The tantalizing space signal which made headliners earlier this week has been demystified after astronomers in Russia determined that it was of terrestrial origin.
News of the signal set off a brief firestorm over the weekend as SETI scientists sprung into action in an effort to locate the anomaly once again.
Perhaps indicative of just how ready the world is to hear from ET, the story spread like wildfire as millions hopes that perhaps this was the breakthrough we've been waiting for all this time.
Alas, it turns out that the 'call' was yet another wrong number in the endless game of telephone between humans and aliens.
The furor was enough to force astronomers working at Russia's RATAN-600 facility, where the signal was detected, to issue a rare public statement.
In their press release, they provided some detail on how the signal was detected and then conceded that "subsequent processing and analysis of the signal revealed its most probable terrestrial origin."
Despite teasing other possible finds at the facility, the statement goes on to say, rather definitively, "it can be said with confidence that no sought-for signal has been detected yet."
While this news will likely be a disappointment for ET enthusiasts, it does allow for a number of other fantastic scenarios to be in play.
Perhaps the Russians are really trying to hide the truth about aliens from the world or, even better, the signal did come from Earth but it originated from aliens actually living here on the planet!
Albeit admittedly unlikely, we'd much rather those possibilities being the cause of the signal rather than simply a slip up that landed one unfortunate astronomer a one way ticket to Siberia.
Source: ExtremeTech / SETI RAS