A research team from the ASU-SESE used firefly communications patterns as a model for future SETI searches. Credit: Haoxiang Yang/Getty Images
What if the secret to finding alien civilizations has been blinking in our backyards this whole time?
Welcome to FreeAstroScience, where we believe complex scientific ideas deserve simple explanations. We're here because the sleep of reason breeds monsters—and staying curious keeps those monsters at bay. Today, we're exploring one of the most creative approaches to searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. It involves tiny glowing insects, massive spinning stars, and a team of scientists willing to think way outside the box.
Grab your coffee. This one's going to light up your imagination.
Why Haven't We Found Aliens Yet?
Here's a frustrating truth. We've been searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) for over six decades . The result? Nothing definitive. No confirmed alien radio broadcasts. No decoded messages from distant stars.
But maybe the problem isn't "out there." Maybe it's in here—in our own assumptions.
The search has been a mirror, not a window.
Think about it. When Project Ozma launched in 1960, scientists aimed radio telescopes at nearby stars. Why radio? Because we had just developed radio technology . The famous Arecibo message used prime numbers. Why? Because we find math universal . The Voyager Golden Records carried human music and greetings. Why? Because that's how we communicate .
We've been searching for aliens who think like us, build like us, and signal like us.
"SETI has traditionally spanned two extremes," explains Estelle Janin, a PhD candidate at Arizona State University. "An anthropocentric search for human-like technosignatures and an anomaly-based search for signals that deviate from known astrophysics" .
And here's the kicker—Earth has actually become less detectable since the 1960s. Our transition from analog TV to cable and internet means we leak fewer radio signals into space . If aliens are at a similar technological phase, we might completely miss them.
What Can Fireflies Teach Us About Alien Communication?
Picture a warm summer evening. Thousands of fireflies pulse across a meadow—each species flashing its own unique pattern. It's beautiful. But it's also brilliant.
Every flash is a message. Every pattern is a signature.
During mating season, male fireflies produce species-specific light sequences . These aren't random blinks. They're carefully evolved codes that help females identify mates of their own species. When dozens of firefly species swarm together, each needs to stand out from the visual chaos.
The evolutionary pressure created something remarkable: signals optimized to be maximally distinct from the background while using minimal energy .
Sound familiar? That's exactly what an alien civilization might need to do—send signals that stand out from the cosmic noise without burning through impossible amounts of power.
A research team at Arizona State University saw the connection. Led by scientists from the School of Earth and Space Exploration, the Beyond Center, and collaborators at the University of Colorado and Santa Fe Institute, they asked: What if we modeled alien communication after fireflies instead of humans?
The Firefly-ETI Model: How It Works
Let's break down this model step by step. Don't worry—we'll keep it simple.
The Setup
Both firefly flashes and pulsar pulses share something in common. They can be described as binary signals: on or off, flashing or dark .
Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit beams of radiation. When those beams sweep past Earth, we detect regular pulses—like a cosmic lighthouse. In 1967, when pulsars were first discovered, some astronomers seriously wondered if they were alien signals .
The ASU team chose pulsars as their background "noise." They wanted to design an artificial signal that would stand out from a sky full of natural pulsars.
The Mathematical Framework
Here's where it gets clever. The model defines any pulsing signal with three values:
- Period (x): How long between pulses
- On-time (y to z): When the signal switches from off to on and back
- Absolute duty cycle (d): What fraction of the period is spent "on"
| Parameter | Symbol | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Period | xs | Time for one complete cycle |
| On-start time | ys | When signal turns "on" within period |
| Off-start time | zs | When signal turns "off" within period |
| Duty cycle | d | Fraction of period spent "on" |
The absolute duty cycle is calculated as:
This tells us how "bright" or active the signal is relative to its total cycle time .
The Cost Function
Here's the heart of the model. Every signal gets assigned a "cost" based on two factors:
- Similarity score (s): How much does this signal overlap with background pulsars? Lower is better.
- Energy score (e): How much energy does it take to produce? Lower is cheaper.
The total cost combines both:
Where ws is the weight given to similarity. When ws = 1.0, only distinctiveness matters. When ws = 0.0, only energy matters .
This mirrors real firefly evolution. A flash pattern must stand out enough to attract mates but not be so bright that predators notice .
What the Model Revealed
The researchers tested their model against a background of 158 pulsars within 5 kiloparsecs (about 16,300 light-years) of Earth . They used data from the Australia National Telescope Facility database.
The results? Eye-opening.
Finding #1: Most Pulsars Don't Look "Evolved"
When the team compared their optimized artificial signals to natural pulsars, something stood out. Between 84% and 99.78% of pulsars had higher "costs" than the evolved signals .
In other words, natural pulsars don't show signs of evolutionary optimization. They're just... pulsars.
Finding #2: Two Distinct Solutions Exist
Depending on how much energy matters:
- Energy-limited signals (ws < 1.0): Very short duty cycles. Brief flashes. Minimal power consumption.
- Unlimited-energy signals (ws = 1.0): Longer duty cycles. More distinct from background. Higher power needs.
When the team changed ws from 1.0 to 0.8, the duty cycle dropped by a factor of 92 . That's a massive structural change based on one constraint.
Finding #3: Structure Matters More Than Meaning
Here's the "aha moment" that changes everything.
You don't need to decode an alien message to know it's alien.
"We show that alien signals don't have to be complicated or semantically decipherable to be recognized," Janin explains. "Rather, their inherent structure can be identified as a product of selection and evolution, uniquely and robustly implying the presence of life" .
The signal's pattern—its evolved optimization—betrays its origin. We wouldn't need to understand what aliens are saying. We'd just need to recognize that something designed that signal to stand out.
What Would It Take to Send a Firefly-Like Signal?
Let's talk energy. Pulsars emit tremendous power—around 1031 ergs per second for their radio pulses .
To produce an artificial signal matching pulsar luminosity, a civilization would need:
| Kardashev Type | Energy Output (ergs/s) | Could Send Signal? |
|---|---|---|
| Type I (Current Earth ~0.7) | ~4 × 1019 | No |
| Type II (Star-harnessing) | ~4 × 1033 | Yes, easily |
| Type III (Galaxy-harnessing) | ~4 × 1044 | Yes, trivially |
Only Type II or Type III civilizations could broadcast at pulsar-strength without worrying about energy . Less advanced civilizations would need to optimize for efficiency—just like our model predicts.
The energy weight in the cost function might actually reveal how advanced a signaling civilization is .
Why This Approach Changes SETI
Traditional SETI has followed two strategies:
- Detection-first: Find something weird, then figure out what it means
- Decoding-first: Look for signals we can understand
The firefly model supports detection-first. It says: forget about decoding. Look for evolved structure .
"SETI efforts are more likely to be successful when incorporating the search for signals that manifest structure-driven principles of life," the researchers argue . We should search for patterns that scream "selection pressure," not patterns that we can translate.
Beyond Radio Waves
The team suggests SETI should expand to include:
- Optical transmissions (laser pulses)
- Neutrino signals
- Gravitational waves
- Quantum communications
- Directed-energy spillover
Each medium might carry signals optimized for different backgrounds—just as different firefly species adapt to different environments.
What Can Earth's Animals Teach Us?
Fireflies aren't alone. Across our planet, species have evolved burst-based communication:
- Birds sing complex songs
- Woodpeckers drum territorial patterns
- Frogs croak mating calls
- Electric eels send shocking messages
- Humans invented Morse code
This convergent evolution suggests something profound. Maybe pulsed, patterned communication is a universal solution to the problem of being heard.
Projects like the Earth Species Project are already using machine learning to decode animal communication . Their techniques—finding structure without assuming meaning—could directly inform SETI.
"Studying non-human signaling can keep SETI empirically grounded while expanding our expectations for what alien communication might look like," Janin notes .
A Humbling Thought
There's something beautifully humbling about this research. We've spent decades looking for aliens who communicate like us—and found silence. Now scientists are asking: What if we looked for aliens who communicate like... fireflies?
The answer isn't certain. We don't know that any civilization sends firefly-style signals. But the model opens a door. It reminds us that intelligence takes countless forms, even here on Earth. Our way isn't the only way. Perhaps not even the most likely way.
The universe doesn't owe us familiarity.
If alien life exists, it evolved under pressures we can't imagine, on worlds we've never seen, with biochemistry that might not even use DNA. Why should their communication look anything like ours?
What Comes Next?
The ASU team sees their work as a "thought experiment and an invitation" . They're calling for more collaboration between SETI researchers and animal communication experts.
Future SETI projects might:
- Use algorithms trained on Earth's diverse communicators
- Search for evolved signal structures across multiple wavelengths
- Apply digital bioacoustics techniques to astronomical data
- Look for signals optimized against specific cosmic backgrounds
The Breakthrough Listen project already surveys a million nearby stars . Imagine combining their data with firefly-inspired pattern recognition.
We might not find aliens tomorrow. But when we do—if we do—it might not be because they called us on the radio. It might be because we noticed a flicker in the darkness. A pattern too perfect to be noise. A signal designed to stand out.
Just like a firefly in the summer night.
Conclusion: Keep Your Mind Awake
We've traveled from backyard insects to the edges of known space. Along the way, we've learned that searching for alien intelligence requires more than just bigger telescopes. It requires bigger imaginations.
The firefly-ETI model doesn't guarantee we'll find E.T. But it does something just as valuable. It teaches us to question our assumptions. To look at familiar things—like glowing bugs—and see cosmic possibilities.
That's what science does at its best. It humbles us, surprises us, and expands our sense of what's possible.
Here at FreeAstroScience, we believe the universe rewards those who stay curious. Never let your mind sleep. Keep asking questions. Keep looking up—and sometimes, keep looking down at the tiny lights dancing in the grass.
They might just hold the key to something extraordinary.
Sources
Williams, Matthew. "Could Advanced Civilizations Communicate like Fireflies?" Universe Today, December 19, 2025. https://www.universetoday.com/articles/could-advanced-civilizations-communicate-like-fireflies
Brooks, Cameron, Estelle Janin, Gage Siebert, Cole Mathis, Orit Peleg, and Sara Imari Walker. "A Firefly-inspired Model for Deciphering the Alien." arXiv preprint (2025): 2511.06139v1. Under review for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Nexus.
Drake, Frank, and Carl Sagan. "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Scientific American, 1997.
The Staff at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. "The Arecibo message of November, 1974." Icarus 26, no. 4 (1975): 462-466. https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(75)90116-5
Lomax, Alan, and Carl Sagan. Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record. June 6, 1977. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000113/
Sullivan, W.T., S. Brown, and C. Wetherill. "Eavesdropping: The Radio Signature of the Earth." Science 199, no. 4327 (1978): 377-388. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.199.4327.377
Saide, R.C., M.A. Garrett, and N. Heeralall-Issur. "Simulation of the Earth's radio-leakage from mobile towers as seen from selected nearby stellar systems." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 522, no. 2 (2023): 2392-2402. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad378
Lewis, Sara M., and Christopher K. Cratsley. "Flash signal evolution, mate choice, and predation in fireflies." Annual Review of Entomology 53 (2008): 293-321. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.53.103106.093346
Stanger-Hall, Kathrin F., and James E. Lloyd. "Flash signal evolution in Photinus fireflies: Character displacement and signal exploitation in a visual communication system." Evolution 69, no. 3 (2015): 666-682. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12606
Woods Jr., W.A., H. Hendrickson, J. Mason, and S.M. Lewis. "Energy and Predation Costs of Firefly Courtship Signals." The American Naturalist 170, no. 5 (2007): 702-708. https://doi.org/10.1086/521964
Nguyen, C., I. Huang, and O. Peleg. "Firefly-Inspired Vocabulary Generator for Communication in Multi Agent Systems." Proceedings of the ALIFE 2022: The 2022 Conference on Artificial Life (2022): 29. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00511
Penny, A.J. "The SETI Episode in the 1967 Discovery of Pulsars." The European Physical Journal H 38 (2013): 535-547. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/e2012-30052-6
Manchester, R.N., G.B. Hobbs, A. Teoh, and M. Hobbs. "The Australia Telescope National Facility Pulsar Catalogue." The Astronomical Journal 129, no. 4 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1086/428488
Kardashev, N.S. "Transmission of information by civilizations." Soviet Astronomy-AJ 8, no. 2 (1964): 282-287.
Worden, S.P., J. Drew, A. Siemion, D. Werthimer, D. DeBoer, S. Croft, D. MacMahon, M. Lebofsky, H. Isaacson, J. Hickish, D. Price, V. Gajjar, and J.T. Wright. "Breakthrough Listen – A new search for life in the universe." Acta Astronautica 139 (2017): 98-101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.06.008
Condon, J., and Scott R. "Essential Radio Astronomy: Chapter 6 Pulsars." National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 2015. https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom/web/Ch6.html
Earth Species Project. https://www.earthspecies.org/
Garcia, M., F. Theunissen, F. Sèbe, J. Clavel, A. Ravignani, T. Marin-Cudraz, J. Fuchs, and N. Mathevon. "Evolution of communication signals and information during species radiation." Nature Communications 11, Article 4970 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18772-3
Post a Comment