From: | Internet UFO Group |
Title: | SETI RESEARCHERS FIND... TV DINNER |
Source: | Electronic Telegraph |
Date: | January 18, 1996 |
After spending a year scouring 200 solar systems for signs of
extra-terrestrial beings, astronomers have found indisputable proof of
intelligent life -- in the kitchen below their telescope.
For four months last year Peter Backus, of Project Phoenix in California,
believed that he was listening to messages from outer space via the 64-metre
Parkes radio telescope in Australia.
The telescope, the biggest in the southern hemisphere, picked up a
distinctive but inexplicable radio signal around 2.4 gigahertz at about the
same time each evening that could not be explained.
However, a thorough investigation revealed that the scientists were not
listening to little green men whispering through space. Instead, they were
eavesdropping on frozen dinners cooking in the microwave oven downstairs.
"It was pretty loud," Dr. Backus told the annual meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in San Antonio [last] week. "One time I tracked one
signal for two hours. I couldn't rule it out as human noise," he said.
Dr. Backus said that a note had since been stuck to the microwave asking
staff not to use it while the telescope is operating.
Project Phoenix researchers used a new automated system to sift human noise
from alien signals, but still encountered several false alarms.
Many of the most promising signals were from satellites.
Another hopeful electromagnetic buzz came from the farthest possible source
of human noise: the transmitter on the Pioneer 10 space probe, six billion
miles from Earth.