London, April 6 (IANS): What has given credence to the theory of extraterrestrial life over the last decade is a mysteriously recurring radio burst from space that has puzzled astronomers.

This signal could be a new cosmic phenomenon or actually a bid to contact us by aliens, says a new study. The study, carried out by scientists at the Institute for Data Analysis in Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany, analysed the 11 signal bursts that started in 2007 and were last detected in 2011.

What they focused on in particular was the time dispersion between the signal's low and high frequencies, discovering that in every instance the difference was a multiple of 187.5.

"It is likely not produced by something like a supernova explosion, all frequencies leave the nova at the same time, and the dispersion measure (DM) is created by dust crossing," study co-author Michael Hippke was quoted as saying by the Huffington Post.

"As the amount of dust varies, the DM would seem random," he added.

What is more puzzling is that the signal seems artificial, that is, not natural.

When it was first detected in real-time, astronomers immediately theorised that it could be the remnants of a supernova explosion. But then, these explosions throw out huge amounts of light in other wavelengths. No other wavelengths were detected!

However, while it sounds exciting, scientists say that one should not jump to a conclusion as this is all based on just 11 pieces of data. The signals are incredibly faint, they're certainly not sending anything that could even be misunderstood for a message.