, even if a narrow radio signal was transmitted by intelligent extraterrestrials far off in space, by the time it arrives here, it may no longer be narrow at all.

Instead, it may have been distorted or 'smeared' upon leaving its home star's atmosphere, resulting in a signal that doesn't resemble what astronomers might typically associate with an alien message."Searches are often optimized for extremely narrow signals," said study lead author and SETI Institute astronomer Dr Vishal Gajjar.

"If a signal gets broadened by its own star's environment, it can slip below our detection thresholds, even if it's there, potentially helping explain some of the radio silence we've seen in technosignature searches."

In other words, if we could adapt our listening techniques to account for this, we may find ourselves opening the door to a whole host of previously undetected alien signals.

Perhaps it isn't that nobody is out there - we may simply be looking for the wrong thing.

Source: Mail Online | Comments (29)

Tags: Alien, Extraterrestrial