Slashdot linked up this New Scientist article that details a rather startling development with the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) program:

This radio signal, now seen on three separate occasions, is an enigma. It could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon. Or it could be something much more mundane, maybe an artefact of the telescope itself.

But it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens in the nearly six-year history of the SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the Arecibo telescope.

Warning: Slashdot linked it up, so approximately a billion geeks are busily trying to read it. Be patient, or try again tomorrow.

Nobody's calling it yet... there are some discrepencies in the data that are at least as puzzling as the signal itself. But it's a damned sight better than "all quiet on the intergalactic front."

Update: BBCnews finds the scientists saying "signal? What signal?"

"It's all hype and noise," said its chief scientist, Dr Dan Wertheimer. "We have nothing that is unusual. It's all out of proportion."

Of course they'd say that! They've obviously been co-opted by the government! Don't you realize the Republicans will stop at nothing?!?

Ahem... sorry about that... channeling Michael Moore again...