15 mysterious radio signals reportedly came from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away.
Stephen Hawking, the astrophysics genius who occupied Isaac Newton's chair at Cambridge, has perhaps discovered, in the universe, what he fears most: traces of alien life.
In a worrying warning, Hawking has long advised against contacting aliens: "Ignore them, don't respond to those messages. They would treat us as we treat bacteria, and if we met them, they would treat us as Christopher Columbus treated the natives he met in the New World." Despite everything, an encounter seems impossible.
In fact, radio signals travel at the speed of light, and the ones just collected were emitted 3 billion years ago, when the Earth was 2 billion years old and supported only single-celled life forms.
"If an alien sent them, they're long dead, and if we send back a reply, our civilization will already be in ruins by the time it's delivered."
Tuning into 10 billion different frequencies, scientists are examining the 100 closest galaxies to us with the help of 9 million volunteers, who are making their computers available around the world to help the research center examine the data.
Where could the signs come from?
The signals, in this case, were first detected by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia in 2012. In 2015 and 2016, the source of the signal was still active, and it was ruled out that they could be pulses from "random supernova explosions."
It is speculated that this could be due to energy sources used by aliens to propel their vehicles, but the hypothesis that they come from a neutron star, one of the strangest celestial bodies in the Universe, is also being studied.
Steven Hawking is certain that extraterrestrial life exists somewhere in the galaxy.
But he also believes that if we were to discover them, it would be better not to be discovered ourselves: "Aliens could come and visit us and we wouldn't like it at all."