Father and Daughter from the U.S. Deciphered "Alien Signal" from Mars That Puzzled Scientists for a Year

It turned out to be an image of amino acids.

Ken Chaffin from the USA and his daughter Kelly managed to decode an "alien" message that had puzzled the scientific community for an entire year. It turned out that this signal was sent from the ExoMars orbital spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of a research project.

The signal was sent in May 2023, and it was detected by three radio observatories on Earth. After that, the data became available for study by civilian scientists. Within 10 days, they were able to extract the message from the raw data, but its decoding proved to be much more complex. Only on June 7, 2024, Ken and Kelly Chaffin announced the successful resolution of the task. ESA announced their success only at the end of October.

The decoded message turned out to be an image of the structure of five amino acids - the essential "building blocks" of proteins. This symbolic code was created by a team of "simulated aliens," which included scientists, a poet, a radio communication engineer, a physicist, and a lawyer working in the field of space law.

The "Sign in Space" project, under which the discovery was made, was supported by the SETI Institute, which is engaged in the search for extraterrestrial life, as well as the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. Decoding the signal required countless hours of computer simulations.

The question of what exactly the "aliens" were trying to convey by sending the image of amino acids remains a mystery. Now civilian scientists are discussing possible interpretations of the message on a special server in Discord. Perhaps one of the most important questions is whether the hypothetical aliens have peaceful intentions?