'Alien' message from Mars decoded by father-daughter duo contain movement, suggest life

In 2023, as part of the "A Sign in Space" project, the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter sent a signal from Mars to Earth. This message was picked up by three observatories: the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station near Bologna, Italy. In a remarkable collaboration, around 5,000 citizen scientists worked together via a global Discord chat to extract and decode raw data mixed with other signals from the spacecraft. The extraction and visualization of the data took about 10 days, but deciphering the message itself took almost a year—and that task was completed by a father-daughter team, Ken and Keli Chaffin.

According to ESA, the Chaffins cracked the code after tirelessly running simulations and relying on their intuition. The decoded message turned out to be a dynamic visual signal made up of five configurations, each representing an amino acid—the building blocks of life. However, while the signal has been successfully decoded, its true meaning remains elusive. Decoding the message was just the beginning. Now, the challenge is to interpret its significance, and that task falls to citizen scientists like the Chaffins, who will seek to uncover any hidden messages within the data.

The project's creators have no immediate plans to verify any interpretations, but they are encouraging the public to submit their ideas. Daniela de Paulis, the media artist behind "A Sign in Space," is also working on a book documenting the journey of the project, including the different interpretations that have emerged.


The initiative is part of an artistic collaboration with the SETI Institute, the European Space Agency, the Green Bank Observatory, and Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). Its goal is to involve the global Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) community, experts from various fields, and the public in a collective effort to receive, decode, and interpret what could be a message from beyond Earth.

While this project was a simulated signal—designed by humans and reflecting our own concepts of communication—the process of decoding and interpreting a potential real message from extraterrestrial life would be far more challenging. Alien communication, if we ever encounter it, would likely be entirely outside our frame of reference, making it difficult to understand or even interpret. Still, every search for meaning must start somewhere, and "A Sign in Space" offers a fascinating step in that journey.