Chinese scientists report alien signal

Chinese government publication Science and Technology Daily published a message that the FAST space telescope (aka "Tianyang" or "Heavenly Eye") supposedly detected a signal from an alien civilization.

The article cited the words of Zhang Tongjie, head of the extraterrestrial civilization search group (unites scientists from Peking University, the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California at Berkeley). He noted that the narrow-band electromagnetic signals detected by FAST differ from those received previously and require further study.

A suspicious signal was discovered during the observation of target exoplanets, before that a couple more sets of non-standard signals were recorded in 2020, the year FAST was launched. According to Zhang, the Chinese telescope is very sensitive to low-frequency radio bands. This plays a crucial role in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations.

There is a possibility that the new signal is just a form of radio interference. To find out its nature, additional analyzes will be carried out.

It is not clear why, but the publication was removed from the site almost immediately. However, its copies managed to be distributed in Chinese social networks. Bloomberg notes that attempts to contact the Chinese publication for comment were unsuccessful.