SETI@home Discovers 'Huh...' Signal

April 1, 2009
Berkeley, California

Dr. Anders Davidson, director of the SETI@home distributed computing project, which has been searching data from the Arecibo radio telescope for alien radio signals since 1999, announced today that the project has discovered a 'huh...' signal. "We've been looking for a long time," Dr. Davidson explained, "but until now we haven't seen anything that was definitely a signal. For a while we weren't even sure about this one. It was fairly weak and it lasted for only 17 seconds. It repeated a few minutes later, for about 6 seconds, and then that was it. We haven't seen a repeat of the signal in later data."

Asked why the signal was called the 'huh...' signal, Dr. Davidson seemed to hesitate, then answered, "Well, you know the 'Wow!' signal SETI found in 1977? We were kind of hoping the first signal we discovered would be like that. We wanted it to really stand out, you know? The 'Wow!' signal lasted for 72 seconds. It was undeniably real. And to this day no one knows what it was. That's pretty cool! This one, well, it's barely noticeable. I mean, it could be the sign we've all been looking for, that we're not alone in the universe, that E.T.'s out there trying to contact us. But something like that, you know, you want to be a SHOUT, not a whimper. So if this is it, it's kind of a let-down. When I heard about it, I just said 'huh.'" Asked for more detail, Dr. Davidson said, "I don't really want to talk about it any more," and left the room. A few minutes later the movie "Contact" was heard playing in his office.

Joe Myers of Ames, Iowa, was the project volunteer whose computer first discovered the 'huh...' signal. Asked how he felt about the discovery, he said, "Well, Dr. Davidson called me yesterday to tell me my computer found something. I was all excited for a minute, but then he said it wasn't really that interesting. He said, 'We're kind of sure it's a signal, with some repeating parts, but who knows, really?' That's it? How can I get excited about that?"

SETI@home scientists are analyzing the signal to see if it contains a message. Dean Wirtimer, chief scientist for the project, stated, "So far the first signal appears to be a repetition of the numbers 3 decimal 1 5. Are the aliens trying to show us Pi? If so, they aren't very good at Math. And if they are, they don't care about accuracy." Asked about the second signal, Mr. Wirtimer said, "It starts with 3 decimal 1 and then contains a message we think is 'hi Mom.'" Asked whether the project would continue, Mr. Wirtimer said, "I think so. I really hope there are more interesting aliens out there than these guys." He looked out the window for a moment. "But if not, do you know anyone who wants to buy some used DAT tapes?"