At 3 p.m. ET, the SETI Institute, a non-profit dedicated to understanding life in space, mimicked an alien signal sent from a Mars spacecraft.
The radio waves raced at the speed of light through space and were recorded in 16 minutes by three huge telescopes.
According to scientists, the first-of-its-kind experiment was created to prepare for the "profoundly transformative experience for all humankind" that will occur when extraterrestrial entities contact with the Earth.
Scientists in the US and Italy were extremely excited when the message was shown on their computer displays, which received the radio waves in segments.
Amateur radios on Earth also detected the broadcast at 8.4 gigahertz, although not the entire signal.
Experts are currently working hard to keep important details about the stunt secret, including the type of signal and its content.
The tight lid is due to the public sharing the encoded transmission, enabling them to assist in decoding.
Daniela dePaulis, the visionary artist behind the A Sign in Space project, shared her thoughts during a live-streamed event: "It was very real. This is not the first time we have received a signal from TGO [ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter], but this one is a real message."
The signal will be sent by the European Space Agency's TGO, which is currently orbiting Mars and researching its atmosphere.
It was captured by three enormous telescopes around the world: the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California, Robert C. Byrd at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) in West Virginia, and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station in northern Italy.
GBO software engineer Victoria Catlett clarified that a radio signal is not inherently sound but a light wave, which cannot be heard on Earth or at telescope stations.
The team plans to upload the captured radio waves to the public for download and collaborate with Breakthrough Listen Open Data Archive and Filecoin for secure storage of the processed data.
Messages will be uploaded late Wednesday evening, according to researchers, and two links will be shared on SETI's social media sites once they are complete.
The extracted and uploaded bandwidth will be one megahertz. The recording size is approximately five gigabits per telescope. Four files will be accessible.
A file linked to GBO is most convenient due to the telescope's strongest signal capture, but all files will contain the same information.
