Repeating Alien Signals Detected From Deep Space Location: Some Say First Contact, Others Say Neutron Star

For the first time ever, scientists have detected Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) coming from the same extra-galactic location in space. And although it is now believed by many scientists that the radio signals are emanating from a collapsing, or neutron, star, there are those who posit that the FRBs could actually be the product of very advanced alien civilizations attempting to reach out and contact others.

The Daily Mail reported last week that radio waves coming from the constellation Auriga were detected again, with each burst lasting only a few milliseconds in duration. Discovered by researchers from McGill University in Montreal who used data gathered by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, there were six bursts recorded, which, when added to the 11 bursts previously detected, makes 17 emanating from the same location in deep space. Although the closest stars in Auriga are just over 32 light years away (with other stars, such as the Capella star system, somewhat farther away), the Fast Radio Bursts are actually arriving from a location some 3 billion light years away, making their source an unknown generator somewhere outside the Milky Way.

That source remains unknown, which has led to speculation as to what could be powerful enough to produce such signals. Furthermore, what could be so powerful as to produce a repeating signal of such magnitude. Because, as the Daily Star has reported, the energy used to broadcast just one of those FRBs is equivalent to the amount of energy generated by our very own Sun in a year’s time.

Such a tremendous amount of energy output has led scientists to consider various stellar actions that might account for the phenomenon, including the collision of stars, the explosive force of a supernova, and the outbursts of energy fired off by pulsars or magnetars. The consensus, however, is that the radio signals are thrown off by the core of a collapsed star, often referred to as a neutron star.

But those are just the possible natural, cosmological explanations. Last year, as noted by the Daily Star, UFO expert Nigel Watson, author of UFO Investigations Manual: UFO Investigations from 1982 to the Present Day, offered that the FRBs could be evidence of “a vast alien communication network.”

He explained, “This extraordinary finding either indicates an as yet unknown or unusual astronomical phenomenon, or it could indicate that this is a vast alien communication network, and the universe is teeming with intelligent life forms.”

He added, “Every unusual signal from outer space encourages us to wonder if it is from an alien civilization.”

Such knowledge of another intelligent civilization in the universe, Watson allowed, “would have a dramatic impact on our perception of our place in the scheme of things.”

Not that such knowledge would alter our ability to communicate with such an advanced alien civilization. First of all, the so-called alien radio signal’s source is 3 billion light years away, which means that when it was recorded (2012), it had already traveled 3 billion years to reach a receptive audience on Earth. Secondly, a return signal to the exact same location would take the same amount of time. And that would only be after we — the receiving audience turned transceiver — could produce a signal powerful enough to travel such an enormous distance, something that our current technological level precludes us from doing.

The latest FRBs are the first detected repetitive set of bursts. In fact, scientists have only known about FRBs since 2007, when astronomers noticed an FRB from 2001 among archived data retrieved by the Parkes radio dish in Australia. There have only been a couple dozen (counting the repeating signals) FRBs detected, although astronomers suspect that there are an estimated 2,000 FRBs moving through the universe each day.

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