For 17 years, astronomers at a massive radio telescope in Australia at the Parkes Observatory have been searching for the source of an alien signal of “perytons.” With a new retrofit, they finally were able to isolate the source: their microwave in the kitchen.
The perytons have been detected a couple times a year and were extremely nearby. Their new receiver isolated the signal at 2.4 GHz. That is when a light went off for one of the scientists who remembered that was the level of a conventional microwave.
They went to the kitchen and took readings. It turns out that, when food was warming, the signal would be released when you opened the door to check the dish.
A for Andromeda
All this time, they were chasing a 2,4 GHz signal down and no one thought to check out the microwave?
In Green Bank, West Virginia, no cellular phone use, no television or radio receivers, no microwave ovens, no computers are allowed. It’s a mecca for those who feel that radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation is damaging their health, but the reason for this limitation is specifically to allow the world’s largest steerable radio telescope to be sure they are measuring signals from across the Galaxy and not down the road.
ha ha yeah the national radio quiet zone
Professor…..thanks for the fun story.
When I was a teenager in Houston, my family was a very happy one, but were barely middle class. Money was tight. So instead of spending money on hair rollers, I rolled my hair with tin cans, and orange juice cans. It became a source of entertainment as my father would ask if I could pick up any Dallas radio stations………or he would ask me to stand beside the television as some sort of human antennae. Good times!! LOL. I have wondered, had microwaves been around then, if my head full of tin cans would have created a problem with dinner.
cindybragg as in Cindy Bragg
There is no ego in either science or horses. Sooner or later, we all get taken down a peg.
Fermi paradox. are we running in a vast simulation?
https://now.northropgrumman.com/is-our-entire-universe-just-a-simulated-reality/
In Australia the pot will call the kettle black. “Alien” is what? Is a Russian an alien. Are all Russians connected to the government and controlled by Putin? How did they get all these capitalist oligarchs in Russia if it is supposed to be a communist nation state? Is Trump evil for talking to any Russian? Can Biden speak to any Russian? What if one washes up on shore in Maryland? What if some creature comes in from Mars and speaks to Trump’s house cleaner at Mar A Lago? Just what is “an alien”?
GE phone home.