A new study from astrophysicist Ranga-Ram Chary has found mysterious “bright spots” in cosmic background radiation that could be caused by alternate universes. So far, so good. Only the clowns in “journalism” could screw this one up.

Reporting 101: Follow the facts. So this scientist found an inexplicable glow while peering back in time to just after the Big Bang. And “he said that while there is a 30% chance the fluctuations are nothing unusual, there is also the possibility they provide evidence of a multiverse.” Okay. Fine. What do you do? You check it out.

I’ve been looking all morning and I have yet to find a single news story in which the reporter made the simple effort of calling this alternate universe for comment. Bias? Yes, but even worse: laziness.

One scientist thinks the finding is just due to dust. Another scientist says that an alternate universe should leave “a different mark” on this type of radiation. Okay. Fine. What kind of mark?

I don’t know—nobody bothered to make the call.

I hate to play “press critic,” but this is the sort of thing that makes the public lose faith in the media. All across the world, so-called “science journalists” are trumpeting the fact that maybe we found evidence of an alternate universe. Meanwhile, not a single one of them could do something as simple as looking up literally any name in the alternate universe phone book, giving them a ring, and asking, “Hi, do you exist? Are you bumping up against our universe? Thanks, bye.” It only takes a few minutes, and it makes all the difference in the world for credibility.

We’ve reached out to the alternate universe and we will update this post if we hear back.

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