We Finally Know What That ‘Alien’ Signal From Poxima Centauri Was
Is our nearest star hosting an inteligent civilisation?
The alien signal from Proxima Centauri wasn’t what it seemed to be
Cast your mind back to December 17th 2020. The world was having a minor apocalypse, Trump and Biden were racing to the Whitehouse and we were all getting ready for the loneliest Christmas ever. Then, suddenly, the media went crazy for something that wasn’t Covid or political (finally!). A radio telescope in Australia had picked up a signal from our nearest cosmic neighbour. Was this a glimpse of nearby aliens? Or something else entirely. Well, the scientists who made the discovery have finally figured it out.
What was this signal? And why did we think it was alien in origin?
The signal was dubbed BLC1 and it bore all the hallmarks of being a technosignature. Our modern technology releases a lot of different signals in all sorts of different bandwidths, but mainly in the radio spectrum. These signals don’t stay close to Earth. Instead, they spill out into the wider Universe. Scientists theorise that advanced alien civilisations would also utilise this technology, and we can pick up their signals to find them. These telltale signs of distant cultures are known as technosignatures.
