BURSTS of radio waves flashing across the sky seem to follow a mathematical pattern. If the pattern is real, either some strange celestial physics is going on, or the bursts are artificial, produced by human – or alien – technology.

Telescopes have been picking up so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) since 2001. They last just a few milliseconds and erupt with about as much energy as the sun releases in a month. Ten have been detected so far, most recently in 2014, when the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, caught a burst in action for the first time. The others were found by sifting through data after the bursts had arrived at Earth. No one knows what causes them, but the brevity of the bursts means their source has to be small – hundreds of kilometres across at most – so they can’t be from ordinary stars. And they seem to come from far outside the galaxy.

The weird part is that they all fit a pattern that doesn’t match what we know about cosmic physics.

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Very interesting …..

It’s certainly interesting even if the ET idea is not very likely, because it would presumably need to be some natural phenomenon not previously encountered.

But I wonder if there’s anything significant about the number 187.5, apart from its appearance here.

Bubblecar said:

It’s certainly interesting even if the ET idea is not very likely, because it would presumably need to be some natural phenomenon not previously encountered.

But I wonder if there’s anything significant about the number 187.5, apart from its appearance here.

(187.5+1)/60 is a pretty good approximation to pi!

(that’s just pi, not pi factorial).

This is Rick per-ching Cochet for 187.5 DarkFM broadcasting to our listeners all across the Universe. We are offering $5000 cash and an all inclusive year pass to the Terran Olympics if you can guess the origin of this radio burst. Here’s what our listeners have guessed incorrectly…..

“….it’s a pulsar’s mating burst…..” “a micro-BH bursting?” “that’s my MIL’s laugh…”

Do you know what it is and can you get through to our number?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s certainly interesting even if the ET idea is not very likely, because it would presumably need to be some natural phenomenon not previously encountered.

But I wonder if there’s anything significant about the number 187.5, apart from its appearance here.

(187.5+1)/60 is a pretty good approximation to pi!

(that’s just pi, not pi factorial).

It’s a cryptic crossword with clues transmitted in encryption?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s certainly interesting even if the ET idea is not very likely, because it would presumably need to be some natural phenomenon not previously encountered.

But I wonder if there’s anything significant about the number 187.5, apart from its appearance here.

(187.5+1)/60 is a pretty good approximation to pi!

(that’s just pi, not pi factorial).

3.141666666666667

By Jove you’re right.

Bubblecar said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s certainly interesting even if the ET idea is not very likely, because it would presumably need to be some natural phenomenon not previously encountered.

But I wonder if there’s anything significant about the number 187.5, apart from its appearance here.

(187.5+1)/60 is a pretty good approximation to pi!

(that’s just pi, not pi factorial).

3.141666666666667

By Jove you’re right.

Mystery. Probably gas

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that fast radio bursts are the best (most energy efficient, cheapest) means of long distance communication between sentient species. We can’t read them, but that’s because they’re not aimed specifically at us and we don’t have the equipment anyway. Perhaps a good test would be to observe the same burst from widely separated locations within the solar system to see if we can detect any sign of intensity variation. If so then these things are narrow beam. An ET signal would be a narrow beam communication but a natural source would tend to be no narrower than dipole.

what’s stranger is why Jodie foster hasn’t been informed

wookiemeister said:

what’s stranger is why Jodie foster hasn’t been informed

No. She knows.

ET’s been listening to our radio and TV and is saying hello we know of your minute and second divisions used for your solar day.

The error is blue shift or caused by blue shift and indicates their speed toward earth and from that earthlings are meant to calculate ET’s ETA.

transition said:

ET’s been listening to our radio and TV and is saying hello we know of your minute and second divisions used for your solar day.

The error is blue shift or caused by blue shift and indicates their speed toward earth and from that earthlings are meant to calculate ET’s ETA.

our radio transmissions get lost fairly quickly

given the technology I’d say that submarines might have more luck detecting aliens

If it’s not of alien origin it might only be explainable as evidence that time is regulated by a creator, on the off-chance that no method of recording could pinpoint a source of origin. It might turn out to be linked to the Milky Way’s CSMBH or of very early universe origin. Whatever the explanation it has to be of significant consequence.

>our radio transmissions get lost fairly quickly

http://zidbits.com/2011/07/how-far-have-radio-signals-traveled-from-earth/

There was a study at SETI a while back that found that some (slow) radio bursts were occurring with an intensity that was significantly outside the envelope of what could be explained by natural phenomena, many sigma outside. The possibility was mooted that these could have been caused by temporary lensing (like the twinkling of stars) but if so then repeat observations would have picked up repeats of the signal, and they didn’t. In addition, no stars could be identified with the sources of the radio bursts.