Astronomers have finally solved the mystery of peculiar signals coming from a nearby star, a story that sparked intense public speculation this week that perhaps, finally, alien life had been found.
It hasn't. The signal, which has been formally named "Weird!" was interference from a distant satellite.
Of course, astronomers said all along that extra-terrestrials were quite far at the bottom of the list of possibilities for the signals detected from Ross 128, a dim star known as a red dwarf some 11 light-years away.
To experts, the true mystery was that they couldn't figure out if the bursts were unusual stellar activity, emissions from other background objects, or interference from satellite communications.
"However, many people were more interested in the signals as potential proof of transmissions from an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization," wrote Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo in a blog post Friday, revealing the true nature of the signals.
After further fueling speculation by summoning the world experts in the hunt for life elsewhere in the universe—The SETI Berkeley Research Center at the University of California—the team issued its conclusion.
"We are now confident about the source of the Weird! Signal," Mendez wrote.
"The best explanation is that the signals are transmissions from one or more geostationary satellites."
The signals only appeared around Ross 128 because it is located "close to the celestial equator where many geostationary satellites are placed," Mendez added.
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