Will aliens make first contact with a “special sign”? Short answer: If we detect anything first, it’s most likely to be an unusually loud, short‑lived technosignature—an odd, bright, transient signal—not a polite hello. But that’s a hypothesis, not proof.
The most interesting twist—and the key correction The viral claim that a new, peer‑reviewed MNRAS paper predicts aliens will “disintegrate loudly” is wrong. The idea comes from a short Research Note by Columbia astronomer David Kipping—accepted to RNAAS, a moderated, non‑peer‑reviewed venue—not to MNRAS. Still, Kipping’s argument is intriguing: because we tend to find the brightest, rarest things first in astronomy, our first alien detection could come from a civilization in a transient, unstable, or even terminal phase—one that’s “unusually loud” right before it goes quiet. Source: Kipping’s arXiv note (“Accepted to RNAAS”) (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970); RNAAS scope/status (https://journals.aas.org/research-notes/?utm_source=openai)
The story behind the “loud last shout” Picture how we discover things in the night sky. You don’t first spot the average star; you notice the bright outliers. About a third of the stars you can see with the naked eye are red giants—rare in the galaxy, but hard to miss because they shine (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/79954/what-are-the-demographics-of-stars-visible-to-the-naked-eye?utm_source=openai). We also log thousands of supernovae per year precisely because they flare so brightly (https://www.rochesterastronomy.org/sn2025/snstats.html?utm_source=openai).
Kipping applies that same selection effect to technosignatures. If alien activity sometimes gets very bright and short, those brief, loud moments are what we’re most likely to catch first—before the steady, quiet civilizations we might never notice. In his Cool Worlds video, he even wonders if the famous 1977 “Wow!” signal was a “loud cry” from a civilization near its end. That’s speculation, not a conclusion. Coverage summarizing his remarks: phys.org (https://phys.org/news/2025-12-alien-civilization-encounter-extremely-loud.html?utm_source=openai)
So what would that “special sign” look like? Not a single ringtone from the cosmos, but a category of anomalies:
- A sudden, bright, narrowband radio burst that doesn’t repeat
- A broadband flare or unusual lightcurve from a star system
- A spike in “waste heat” that appears and fades
- Any sky‑wide transient that looks engineered, not natural
That’s why Kipping suggests all‑sky, high‑cadence, “agnostic” searches—watch the whole sky for weird, short‑lived events—rather than only aiming radios at a few likely stars (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).
Where the original article overreached—and what’s actually true
- Bold claim vs careful wording
- The article: “First aliens will be unusually loud as they disintegrate.”
- The paper: first detections are plausibly from “transitory, unstable, or even terminal” phases—not necessarily literal disintegration (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).
- Journal status
- The article: “due to appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.”
- Verified: Accepted to Research Notes of the AAS (RNAAS), which is non‑peer‑reviewed (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970; https://journals.aas.org/research-notes/?utm_source=openai).
- Job title nuance
- The article: “professor in astronomy at Columbia University.”
- Verified: Associate Professor of Astronomy (https://provost.columbia.edu/content/arts-and-sciences-faculty-tenured-2024?utm_source=openai).
What’s solid, what’s shaky, what’s unknown Verified
- The “Eschatian Hypothesis” is Kipping’s name for this selection‑bias idea: first contact is likeliest from atypically loud civilizations in transient or unstable phases (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).
- “Eschaton” does mean “last” in Greek (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/eschaton?utm_source=openai).
- Selection effects dominate early discovery: bright giants and supernovae are over‑represented in what we first notice (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/79954/what-are-the-demographics-of-stars-visible-to-the-naked-eye?utm_source=openai; https://www.rochesterastronomy.org/sn2025/snstats.html?utm_source=openai).
- The recommended search strategy: wide‑field, anomaly‑driven scans (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).
Speculative or needs more context
- “Advanced civilizations become quiet.” This is a hypothesis Kipping cites (think: so advanced they blend into nature), not consensus (https://www.iflscience.com/the-eschatian-hypothesis-why-our-first-contact-from-aliens-may-be-particularly-bleak-and-nothing-like-the-movies-81927?utm_source=openai).
- “Loud means crisis (nuclear war, collapse).” Possibly—but not the only reading. Dysonian or Kardashev thinking says the brightest signals could come from very advanced societies that use enormous energy and leak detectable waste heat—loud because they’re powerful, not dying (e.g., waste‑heat technosignature searches in MNRAS: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/512/2/2988/6520455?utm_source=openai).
- The Wow! signal as a “last desperate shout.” An interesting idea—but we don’t know what the Wow! signal was, and it never repeated (summary: https://phys.org/news/2025-12-alien-civilization-encounter-extremely-loud.html?utm_source=openai).
How we checked
- We pulled the primary record from arXiv to confirm venue and wording (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).
- We verified RNAAS is a short‑format, non‑peer‑reviewed venue (https://journals.aas.org/research-notes/?utm_source=openai).
- We cross‑checked the job title with Columbia’s listings (https://provost.columbia.edu/content/arts-and-sciences-faculty-tenured-2024?utm_source=openai).
- We added context on selection effects and discovery bias (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/79954/what-are-the-demographics-of-stars-visible-to-the-naked-eye?utm_source=openai; https://www.rochesterastronomy.org/sn2025/snstats.html?utm_source=openai).
- We included competing SETI frameworks (Dysonian/Kardashev) to show alternative interpretations of “loud” (https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/512/2/2988/6520455?utm_source=openai).
What this means for the search for life
- Don’t wait for a neat, repeating message. The first hint could be messy: a one‑off spike, a strange dimming, an unexplained heat flare.
- Watch everything, all the time. All‑sky, high‑cadence surveys and anomaly detection could be our best bet for a first glimpse.
- Keep two stories in mind. A loud signal might be a civilization in crisis—or just a civilization that’s enormously capable.
Bottom line
- The core idea stands: discovery bias means our first technosignature could be unusually bright and brief. But the paper is a short Research Note (not MNRAS), the “disintegrating aliens” language is tabloid gloss, and “loud” does not automatically mean “dying.” It could also mean “very advanced.” Read the hypothesis itself, not the hype: Kipping’s note (https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09970).