In May of last year 2020, a news item went viral that anyone who interpreted it literally could not fail to affirm that it is the most important finding in the history of physics: ‘NASA finds evidence of a parallel universe in the that time is going backwards, ‘ read the headlines. But, if so, how is it possible that this news has not gone around the world, taking over the social gatherings, mobilizing scientists from all over the world and overshadowing the tremendous coronavirus crisis?
Some media in English and Spanish have replicated the same information, which seems to have been taken from a press release and which, however, is not accompanied on any of these websites by a miserable footnote, or a DOI that links to a scientific article, nor a link to a statement from a university. Alone, the quote from the scientist supposedly behind the incredible discovery.
The answer is simple; it is fake news. But how can we be sure? Where did this far-fetched information come from? Was it a malicious mistake or absurd negligence? Do not lose detail.
As soon as the news began to go viral (of course, given its shocking content) popularizers such as Javier Santaolalla (Date a Vlog / Date a Volt) or Aldo (Plato’s robot), always on duty, got to work to deny such size offense to science journalism.
According to the news, NASA scientists have found evidence of a parallel universe through an abnormal detection of neutrinos, subatomic particles that come from the cosmos. Let’s make the first denial: no evidence of anything has been found; not even NASA is behind all this.
The experiment from which this confusing ‘news’ starts is called Antarctic Transitive Impulse Antenna (ANITA). This instrument, which flies over Antarctica 40 kilometers high in the shape of a balloon, is capable of detecting ultra-high-energy neutrinos. NASA only funds this instrument, but behind the experiment are scientists from around the world and, at the head, the University of Hawaii. As the doctor in particle physics Javier Santaolalla explains in his video: “Neutrinos have a specific nature that makes them travel in a straight line and traverse empty space with impunity, which makes it possible to study the origin of cosmic rays”. What ANITA does is a complex detection of these particles, through the radio waves that neutrinos produce when they pass through the ice. In other words, this instrument captures neutrinos indirectly.
2016: Two anomalous detections occur
In all ANITA detections, which have been about 40, no strange data have been observed; Except for the one that took place in 2016 (yes, the ‘news’ isn’t even current). On this date there were two detections that seemed to come from neutrinos not coming from the cosmos, but from inside the Earth.
These signals cause a great dilemma. According to Santaolalla: “If the Earth is ‘transparent’ to these subatomic particles, how can it be that they come from inside it?”. There is still no explanation for these anomalous data.
New Scientist and the parallel universe hypothesis
So where does the supposed evidence for a parallel universe come from? Well, this is nothing more than a hypothesis, which does not even have anything to do with the researchers responsible for ANITA. The famous New Scientist magazine published on April 8, 2020 a report explaining the anomalous detection of 2016, and goes into depth on a possible explanation for these data. And here comes the crux of the matter: the parallel universe proposal is not even from the ANITA project researchers . In the New Scientist report written by Jon Cartwright, which is subject to a paywall, the following can be read:
“That strange finding was made in 2016. Since then, all kinds of suggestions based on known physics have been put forward to account for the puzzling signal, and all have been discarded. The explanation that remains is shocking for its implications. Explaining this signal requires the existence of an upside down universe created in the same Big Bang as ours and that exists in parallel with it ”.
The University of Hawaii and NASA have nothing to do with this idea
But this is nothing more than a proposal without any evidence behind it. In fact, the University of Hawaii (hereinafter UH) issued on May 21, after the news went viral, a statement in which it warns that some media have incorrectly interpreted this information:
“The headlines caught the attention of many, but the problem is that the UH research and NASA, the sponsor of that research, had nothing to do with the theory.”
The statement goes on, explaining the origin of the journalistic negligence: “That did not stop the Daily Star, a UK-based newspaper, from publishing its May 17 story. ‘NASA scientists detect the parallel universe where time run backwards’ the UH research cited. The New York Post, The Thrillist and other media outlets followed up with similar articles, which also cited the UH-based research. “
And the same happened shortly after with numerous Spanish and Argentine media …
Professor Peter Gorham discovered that some cosmic ray events observed in Antarctica have characteristics that conflict with the standard model of particle physics, as explained in the video above. A statement from the University of Hawaii itself in December 2018, in which Gorham’s idea was explained, alludes to the fact that the professor would have proposed “a new type of physics.” Gorham, describing the anomalous detections of the ANITA experiment, said the following: “It was as if the cosmic ray had come out of the ice itself. Something very strange. So we published a paper in which we simply suggested that this observation was in quite strong conflict with the standard model of physics. “ But at no point does Gorham propose that the explanation has anything to do with a parallel universe.
As the UH went on to explain, the strange detections suggest that the signals came from upward-moving particles passing through the Earth before exiting the ice. But cosmic rays are not predicted to do that in large quantities. One possible explanation for this behavior is that cosmic rays from a supernova explode through the Earth.
And another possibility, as explored in the aforementioned New Scientist report, is that they were particles from another, parallel universe, which would have been born at the same time as the Big Bang, and in which time would go backwards, which would agree with the strange direction in which these anomalous cosmic rays were supposedly traveling.
The University of Hawaii has stated that Professor Gorham’s work, along with the New Scientist report, has been misinterpreted by many journalists, “who took the inaccurate parallel history of the universe at face value,” they explain in the statement from the May 21th.
“This whole parallel universe was not devised by us,” explains Gorham. “A journalist was wrong, he attributed it to us and, unfortunately, it has exploded . We actually had nothing to do with the development of the parallel universe hypothesis. Journalism has not distinguished very well between our experimental work, which identified some anomalies in the data, and the idea proposed by some physicists who are not part of our collaboration, “laments Gorham.
An error of measurement, and not a parallel universe
So what is the explanation for the anomalous cosmic ray detections that occurred in 2016, and that have originated all this journalistic salad? According to Gorham, they are most likely explained in terms of physics, although this explanation is much less exotic.
And, to finish, the explanation proposed by Javier Santaolalla is, if possible, even more disappointing, and it may be a simple measurement error : “We are humans doing human things,” he says in his video. At the end of the day, it would not be the first time, nor the last, that human instruments, which start from the anthropocentric bias with which scientists carry out their research (and we have no choice) have led to a parameter error.
Conclusion: a simple human error could have induced an anomalous detection of cosmic rays, but the interpretation of the most sensationalist factions of journalism infers that evidence of a parallel universe has been found (a mere hypothesis without any theoretical verification among the thousands of possible explanations that could be behind this enigma).
A black day for science journalism , for a fake news that will go down in history for its clumsy treatment.
