The fact that the story appeared and then abruptly disappeared from a Chinese government-run science and technology website left many wondering. It seems to be back again:

After launching the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, the “China Sky Eye” has made important progress. A few days ago, Professor Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of the China Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group of the Department of Astronomy and Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group of Beijing Normal University, revealed that his team used the “Chinese Sky Eye” to discover several cases of possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations from outside the earth. candidate signal. Zhang Tongjie said that these are several narrow-band electromagnetic signals different from the past, and the team is currently working on further investigation. “The search for ‘China Sky Eye’ is a long one, and we have been working hard.”

He Xinghui, “Searching for extraterrestrial civilization, “China Sky Eye” found suspicious signals” at Science and Technology Daily (June 14, 2022)

Meanwhile, the New York Times and Bloomberg ran with the story.

It follows on the heels of NASA’s recent announcement that it is looking into UFOs more seriously and the Pentagon’s report last year that signaled an overall attitude change to unexplained aerial phenomena. They’re not claiming it’s aliens. They’re saying that we just don’t know what they are. So we can’t say it’s not aliens either…

Here is some info and some thoughts — including serious doubts — from various media:

“Cosmologist Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of China ET Civilization Research Group, told the newspaper FAST located ‘several narrow-band electromagnetic signals different from the past.’
But Tongjie, once dubbed ‘China’s top alien hunter,’ also said the signals may just be radio interference.” – Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today at Phys.org (June 15, 2022) He emphasized that it would take some time to be sure.

“China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) located in the Guizhou province, is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, equivalent to 30 football fields. As of now, it is the last remaining giant, single-dish radio telescope after tragedy struck the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico … An insider previously reported that FAST could detect faint radio waves from pulsars and materials that are galaxies away. Researchers identified two sets of signals in 2019, and another set off signal this year.” – Margaret Davis, Science Times (15 June 2022) Note: The Arecibo Observatory collapsed in 2020.

“As the Cornell Chronicle explains: ‘What excites astronomers about the repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) – since they only burst once, generally speaking – is that these quick-fire surges provide a pathway for scientists to comprehend the perplexing, mysterious and million-degree intergalactic medium.’” – Francisco Lahoz, PC Mag (June 15, 2022) Lahoz suggests that the likely reason that the story was suppressed at first on the Chinese state medium was that the claim about aliens crated quite the stir in Chinese popular media.

Experts are doubtful…

“To get some perspective about the FAST rumors, Inside Outer Space reached out to Dan Werthimer, the Marilyn and Watson Alberts SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Chair in the Astronomy Department and Space Sciences Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. He works with the Beijing Normal University SETI researchers. Werthimer threw cold water on the possibility that the FAST signals were produced by advanced aliens.” – Leonard David, Space.com (June 15, 2022) He thinks the source will turn out to be radio frequency interference: “RFI can come from cell phones, TV transmitters, radar, satellites, as well as electronics and computers near the observatory”

“The trouble with being so sensitive [as Sky Eye] is that you can uncover radio interference that would otherwise be too faint to detect. We SETI researchers have had this problem before. Last year, using Murriyang, we detected an extremely interesting signal we called BLC1. However, it turned out to be very strange interference (not aliens). To uncover its true nature, we had to develop a new verification framework. With BLC1, it took about a year from when it was initially reported to when peer-reviewed analysis was published. Similarly, we may need to wait a while for the FAST signal to be analyzed in depth.” – Danny C. Price, The Conversation (June 16, 2022) Danny Price is a SETI researcher. Incidentally, he thinks that theChinese media release disappeared for a time because it was released too early by accident.

“ … all that new data presents a bit of a conundrum for scientists because it will inevitably throw up signals we’ve never seen before. Jonti Horner, an astrophysicist at the University of Southern Queensland, likens it to the videos you see of people hearing for the first time. When they put on that hearing aid, all sorts of new information comes in. With time, they’re able to filter it more effectively.” – Jackson Ryan, CNet (June 17, 2022)

The sheer number of unidentified flying objects/aerial phenomena out there should keep astronomers and astrophysicists busy for a while, quite apart from buzz about ET.

Here’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)’s scale for assessing the origin of signals:

And here’s more about Sky Eye:

You may also wish to read: NASA develops a scale for assessing the chances of ET life. We’ve come a long way from mere snatches of (maybe) information to the need for standards in evaluating the expected incoming mass. The idea is to give media some idea of the level of confidence in what the apparent signal might be telling us — biological activity or just chemistry?