SETI's new "WOW!"

[LeeRyder]

interesting to see if this new "WOW!" signal is legit.

Is strange space signal a sign that ET's mother has called back?

JAMES REYNOLDS
SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT


AMATEUR radio hams are usually excited by the faint buzz of a distant shortwave station, but a group of scientists believe they have received a message from extra-terrestrials.

Astronomers think that a signal picked up by a radio telescope last year shows the highest probability yet that ET’s family may have returned his call.

In February 2003, scientists involved in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) pointed the huge radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, at about 200 sections of the sky.

Unexplained radio signals had been detected twice by the same telescope in these areas and scientists were trying to confirm the findings.

It may sound fanciful, but a report in the journal NewScientist reveals how the team has now finished analysing the data, and all the signals seem to have disappeared - except for one which has got stronger. Detected on three separate occasions, the signal is "an enigma", say researchers.

So far, explanations have included conjecture that it could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon, or may even be something far more pedestrian, such as an artefact on the telescope itself interfering with measurements.

But the astronomy team says that it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens in the six-year history of the SETI@home project, which uses programmes running as screen-savers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the Arecibo telescope.

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Enjoy all.