A spokesman for NASA today revealed that a series of interstellar communications from an alien lifeform have been mistakenly interpreted as music, spawning a new sub-genre known as “Dubstep”.
The signals were first detected in 2008 when the aliens’ broadcast frequency coincidentally matched that of Radio 1, with the first coded message being unintentionally transmitted during DJ Annie Mac’s Friday night show, to rave reviews from listeners.
The digital transmissions are still being analysed by experts, but they appear to share a number of properties with computer viruses, in that they can endlessly replicate themselves with only very subtle differences emerging between one message and the next which are likely to be imperceptible to the untrained ear.
The sound of Dubstep has divided the nation, with many under 25s seemingly enjoying the soundscapes of digital distortion and sub-bass, while most grown ups interpret it as “the sound of a ZX Spectrum bonking a drill”.
A spokesman for The Youth said “What’s a ZX Spectrum?”
It is not the first time something has been wrongly interpreted as music, to critical acclaim. A recording of an owl trapped in a wind chime shop recently topped the charts after being mistakenly released as the second album by Florence and The Machine.