Strange Signal Stumps Antarctic Scientists

An international team of researchers using a high-flying balloon experiment known as ANITA (Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna) has been stumped by a series of strange and unexplained radio signals that seemingly came from miles beneath the ice.

The ANITA experiment's primary goal was to track neutrinos - tiny particles that travel through Earth's atmosphere after extreme cosmic events like exploding stars. Neutrinos have almost no mass and rarely interact with anything, which makes them hard to detect but packed with valuable information about space.

The signals usually follow predictable paths—just like a ball bouncing off the ground. But some of the strange signals ANITA picked up didn’t follow those paths. They came in at much sharper angles as if they were rising from deep underground.

The problem? To get to ANITA from below the Antarctic ice, any particle would have to travel through thousands of miles of solid rock. Experts say that kind of journey should have stopped the signal cold. But it didn’t.

To dig deeper, researchers recently reviewed 15 years’ worth of data from other major observatories, including IceCube in Antarctica and the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. These instruments are designed to detect similar signals, but none recorded anything that matches what ANITA found. This lack of confirmation makes the original detection even more baffling. If the signal were caused by a known type of particle, scientists expected it would have shown up in other detectors by now. Instead, ANITA's discovery remains a one-of-a-kind mystery.

Some researchers think these strange signals might be signs of particles we haven’t discovered yet. Others wonder if they could be hints of dark matter, an invisible substance that may make up much of the universe but has never been detected before. Some fans of the discovery have gone on to suggest the waves are signs of alien life. But without more data, no one can say for sure.

To get closer to the truth, scientists are now working on a new and more advanced version of ANITA. It’s called PUEO, and it will be bigger, better, and hopefully capable of catching more of these mysterious signals. The hope is that PUEO will help unravel all of these new clues.

Until then, the mystery remains (potentially) buried in the ice, waiting to be solved.

Weather.com lead editor Jenn Jordan explores how weather and climate weave through our daily lives, shape our routines and leave lasting impacts on our communities.

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