A father and daughter wanted to see how well scientists could crack alien code – and they did it.
A project was launched in 2023 by the SETI Institute which sought to explore what would happen if aliens did indeed make contact with earth. They decided to simulate a scenario to test the scientists who dedicate their lives to all things outer space. After spotting it, ‘citizen scientists’ – basically volunteers who collect data – turned their hand at translating it.
And what they found was unexpected.
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a European Space Agency spacecraft orbiting Mars, beamed a signal containing an alien-like message which was picked up by three observatories. The translation battle ensued.
(Image: A Sign in Space)
It was finally decoded by a father and daughter duo named Ken and Keli Chaffin, who spent a year working on the project. The European Space Agency announced the results and the duo reportedly spent hours experimenting and carrying out several mathematical equations.
The message appeared in the sky as clusters of white pixels in a random variation. They resemble the make up of amino acids – which science considers the building blocks of life. These pixels moved and were only visible for a short tenth of a second.
The designer behind the project confirmed that they are amino acids, but wanted the scientists to leave the interpretation up to the researchers.
The signal was sent from Mars to Earth and travelled through space for 16 minutes before it was picked up by the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station near Bologna, Italy.
Looking at the original image, Ken trawled through the rough footage which was dubbed a ‘starmap’. From previous research, he suspected a cellular automata algorithm produced it. After running it through some intelligent technology, Ken managed to generate the image of amino acids.
(Image: Getty Images/Mint Images RF)
He recognised the image from his school days. The creator of the project, Daniela de Paulis, wanted to keep the project as close to real life as possible, ensuring that if the situation was real, we could act accordingly.
Now that the message is decoded, she now hopes to discover why an ‘alien’ would send it and what it means.
Ms de Paulis spoke to CNN and added: “The chances are that in this extreme scenario, when we have to give a meaning to a message from an alien civilisation, we might never be able to really agree on an exact meaning.”
While there’s still plenty unknown factors, scientists are happy humans now have a clearer idea on how to decode messages, meaning extra terrestrial life could be closer than we think.
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