About That 'Promising' SETI Signal...

(Credit: H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF) It's easy for the public to get excited about the thinnest hints of anything alien. After all, there are dozens of "Earth-like" planets (which aren't confirmed to be anything like us) and there's that "alien megastructure" star (which is probably comets or a very strange variable star.) So when news hit this week of a potential alien signal, it hit hard, spreading across the media — including here, because who can resist a good alien story? To recap: a strong signal in the 11 Ghz band was detected by the RATAN-500 radio telescope in Russia some time ago. The signal was at an unusually high frequency and strength. Russian SETI researchers flagged it for follow-up. Then the science-meets-futurism blog Centauri Dreams picked it up. Then everyone did. We even cautiously dipped our toes in it, awaiting word from SETI researchers to sort it out. We ...