The signal, which lasted just five milliseconds, was named the Lorimer burst after its discoverer, Duncan Lorimer.

The radio emission was so dispersed, experts suggested it must have come from a great distance away, possibly billions of light-years.

But early estimates said there should be 10,000 of these events a day – so the fact that another wasn’t discovered until 2012 was troubling.

This was when data from the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia suggested it had heard another FRB, along with a handful of others, but the fact that only Parkes had detected the signals had some claiming these were merely instrument glitches.