That "alien" SETI signal may have actually come from Earth, astrophysicists say

Impact

Those of you fashioning your Faraday hats amid the speculation that alien life might be out there — put the tin foil down. 

As it turns out, that signal discovered by astronomers in the Russian Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, which had people questioning the existence of alien civilization, was probably coming from our own planet. 

"In the framework of this program, an interesting radio signal at a wavelength of 2.7 cm was detected in the direction of one of the objects (star system HD164595 in Hercules) in 2015," the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement, referring to the astronomers' discovery of a radio signal coming from the direction of a star fewer than 100 light-years away. "Subsequent processing and analysis of the signal revealed its most probable terrestrial origin."

Ars Technica pointed out since the signal believed to be coming from the Hercules constellation was measured at 11 GHz, it was "likely due to some military activity." We don't know the exact root of the signal, but we do know one thing: It was (probably) coming from planet Earth.