A giant Chinese radio telescope detected three narrow-band signals while scanning distant planets.

FAST, China's giant radio telescope, found three strange signals. Our hunger for aliens nearly turned human noise into a cosmic hello.

FAST, China's giant radio telescope, picked up three narrow-band signals during an exoplanet scan, the kind of radio blip SETI watches closely. But researcher Dan Werthimer identified them as human interference, and the tests were never enough to call them alien. The near-miss exposes the gap between finding something unusual and proving we are not alone.

• What it could changeA real technosignature would remake the search for life beyond Earth, but only repeatable signals could carry that weight.
• How it touches todayEvery striking space discovery now travels through clickbait images and headlines before verification catches up.
• Our futureThe harder contact stays to prove, the more human noise could decide what the public thinks the universe is saying.

• The reported signals were narrow-band and therefore initially interesting for SETI, but the researchers themselves said interference had to be ruled out.nakedemperor +1
• A signal's unusual radio form is not enough to establish an extraterrestrial source; follow-up testing was still required before the report was removed or confirmed.theconversation +1
• FAST's established work includes detecting natural fast radio bursts, showing that striking radio phenomena can arise from cosmic sources without being alien communications.scientificamerican +2