--- title: "Something May Be Scrambling Alien Messages, NASA-Funded Research Finds" description: "New research provides a physics based solution for why we aren't hearing potential messages from alien civilizations." date: "2026-03-14" modified: "2026-03-14" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/space/scrambling-alien-messages-nasa" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Exobiology" - "NASA" - "Off-World" - "Space" --- # Something May Be Scrambling Alien Messages, NASA-Funded Research Finds ![A large satellite dish antenna in a field with railroad tracks leading towards it. The image has been digitally altered with a bright yellow circle behind the satellite dish and the dish itself colored in red, while the rest of the landscape and sky are tinted blue. Smaller satellite dishes are visible in the background.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* If intelligent aliens are out there, why aren't we hearing from them? Are they silently observing us like zoo animals, or [staying quiet]() out of fear that they'd catch the attention of a bloodthirsty civilization? Those are spooky [Fermi paradox solutions]() to contemplate indeed. But if they're a little too sci-fi for your taste, new research funded by NASA from the SETI Institute provides a physics-based solution to this famous conundrum: bad "space weather." The [study](), published in the *The Astrophysical Journal*, focuses on how potential extraterrestrial signals being beamed into the cosmos could be scrambled by common astronomical phenomena, like solar storms and plasma turbulence near an alien home world. These volatile events could broaden the narrow frequency of the potential alien signals, spreading them thin across multiple frequencies and making them nearly undetectable to most SETI searches, which focus on narrow bands. "If a signal gets broadened by its own star's environment, it can slip below our detection thresholds, even if it's there, potentially helping explain some of the radio silence we've seen in technosignature searches," study lead author and SETI astronomer Vishal Gajjar said in a [statement]() about the work. SETI efforts typically focus on narrowbands, which appear as spikes, because these signals aren't produced by natural phenomena. If a hypothetical alien civilization wanted to be noticed, the thinking went, they'd broadcast a message this way. But once a signal is sent, it's at the mercy of the cosmos. It may have to travel thousands if not millions of light years before falling on intelligent ears, during which it could run into countless obstacles. This research, however, focused on the likelihood of aliens encountering uncooperative "space weather" near their planet. As such, the astronomers studied how radio transmissions between our own spacecraft and Earth are jumbled by solar activity, including the solar wind and the star's violent outbursts like coronal mass ejections. After quantifying its effects, they extrapolated how it might affect signals coming from systems containing either a Sun-like star or a red dwarf star, the most common type of star in the Milky Way. In simulations, the team found that 70 percent of stars can cause broadening of more than 1 Hz, and 30 percent of stars can broaden signals more than 10 Hz. If in the unlikely possibility that the Sun decides to have a coronal mass ejection during a techosignature observation, the researchers also found, it could broaden signals by more than 1,000 Hz. The upshot, the researchers say, is that SETI researchers should consider broadening their horizons a little bit, and observe at higher radio frequencies where the broadening is less powerful. "By quantifying how stellar activity can reshape narrowband signals, we can design searches that are better matched to what actually arrives at Earth, not just what might be transmitted," said coauthor Grayce C. Brown, a research assistant at the SETI institute, in the statement. **More on aliens:** [*Anonymous Kalshi User Makes Huge Bet That the White House Is About to Confirm Alien Life or Technology*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()