Interstellar sign linked to aliens was really only a truck

Sound waves regarded as from a 2014 meteor fireball north of Papua New Guinea had been nearly definitely vibrations from a truck rumbling alongside a close-by street, new Johns Hopkins College-led analysis reveals. The findings increase doubts that supplies pulled final yr from the ocean are alien supplies from that meteor, as was extensively reported.

“The sign modified instructions over time, precisely matching a street that runs previous the seismometer,” mentioned Benjamin Fernando, a planetary seismologist at Johns Hopkins who led the analysis. “It is actually troublesome to take a sign and make sure it’s not from one thing. However what we are able to do is present that there are many alerts like this, and present they’ve all of the traits we might count on from a truck and not one of the traits we might count on from a meteor.”

The crew will current its findings March 12 on the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. Journalists can attend the presentation in particular person or nearly at 4:50 p.m. ET.

After a meteor entered Earth’s ambiance over the Western Pacific in January 2014, the occasion was linked to floor vibrations recorded at a seismic station in Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. In 2023, supplies on the backside of the ocean close to the place the meteor fragments had been thought to have fallen were identified as of “extraterrestrial technological” (alien) origin.

However in line with Fernando, that supposition depends on misinterpreted knowledge and the meteor really entered the ambiance some other place. Fernando’s crew didn’t discover proof of seismic waves from the meteor.

“The fireball location was really very far-off from the place the oceanographic expedition went to retrieve these meteor fragments,” he mentioned. “Not solely did they use the improper sign, they had been trying within the improper place.”

Utilizing knowledge from stations in Australia and Palau designed to detect sound waves from nuclear testing, Fernando’s crew recognized a extra possible location for the meteor, greater than 100 miles from the realm initially investigated. They concluded the supplies recovered from the ocean backside had been tiny, extraordinary meteorites—or particles produced from different meteorites hitting Earth’s floor combined with terrestrial contamination.

“No matter was discovered on the ocean ground is completely unrelated to this meteor, no matter whether or not it was a pure area rock or a chunk of alien spacecraft—regardless that we strongly suspect that it wasn’t aliens,” Fernando added.

Fernando’s crew contains Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial School London; Steve Desch of Arizona State College; Alan Jackson of Towson College; Pierrick Mialle of the Complete Nuclear-Take a look at-Ban Treaty Group; Eleanor Ok. Sansom of Curtin College; and Göran Ekström of Columbia College.