An international team of scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is investigating mysterious signal spikes emitting from a 6.3-billion-year-old star in the constellation Hercules—95 light years away from Earth. The implications are extraordinary and point to the possibility of a civilization far more advanced than our own. 
 
 The unusual signal was originally detected on May 15, 2015, by the Russian Academy of Science-operated RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia, but was kept secret from the international community. Interstellar space reporter Paul Gilster broke the story after the researchers quietly circulated a paper announcing the detection of “a strong signal in the direction of HD164595.” 
 
 READ ALSO: NASA Director Reveals the 4 Places Most Likely to Have Alien Life In Our Solar System 
 
 The mysterious star’s designation is HD164595, and it’s considered to be sun-like in nature with a nearly identical metallic composition to our own star. So far, a single Neptune-like (but warmer) planet has been discovered in its orbit—HD 164595 b. But as Gilster explained, “There could, of course, be other planets still undetected in this system.” 
 
 Decorated Italian SETI researcher and mathematician Claudio Maccone along with Russia’s Nikolai Bursov of the Special Astrophysical Observatory are the principal scientists working on the apparent discovery. They claim that “permanent monitoring of this target is needed.” 
 
 “The signal conceivably fits the profile for an intentional transmission from an extraterrestrial source,” said Alan Boyle, author of The Case for Pluto who reported the story for Geekwire. “In any case, the blip is interesting enough to merit discussion by those who specialize in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.” 
 
 The signal’s strength indicates that if it in fact came from a isotropic beacon, the power source would have to be built by a Kardashev Type II civilization. (The Kardashev scale is used to determine the progress of a civilization’s technological development by measuring how much energy was used to transmit an interstellar message.) An ‘Isotropic’ beacon means a communication source emitting a signal with equal power in all directions while promoting signal strength throughout travel. 
 
 In his acclaimed work “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations,” Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev explained that a Type II civilization would be able to harness the energy of their entire host star. The most common hypothetical example of this would be a Dyson Sphere—which is a massive artificial structure that could completely encapsulate a star and transfer the energy to a nearby planet. 
 
 Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected. 
 
 “The signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target,” said Gilster. And that’s exactly what is transpiring. As of last night, the SETI institute is diverting its Allen Telescope Array in northern California to investigate while their counterparts at METI International (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) will use Panama’s Boquete Optical Observatory. 
 
 The detection of the mysterious signal and the ensuing investigations will be discussed at the IAA SETI Permanent Committee during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on September 27—the same day and location where Elon Musk will reveal his plans to colonize Mars. The Observer will be following up on both these stories from the Congress. 
 
 Robin Seemangal focuses on NASA and advocacy for space exploration. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he currently resides. Find him on Instagram for more space-related content: @nova_road. ||||| It remains only the barest of probabilities that astronomers have just found evidence of extraterrestrial, intelligent life. Nevertheless, in the community of astronomers and other scientists who use radio telescopes to search the heavens for beacons of life there is considerable excitement about a new signal observed by a facility in Russia. 
 
 According to Paul Gilster, author of the Centauri Dreams website, the Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone and other astronomers affiliated with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have detected "a strong signal in the direction of HD164595." HD 164595 is a star of 0.99 solar masses about 95 light years from Earth, with an estimated age of 6.3 billion years. The system is known to have at least one planet, HD 164595 b, which is similar in size to Neptune and orbits its star in 40 days. Other planets may exist in the system as well. 
 
 The observation was made with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in southern Russia, Gilster reports. He cautioned that the evidence is very preliminary: 
 
 No one is claiming that this is the work of an extraterrestrial civilization, but it is certainly worth further study. Working out the strength of the signal, the researchers say that if it came from an isotropic beacon, it would be of a power possible only for a Kardashev Type II civilization. If it were a narrow beam signal focused on our Solar System, it would be of a power available to a Kardashev Type I civilization. The possibility of noise of one form or another cannot be ruled out, and researchers in Paris led by Jean Schneider are considering the possible microlensing of a background source by HD164595. But the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target. 
 
 More information may be forthcoming soon. According to Gilster, the discovery and work to understand its origin will be discussed at a SETI committee meeting during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday, September 27. 
 
 Ars contacted Nick Suntzeff, a Texas A&M University astronomer, for insight into what this signal at 11Ghz might be if it were not of alien origin. "If this were a real astronomical source, it would be rather strange," Suntzeff told Ars. Although there are mysterious, high-energy astrophysical phenomenon called “fast radio bursts” that are seen at a few gigahertz, they last only 10 milliseconds or so (this event lasted longer). Unfortunately, he said, there is no information given about the strength of the signal as a function of frequency. 
 
 Suntzeff added that he would not be surprised if the signal was due to a terrestrial origin, because it was observed in part of the radio spectrum used by the military. "God knows who or what broadcasts at 11Ghz, and it would not be out of the question that some sort of bursting communication is done between ground stations and satellites," he said. "I would follow it if I were the astronomers, but I would also not hype the fact that it may be at SETI signal given the significant chance it could be something military." ||||| Mikhail Turnovskiy/Alamy Stock Photo 
 
 Are you there, ET? Recent news of a spike in radio signals that could fit the profile for an intelligent, extraterrestrial source has SETI astronomers across the globe swinging their radio dishes in hopes of confirming the detection. Although so far they have all come back empty-handed, two observatories will follow up on the tantalising signal again tonight. 
 
 The signal was detected on May 15, 2015 by a radio telescope operated by the Russian Academy of Science. It appeared to come from the star HD 164595, a sun-like star located roughly 95 light-years from Earth. The system has only one known planet: a warm Neptune, so called because it is gaseous like Neptune but orbits its star in only 40 days. But the star probably has other planets — perhaps rocky ones — as well. 
 
 The researchers speculate that such a bright signal, if real, could have been produced by a radio beacon built by an intelligent civilisation. 
 
 If that beacon is transmitting radio waves in all directions, the energy it would need to produce is a whopping 1020 watts, says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California. “That’s a big energy bill even if you’re getting a bulk discount from your local supplier,” he jokes. “It’s hundreds of times more than all the energy falling on the Earth from sunlight.” 
 
 That means the hypothetical beings responsible might be what SETI scientists call a Kardashev Type II civilisation, so advanced that they can tap all of the energy being produced by their host star. 
 
 If instead the beacon was targeted at Earth, then the power needed drops to 1013 watts, Shostak says. “That is more or less the total amount of energy used by humankind — all the cars, all the planes, all the electronic devices, everything,” Shostak says. “This is not a high-school science project.” 
 
 That would make the senders a Kardashev Type I civilisation, able to harness all the starlight that falls on its home planet. 
 
 Jumping to conclusions? 
 
 Although it’s fun to speculate, it’s far more likely that the signal isn’t an extraterrestrial beacon at all, but actually earthly interference. Radio telescopes have been known to pick up rogue signals – everything from flushing toilets to cell phones. Just last year, astronomers at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia traced a mysterious type of radio signal to two on-site microwave ovens. 
 
 “In SETI part of the problem is that you have a civilisation that is producing signals that can mess you up all the time – and that civilisation is called humanity,” Shostak says. 
 
 So before astronomers jump to any conclusion, they’re attempting to detect the signal again. Last night, the SETI Institute used the Allen Telescope Array in northern California to track the star. They saw nothing, but will observe again tonight. 
 
 That lack of detection doesn’t close the book on an extraterrestrial civilisation just yet. “You can’t say because you didn’t find something that there’s nothing there,” Shostak says. “Say Captain Cook sailed around all day in the South Pacific and he didn’t find any new islands. That doesn’t prove that there are no new islands, it just proves that he didn’t find any that day.” 
 
 A civilisation might also try to send signals at multiple frequencies, says Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI International, a group that wants to send messages to ET as well as detect their signals. Perhaps last night, they simply weren’t broadcasting at the same frequency we initially detected. 
 
 Read more: SETI looks at red dwarf stars in its search for ancient aliens 
 
 “If you really want to communicate a lot of information there are advantages to sending at optical frequencies,” he says. “So we are planning to observe the star from our optical SETI observatory in Panama this evening. We tried last night but the weather didn’t cooperate.” 
 
 Still, Vakoch is not particularly optimistic that they will find anything. “I think the likely outcome of this is that there’s no indication that it’s ET, but it provides a critical preparation for a day we may really discover intelligence out there,” he says. “We can speculate as much as we want about whether there’s intelligence out there in the cosmos, but unless we find something interesting and do a rigorous follow-up, we’ll never know.” 
 
 An earlier version of this story misstated the distance to the star. This has been corrected. ||||| The SETI Institute is using the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California in an attempt to confirm an intriguing signal coming from the star HD 164595. 
 
 A powerful signal has been spotted coming from the vicinity of a sunlike star, and now astronomers are trying to figure out what it means. 
 
 In May 2015, researchers using a radio telescope in Russia detected a candidate SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) signal that seems to originate from HD 164595, a star system that lies about 94 light-years from Earth, the website Centauri Dreams reported over the weekend. 
 
 The astronomers have not yet published a study about the detection; they plan to discuss it next month at the 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico, according to Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster, who wrote that one of the team members forwarded him the IAC presentation. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Alien Life] 
 
 
 
 Yes - We may not have found them yet, but they're out there. 
 
 No - Aliens are just part of science fiction. 
 
 I'm not sure 
 
 
 
 HD 164595 is known to harbor one planet — a roughly Neptune-mass world that orbits too close to the star to support life as we know it. However, it's possible that other worlds lurk undiscovered in the system, said astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who is not part of the detection team. 
 
 To be clear: Nobody is claiming that aliens beamed out this signal. But that is one of the possible scenarios at the moment, Shostak told Space.com. 
 
 The scientists who made the detection are respected researchers, and the signal is strong enough that it's probably not just random noise, Shostak said. Furthermore, the signal is consistent with something an alien civilization might send out — and if aliens did indeed do it, they are certainly far more advanced than we are, he added. 
 
 Based on the received signal's characteristics, aliens would have to generate about 100 billion billion watts of energy to blast it out in all directions. And they'd still have to produce more than 1 trillion watts if they beamed it only to Earth for some reason, Shostak said. 
 
 "The first number is hundreds of times more than all the sunlight falling on Earth," he said. "That's a very big energy bill." 
 
 The SETI Institute focused the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a system of radio dishes in Northern California, at HD 164595 Sunday night (Aug. 28) and plans to do so again tonight (Aug. 29), Shostak said. He certainly hopes the ATA finds something that would suggest ET is behind the signal, but he said he suspects there's a more prosaic explanation. 
 
 For example, it's possible that interference by an Earth-orbiting satellite or something else close to home is responsible, Shostak said. Indeed, he said that such "terrestrial interference" would be his bet, if we ever do learn what caused the signal. 
 
 But, sadly, it's very possible that we'll never know. The Russia-based team apparently observed the HD 164595 system 39 different times and only detected the signal once, Shostak said. If nobody sees it again, it will probably remain a mystery, much like the famous "Wow!" signal of 1977. 
 
 "Without a confirmation of this signal, we can only say that it's 'interesting,'" Shostak wrote today in a blog post about the candidate signal detection. 
 
 Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. ||||| An Interesting SETI Candidate in Hercules 
 
 A candidate signal for SETI is a welcome sign that our efforts in that direction may one day pay off. An international team of researchers has announced the detection of “a strong signal in the direction of HD164595” in a document now being circulated through contact person Alexander Panov. The detection was made with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in the Karachay–Cherkess Republic of Russia, not far from the border with Georgia in the Caucasus. 
 
 The signal was received on May 15, 2015, 18:01:15.65 (sidereal time), at a wavelength of 2.7 cm. The estimated amplitude of the signal is 750 mJy. 
 
 No one is claiming that this is the work of an extraterrestrial civilization, but it is certainly worth further study. Working out the strength of the signal, the researchers say that if it came from an isotropic beacon, it would be of a power possible only for a Kardashev Type II civilization. If it were a narrow beam signal focused on our Solar System, it would be of a power available to a Kardashev Type I civilization. The possibility of noise of one form or another cannot be ruled out, and researchers in Paris led by Jean Schneider are considering the possible microlensing of a background source by HD164595. But the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target. 
 
 Image: The RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. 
 
 Here I’m drawing on a presentation forwarded to me by Claudio Maccone, from which I learn that the team behind the detection was led by N.N. Bursov and included L.N. Filippova, V.V. Filippov, L.M. Gindilis, A.D. Panov, E.S. Starikov, J. Wilson, as well as Claudio Maccone himself, the latter a familiar figure on Centauri Dreams. The work is to be discussed at a meeting of the IAA SETI Permanent Committee, to be held during the 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday, September 27th, 2016, 
 
 What we know of HD 164595 is that it is a star of 0.99 solar masses at a distance of roughly 95 light years in the constellation Hercules, and an estimated age of 6.3 billion years. Its metallicity is almost identical to that of the Sun. A known planet in this system, HD 164595 b, is 0.05 Jupiter mass with a period of 40 days, considered to be a warm Neptune on a circular orbit. There could, of course, be other planets still undetected in this system. 
 
 Image: Strong signal from the direction of HD 164595. “Raw” record of the signal together with expected shape of the signal for point-like source in the position of HD 164595. Credit: Bursov et al. 
 
 From the presentation: 
 
 The estimated probability ~2 X 10-4 to simulate the signal from the direction of the HD164595 by signal-like noise is small, therefore HD164595 is good candidate SETI. Permanent monitoring of this target is needed. 
 
 All of which makes excellent sense. We can’t claim the detection of an extraterrestrial civilization from this observation. What we can say is that the signal is interesting and merits further scrutiny. ||||| The SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in Northern California searches for radio signals that could have been generated by intelligent alien life. 
 
 The search for signs of life in a mysterious star system hypothesized to potentially harbor an "alien megastructure" is now underway. 
 
 Astronomers have begun using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a system of radio dishes about 300 miles (483 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, to hunt for signals coming from the vicinity of KIC 8462852, a star that lies 1,500 light-years from Earth. 
 
 NASA's Kepler space telescope found that KIC 8462852 dimmed oddly and dramatically several times over the past few years. The dimming events were far too substantial to be caused by a planet crossing the star's face, researchers say, and other possible explanations, such as an enormous dust cloud, don't add up, either. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Alien Life] 
 
 The leading hypothesis at the moment involves a swarm of comets that may have been sent careening toward KIC 8462852, possibly after a gravitational jostle by a passing star. But it's also possible, astronomers say, that the signal Kepler saw was caused by huge structures built by an alien civilization — say, a giant assortment of orbiting solar panels. 
 
 That latter possibility, remote though it may be, has put KIC 8462852 in the crosshairs of scientists who hunt for signals that may have been generated by intelligent aliens. 
 
 "We are looking at it with the Allen Telescope Array," said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California. 
 
 
 
 Yes - We may not have found them yet, but they're out there. 
 
 No - Aliens are just part of science fiction. 
 
 I'm not sure 
 
 
 
 "No problem with that; I think we ought to, for sure," Shostak told Space.com. But, he added, people "should perhaps moderate their enthusiasm with the lessons of history." 
 
 Shostak cited the example of pulsars, fast-spinning, superdense stellar corpses that emit beams of high-energy radiation. These beams are picked up by instruments on and around Earth as regular pulses, because they can only be detected when they're fired straight at the planet (an event that occurs at predictable intervals because of pulsars' rotation). 
 
 Astronomers know all this now. But in the 1960s, when the first pulsar signals were discovered, some scientists interpreted them as possible alien transmissions. 
 
 "So history suggests we're going to find an explanation for this that doesn't involve Klingons, if you will," Shostak said of the KIC 8462852 mystery. 
 
 But until such an explanation is found, the intelligent-aliens hypothesis will still be on the table, even if the ATA and other instruments like it come up empty. The lack of a detectable signal, after all, does not establish that KIC 8462852 is a lifeless system. 
 
 The star may support lifeforms that do not emit signals we can pick up, for example. Or it may once have hosted a civilization that has since gone extinct, leaving the strange megastructure as a sort of monument. 
 
 Kepler's main planet-hunting work suggests that the Milky Way galaxy teems with billions of rocky, potentially habitable planets. So KIC 8462852 is far from the only lead that Shostak and his colleagues will be chasing down in the coming years. 
 
 "It almost doesn’t matter where you point your telescope, because there are planets everywhere," Shostak said. "If there's somebody out there, there are going to be so many of them out there that I do think there's a chance." 
 
 Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
– Are aliens living 95 light-years away reaching out to say hello? OK, probably not, but astronomers are nevertheless intrigued by an unusual signal reported out of Russia, reports the Observer. It seems to be coming from the general vicinity of an ancient star in the constellation Hercules known as HD164595, which has at least one planet in its orbit. The signal was detected by the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya on May 15, 2015, but only just made public in a paper, reports the website Centauri Dreams. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has begun looking into it, and "the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target," writes Paul Gilster. The reason it's generating so many headlines on science websites is that the signal has the hallmarks of one that would come an advanced civilization. After all, it would take an enormous amount of energy to blast it out deliberately, notes Space.com. Unfortunately for sci-fi fans, the best bet is that the signal is the result of some kind of interference from Earth, reports New Scientist. It might even come from our own military's communications, reports Ars Technica. "Could it be another society sending a signal our way?" asks SETI's Seth Sostak in a blog post. "Of course, that’s possible." But plenty of other explanations exist, and "without a confirmation of this signal, we can only say that it’s 'interesting.'" Astronomers will discuss the signal at a SETI meeting on Sept. 27. (SETI is also looking for signals from another star.)