Nothing to See Here, Folks: Now We’re Supposed to Believe the Mystery Radio Signal Was ‘Space Commies’

As previously reported, SETI was looking into a mysterious radio signal from space that they had theorized might be coming from a sunlike star in the constellation Hercules.

Turns out, it wasn’t aliens.

Turns out, it was space commies.

At least, that’s what is being reported now. The story now is that the signal was supposedly traced back to an old Soviet military satellite which had never been officially catalogued.

What’s strange is how the story changed.

A couple of days ago, we were told that Russian scientists first discovered the mystery signal in May 2015 but never shared that info with anyone, thus SETI just learned about its existence recently.

Now that this signal has blown up in the press, it’s being reported those Russian scientists were working with SETI at the time they first discovered the signal. Now everyone knew it was just a Russian satellite sent up decades ago and never listed in any of the catalogs of celestial bodies. No story, thanks bye, go home, nothing to see here.

Today:

“We, indeed, discovered an unusual signal,” Alexander Ipatov, Director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS. “However, an additional check showed that it was emanating from a Soviet military satellite, which had not been entered into any of the catalogs of celestial bodies.”

Russian scientists with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) discovered the signal in May, 2015, with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Russia supposedly coming from the star HD 164595.

Just two days ago, however, it was being reported that SETI just discovered the signal recently and Russia had never told them about it.

August 29th:

Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., weighed in on HD 164595 in an email to GeekWire:

“This is a bit of a puzzling story, as the Russians found this signal a year ago or so, but just didn’t let others know. That’s not good policy, as what you really want is confirmation at another telescope, but… Is it real?  The signal may be real, but I suspect it’s not ET.  There are other possibilities for a wide-band signal such as this, and they’re caused by natural sources (or even terrestrial interference).”

So if Russia was always working with SETI and SETI knew about the signal since May 2015, why the sudden noise in the press about it and why are senior SETI astronomers like Seth Shostak acting like they had no clue the signal existed because Russia never told them?

This one doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Whatever is really going on with that signal, rest assured they aren’t going to tell the public. We’re on a “need to know” basis and we apparently don’t need to know.