Scientists study 100 possible alien radio signals from collapsed Arecibo Observatory, ending groundbreaking 21-year search

One of the largest searches for alien intelligence in history is nearing completion, thanks to the help of more than 2 million citizen scientists and the legendary Arecibo Observatory.

Launched in 1999, the SETI@Home project enlisted millions of volunteers around the world to help identify unusual radio signals in data from the Arecibo Observatory — a massive radio telescope in Puerto Rico that collapsed in 2020 due to a cable failure. Though the project ended prematurely with the telescope's demise, citizen scientists nonetheless identified more than 12 billion signals of interest in 21 years of data.

Now, the researchers behind the project have narrowed that daunting list down to the top 100 candidate signals, which they are studying in detail with China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) — now the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, following the death of Arecibo.

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