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News Of SETI Signal Just Bad Reporting
The Bad Astronomer writes "Rumors have been flying in recent days that the SETI project has received a strong signal from space, indicating the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Bad Astronomy breaks down the origins of this (false) claim, which mostly amounts to a heaping helping of shoddy journalism. 'I just talked to Dan Wertheimer, the astronomer quoted in the article. He told me that the original interview was about sending signals into space (so-called active SETI) as opposed to just listening for aliens. After the interview, he talked to the reporter about some of the astronomy he does, including looking at what are called radio transients: bursts of radio waves that are seen once and never repeat. These may come from one-off events like colliding neutron stars, exploding stars, and so on. Somehow, in the article the reporter mixed up the observation of the transient signals with detecting a signal from E.T.'"
I for one welcome our incompetent journalist overlords.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
It really was alien, but the aliens are already here, and they're covering it up so they can terraform our planet with global warming.
Should the reporter get fired, he has a great future as a Slashdot editor.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.