A team operating Antarctica’s balloon‑borne ANITA observatory has detected highly unusual radio pulses emerging from below the ice sheet—at steep angles up to 30° beneath the horizon. These emissions, discovered during a mission originally targeting cosmic neutrinos, defy current scientific understanding.
Neutrinos—extremely light, neutral particles—were ruled out as the source after cross-checking with experiments like IceCube and the Pierre Auger Observatory. Penn State physicist Dr. Stephanie Wissel described the findings as “bizarre signals” that cannot be explained by known physics.
The signals appear to originate from deep within the ice, suggesting they would have had to traverse thousands of kilometers of solid rock—an impossibility according to existing models. Alternate theories under consideration include new radio propagation effects, unknown particle interactions, or even exotic phenomena like dark matter. However, none offer a definitive answer.
Researchers are now developing a more sensitive follow-up detector, PUEO, aimed at capturing additional data to uncover the source of these anomalies.