(Photo by Tim Peake / ESA via Getty Images)

Mysterious ‘fast radio bursts’ which some scientists have said could be evidence of alien intelligence are definitely coming from space – not Earth.

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Scientists from Swinburne University of Technology pinned down the location of three of the mysterious bursts using the Molonglo telescope.

‘Perhaps the most bizarre explanation for the FRBs is that they were alien transmissions,’ said Professor Matthew Bailes from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.


‘Conventional single dish radio telescopes have difficulty establishing that transmissions originate beyond the Earth’s atmosphere,’ said Dr Chris Flynn from Swinburne University of Technology.

Scientists used software to pinpoint the sources of three of the mysterious ‘bursts’, which erupt with the energy the sun releases in a day.

The Parkes radio telescope (Picture PA)

First discovered in 2007, fewer than two dozen have been detected by gigantic radio telescopes like the Parkes Observatory in Australia.



The bursts are thought to originate from distant galaxies, billions of light-years away.

Could they be the ‘exhaust’ of alien spacecraft? Mysterious ‘fast radio bursts’ detected by telescopes on Earth could be evidence of advanced alien technology, a Harvard expert has suggested. Specifically, the bursts – short, high-energy pulses which last for a few milliseconds – could be powering alien ‘light sail’ spaceships the size of 20 Earth cruise liners. Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that the bursts – first discovered in 2007 – could come from planet-sized transmitters powering alien craft. Loeb said, ‘Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven’t identified a possible natural source with any confidence. ‘An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking.’ Loeb believes that a solar-powered transmitter on a planet twice the size of Earth could generate the energy needed. Such a vast construction project is well beyond our technology, but within the realm of possibility according to the laws of physics. Loeb and his co-authors that the most plausible use of such power is driving interstellar light sails. The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth – big enough to carry passengers across space.