Pictures of SETI Signals from unknown engineer in the UK.

(Now who could that be? - See previous info!)

Updated 10-30-98

October 22, 1998 21:13 UTC

October 23, 1998 21:17 UTC

I have contacted the engineer and requested more information. One thing of interest is that the position of these signals coincides (roughly) with the position of a star named EQ Pegasi which is about 22 light years away in the constellation Pegasus. The SETI Institute thought they might have picked up signals from this star back on September 17th and their description of the events that followed is here.

Here is the text of the message that appeared on the SETI email forum 10-26-98:

<Begin Quote>

Several days ago I sent the message below to the executive director and the"Hits" list without a response.(This may be due to me not being amember of the SETI League) I am very excited about this yet it seems no one at the SETI League leadership is interested so I send this along to the members and appeal to them to help confirm this interesting signal. I have tried sending this several times all to no avail. This is my last attempt as I think I may be censored.

_message follows_

Hello,

I am sending this along to inform you of a possible SETI Hit. First let me state, I am *NOT* a member of the SETI League for reason's I would rather not go into. I have however been conducting Amateur SETI for little over a year and a half. I am an engineer at a major telecomunications firm in England and I have for the last year conducted SETI from one of the large (10 Meter) dishes we have here that was taken offline some year sago. This is a "parasitic" experiment and no one around here knows I mounted a 2nd feedhorn on the dish due to the fact that I am the engineer.

The station is as follows:

One 10 Meter dish ----> into a custom built (by me) 1450 Mhz Feedhorn>-----> into a custom built (again by me) -----> a "waterhole" filter (again designed and built by yours truely) -----> an Inmarsat LNA with about 25db gain ----->an ICOM R7100 whose output is sent to two Pentium II's (one running SETIFOX, the other FFTDSP42)

Here is what happened: On 22 Oct 1998 at about 21:13UTC FFTDSP loggeda "Hit". Whilst I was working outside the signal faded into view. Ilooked at the FFTDSP screen when I came inside to take a break to find the last bit of signal trailing into static. I quickly used the REPLAY.EXE program to replay the data to find what you see in the gif file HIT.GIF. The antenna was pointed at RA: 23 degrees 31 minutes 48 seconds(approx), Declination:19 Hours 55 minutes 58 seconds (approx).

Several times during my shift I moved the antenna to that position butthe signal did not reappear. Today 23 Oct 1998 at approximately thesame time (21:17UTC in this case) the same signal was picked up at the same RA and declination. I hadcome in prepared to check again for the signal. Between last night and tonight I checked out all equipment to ensure it was in good health so you can imagine my excitement when SETIFOX alerted me at about the same time that it detected a carrier. I had FFTDSP logging the data again and you can see by looking at HIT02.GIF the signal did almost the exact same thing as the night before. I hurried to move the antenna off the source and when I did so the signal went away I moved it back on and lo and behold there it was. I ran two more on-source, off-source tests of this type before finally keeping it onsource by putting the antenna in tracking mode. I during this time I recorded several minutes of data in the form of a .WAV file to disc.

Now that said, I am very reluctant to give my name due to the nature of my work and the fact that my supervisors know nothing of my SETI endeavor. I have a wife and kids and don't want to risk my job unless I know for sure this is the real thing. I was hoping your lot could check it out over the weekend since I will be unable to take data during my days off. I don't risk having the programs running when I am not there just in case someone from the company comes nosing around. Anyway if this sequence occurs again Monday or Tuesday I will alert Jodrell Bank, and the media (BBC, CNN,Skynews, and the like) due to the fact that I don't trust many people, SETI folks included. (No offense meant)

73's (I'd give my call but that would give me away.)

So I'll just sign this, anonymous (for now)

THE LATEST NEWS AND IMAGES FROM THE ENGINEER.

On Tuesday October 27th the engineer posted the following images and news to the SETI discussion group

Hello again. Quite a few people here have asked me to post yesterday and today's data which includes the on-source, off source demonstration as well as signal fade out. For those still skeptical, I've been in contact with a major radio observatory in Europe (It is NOT Jordell Bank.) One astronomer there has told me they are following the source when they have time and so far they have only detected two anomalies which they are trying to sort out. The interesting thing is one of the anomalies happens to coincide with the yesterday morning's "hit". Let me stress to you that they were very reluctant to follow up on my data but eventually agreed that I *might* have picked up something. Since their dish is several orders larger than mine I expect a confirmation tobe made soon and a telegram sent to the IAU as per the Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. They have also cautioned me about speaking to the press until that time. Unfortunately, I had already as they say, "jumped the gun" spoken with a reporter from the Telegraph and The Independant here in the UK. In the USA I've done email interviews with the New York Times, a science reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, The National Enquirer, a fellow at MSNBC, a lady at Fox News and a rather rude bloke named Matt Drudge who has been been filling up my mailbox with all sorts of silly questions like "What do they look like?" "What do they eat?" "What language do they speak?" "Is their math like ours?". I am doing my best to see to it that they embargo their stories at least until confirmation from the observatory I mentioned above. Most have told me the story will run in a matter of days unless it breaks before then elsewhere. I am continuing to work on them to set right the mistake I made in going semi-public. Unfortunately one large, international news organisation which I will not mention by name, has already figured out my identity and one of their news teams has set up camp down the road from our installation. Good luck holding them at bay...

On to yesterday and today's (so far) data.

The GIF file's 1026-1 and 1026-2 are screenshots again from FFTDSP which show what happened the other morning when I moved the dish off-source by about 7 degrees and then back on. One can clearly see the signal fade and then fade back. One can also clearly see the modulation and side bands. GIF 1027-1 is another screen shot of what happened this morning when once again the signal presented itself and faded out. The biggest difference between these signals andthe first two seem to be the modulation and sidebands are clearly visable ANDthey are much shorter in duration. The aquisition times are as follows:

1027-1.GIF Date: 27 Oct 1998 Time: 07:15 UTC

1026-1.GIF Date: 26 Oct 1998 Time: 05:58 UTC

1026-2.GIF Date: 26 Oct 1998 Time: 06:45 UTC (Re-aquired at 06:30 after moving off the source and running equipment checks for 15 minutes)

1027-1.GIF Date: 27 Oct 1998 Time: 07:15 UTC

1026-1.GIF Date: 26 Oct 1998 Time: 05:58 UTC

1026-2.GIF Date: 26 Oct 1998 Time: 06:45 UTC (Re-aquired at 06:30 after moving off the source and running equipment checks for 15 minutes)

--snip--

By the way I did some nosing around and found the Decleration of Principles referenced above. Click here:

It should be noted that the exact frequency of the signals he is talking about is (according to him): 1453.07512Mhz plus or minus about +400 hz due to the doppler shift of the planet as well as the earth.

Some basic data on the star EQ Pegasi:

Star Name Ascension Declination Distance (Lightyears) Spectral Type

Eq Pegasi 23h31m52.2s 19deg56m15s 21.97 M4V

Part of a binary system with an M6V companion.