According to new SETI research, extraterrestrial signals might already be reaching Earth—just scrambled beyond recognition. Stellar interference is the likely culprit: turbulent plasma and magnetic storms around distant stars scatter narrow-band radio broadcasts across wider frequencies, hiding them in the cosmic static. The effect hits hardest around M-dwarf stars, the galaxy's most common star type. So the silence might not mean nobody's transmitting—just that the neighborhood has spectacularly bad reception.

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