
Earth receiving mysterious radio signals - q7
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/earth-receiving-mysterious-radio-signals-outer-space-alien-life-source-possibility-believe-1494686
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dfryer
The paper is much more conservative than the article about it. They're saying
that the close relationship between the signal and the human-made second, plus
the fact that most of these signals were observed at one particular telescope,
suggests strongly that it's a local, human source.

"Paper doesn't rule out aliens" isn't a particularly strong statement. I've
read many papers that don't rule out aliens, dragons OR unicorns.

~~~
dchichkov
The paper starts with: "Eleven FRBs have been detected so far, nine with the
Parkes and one at the Arecibo telescope." That arithmetic is wrong. Tongue-in-
the-cheek - April's fool?

 _edit_ : it actually seems more like a genuine typo in a pre-print. The list
further in the article contains 10 FRBs from Parkes. _edit 2_ : linked to the
abstract.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245](http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245)

~~~
Sniffnoy
A note -- if you're linking to arXiv, it's better to link to the abstract
([http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245](http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245)) rather
than directly to the PDF. From the abstract, one can easily click through to
the PDF; not so the reverse. And the abstract allows one to do things like see
different versions of the paper, search for other things by the same authors,
etc.

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uoou
From the linked paper:

>the suggestive correlation with terrestrial time standards seems to nearly
clinch the case for human association of these peculiar phenomena

More from this author:

[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/earth-sized-ufo-spotted-nasa-
images...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/earth-sized-ufo-spotted-nasa-images-show-
alien-mothership-blasting-out-sun-video-1480987)

[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ufo-hunter-believes-nasa-cut-off-
li...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ufo-hunter-believes-nasa-cut-off-live-feed-
when-mysterious-ship-approached-space-station-1483838)

[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasa-secretly-contact-aliens-
allege...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasa-secretly-contact-aliens-alleged-ex-
employees-revelation-fuels-ufo-conspiracy-1477212)

~~~
danhon
"Arjun Varma is the Senior Correspondent, Entertainment at International
Business Times. He comes from a diverse media background having worked across
film, TV, print and digital."

So, not science reporting, then.

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FatalLogic
Maybe this is a better link for this story?
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630153.600-is-
this-e...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630153.600-is-this-et-
mystery-of-strange-radio-bursts-from-space.html?full=true)

------
johnsolo1701
Good commentary here:
[http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/02/mathemati...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/02/mathematical-
pattern-found-in-enigmatic-radio-bursts-but-its-not-e-t/)

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sytelus
This is very interesting paper that just came out last week. So they found
fast radio bursts (FRB) to have DMs (Dispersion Measure) that are in perfect
multiplication with integers to a constant. This was supposed to be bit more
random and so these being in such order is very surprising and unlikely to be
just coincidence. Only 11 FRBs are found so far which might also means source
of signal is not all around. On the downside, the signal were assumed to
require huge amount of energy in short burst that Sun would produce in entire
day. That assumption lead to belief that FRBs were too close to be in our
Milkeyway and more likely to be in other galaxy. Overall very interesting
development.

~~~
cpncrunch
No, they're not -- read the paper. You'll see that the DMs are close to
multiples of 187.5, but not exact. In fact some are quite far off (5%). I'm
slightly dubious of the paper. I haven't calculated the probability myself,
but is the 1/10000 chance calculated from assuming they are exactly 187.5
multiples (DMest), or from the actual results (which aren't exact multiples)?
I'm hoping it's the latter.

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IndianAstronaut
This has me curious as to how much radio data from space remains unanalyzed?
There is probably more data being received than the select group of scientists
working on this can analyze. How much machine learning power has been directed
at this?

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houseofshards
What does the article mean by "fast" radio signals ? Don't radio waves always
travel at the speed of light ?

~~~
JonathonW
They're "fast" in that they only last a short period of time-- these signals
only last a few milliseconds, and they're rarely detected in real-time.

~~~
justinpombrio
So... brief.

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capex
First I double checked if 1st April has passed.

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tomrod
Much like many things: cool if true, and I wonder what's behind it. (e.g.
Bloop, EM Drive, etc.)

~~~
modzu
they suggest it could be a cell phone tower :(

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soheil
"Failing some observational bias, the suggestive correlation with terrestrial
time standards seems to nearly clinch the case for human association of these
peculiar phenomena."

It's just from the latest NSA microwave oven.

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KamiCrit
Wow!

~~~
omeid2
I am guessing the down votes are from people who love jumping the gun.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal)

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recondite
Just don't forget, the primer is 3-dimensional:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgPSUer1ujM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgPSUer1ujM)

There, I just saved us like a week's worth of effort.

~~~
rustyconover
We just have to think like a Vegan. No meat, no dairy, no animal products. And
intergalactic wormholes.

~~~
kposehn
Because once upon a time, we were each a hell of an engineer.

~~~
rustyconover
Could Elon Musk have launched something with SpaceX that is faking these
signals, so he could fax down plans for Tesla's new teleporter to be unveiled
at the end of the month?

Conspiracy hat engaged.

~~~
Everhusk
Brings up a good point, I bet when vega sends us the blueprints then SpaceX
will most likely win the contract..

