Aliens Are Contacting Us, Astronomers Claim

Two astronomers have reportedly claimed that they have detected extraterrestrial signals that have exactly the same shape of light pulses that could be created by aliens. The duo, comprising of Professor Ermanno Borra from Quebec's Laval University and his graduate student Eric Trottier, made the controversial claim after going through 2.5 million readings from distant stars, recorded by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an eight-foot diameter telescope located in New Mexico's Sunspot area.  On the basis of the research, the pair suggested that they found 234 cases of ET signals being sent to Earth.

Not surprisingly, many experts in the field that includes Breakthrough Listen project backed by Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner, have criticized the claim. "It is too early to unequivocally attribute these purported signals to the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations," stated SETI Institute's Breakthrough Listen project. In fact, according to the project, the explanation for the signals lies in analysis or instrument error.

However, according to the researching duo the signals they detected could not be caused by erroneous data analysis or instrument because they were noticed only for a small group of stars located within a narrow spectral range. Furthermore, the astronomers said that according to signal to noise ratio considerations, the signal should usually be found in the brightest objects; however they did not find this to be the case. Additionally, the pair also considered several possibilities like rapid pulsations, rotational transitions in molecules for explaining the signals, apart from them being generated by aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence.

According to Andrew Siemion, the director of the SETI Research Centre, the astronomers have made a really bold claim by their suggestion of discovery of alien life. As per other critics, the study does not consider every natural possibility and has concluded a supernatural explanation prematurely. For now, it seems the truth is out there.