Aliens may have been trying to contact us for DECADES, scientists claim – as they warn we’ve been ‘looking for the wrong thing’

For decades, we’ve been looking to the skies for any sign of aliens – but it turns out we may have been missing attempts at contact.

A new study has cast doubt on our radio signal detection methods, arguing that ‘space weather’ could be distorting incoming transmissions.

Until now, most experiments have focused on identifying spikes in radio frequency – signals unlikely to be produced by any other natural processes in space.

But experts have highlighted an overlooked complication.

Even if an extraterrestrial transmitter produces a perfectly narrow radio signal, it may not remain narrow by the time it leaves its home star’s atmosphere.

This distortion, which happens near the point of origin, can ‘smear’ the signal’s frequency, meaning it can be missed by our detectors that are primed to search for more focused radio waves.

‘Searches are often optimized for extremely narrow signals,’ Dr Vishal Gajjar, astronomer at the SETI Institute and lead author of the paper, said.

‘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.’

For their study, the team analysed radio transmissions from our own spacecraft in the solar system.

Using measurements from probes, they worked out how turbulent plasma released from stars – such as the Sun – affects radio signals.

This data was then used to determine what might happen in a wide range of space environments.

They explained that M–dwarf stars, which constitute about 75 per cent of stars in the Milky Way, have the highest likelihood of distorting signals.

The discovery could lead to better detection methods that take this into account.

It means even when signals are not ‘perfectly razor–thin’ by the time they reach Earth, they could still come from extraterrestrial life.

‘By quantifying how stellar activity can reshape narrowband signals, we can design searches that are better matched to what actually arrives at Earth, not just what might be transmitted,’ Grayce C. Brown, co–author of the study, said.

Writing in The Astrophysical Journal, the researchers concluded: ‘The so–called Great Silence, when extended to the radio technosignature searchers, is not solely evidence for the absence of transmitters, but also a reflection of our detection limitations arising from a mismatch between the assumed signal morphology and the broadened line shapes.

‘Recasting non–detections with width–aware pipelines will clarify how much of the Great Silence reflects a true absence of transmitters versus selection effects.’

Looking ahead, the researchers argue that astronomers should bear their findings in mind to ensure that technosignatures ‘are not systematically missed’.

Scientists generally believe that the best candidates for alien life are ‘Earth–like’ worlds orbiting distant stars in other parts of the galaxy.

One such contender is the Earth–sized planet TRAPPIST–1e, located just 40 light–years from Earth, which is located safely within its star’s habitable ‘Goldilocks zone’.

Another promising candidate is the planet K2–18b, which some studies suggest could be teeming with life.

Last week, a NASA veteran claimed that aliens do exist – they just haven’t visited Earth yet.

Dr Gentry Lee has worked at the US space agency since 1968, when he first got involved with the Viking mission to Mars.

He has since spent more than half a century designing probes to land on distant planets – but argues Earth has not yet been visited by other–worldly beings.

‘There exists nothing today that says any alien or any alien machine has ever landed on the planet Earth,’ he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Phoenix. ‘If you believe otherwise, you are being misled.’

According to the expert, in every case of a supposed UFO sighting or alien encounter, there is likely a simpler explanation for those phenomena.

But when it comes to distant planets, life has ‘just got to be there somewhere’.

He added: ‘We are going to find life of some kind somewhere else. The odds are overwhelming.’

In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote ‘Wow!’ next to his data.

The 72–second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.

Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the ‘Wow! signal’, which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.

KEY DISCOVERIES IN HUMANITY’S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE

Discovery of pulsars

British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar.

Since then other types of pulsars that emit X-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted.

Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnetised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could have come from aliens.

‘Wow!’ radio signal

In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote ‘Wow!’ next to his data.

The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.

Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the ‘Wow! signal’, which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.

Fossilised Martian microbes

In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs.

The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984. 

Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike.

However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated. 

They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils. 

Behaviour of Tabby’s Star in 2005 

The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astronomers since being discovered in 2015.

It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star.

Recent studies have ‘eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure’, and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals.

Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2017 

In February 2017 astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away.

Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star ‘Trappist-1’, and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life.

Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them. 

Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said: ‘This is just the beginning.’