Mysterious Star Pulses May Be Alien Signals, Study Claims (iop.org)

"Strange pulses of cosmic light might be signals from hundreds of different alien civilizations -- or just the latest false alarm in the tortuous search for E.T.," reports Space.com. Slashdot reader Okian Warrior shares this excerpt from the paper which argues that the signals "cannot be caused by instrumental or data analysis effects." Finally, we consider the possibility, predicted in a previous published paper, that the signals are caused by light pulses generated by extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) to makes us aware of their existence. We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an ETI signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis. The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the Sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis.
The researchers add that "at this stage, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed with further work," and Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at SETI, tells Space.com that "If I were a betting guy, I'd bet this is an artifact of the way they processed their data."

Comments

Re: an artifact of the way they processed their da

[ShanghaiBill]

same with the USA presidential political polls

That depends on the poll. Professional pollsters tend to be accurate. Polls run by journalists tend to be inaccurate, partly because they are more interested in drama than accuracy, but also because they fail to properly account for bias. So when Hillary does well in a debate, and her numbers shoot up by 5%, journalists report that her support has surged. Professional pollsters understand that what is really happening is that her supporters feel upbeat, and are more likely to participate in surveys, while Donald's supporters feel demoralized, and hang up the phone. So underlying support for the candidates barely budged, it is just that the sampling bias shifted.

Re: an artifact of the way they processed their d

[Anonymous Coward]

We are just going to delete your stupid fucking facts and replace them with what appears more dramatic on TV. We can't sell beer and tampons with facts.