Since 2007, telescopes have picked up almost a dozen of 'fast radio bursts', pulses that last for milliseconds. Astronomers have remained puzzled over these bursts seem to be hailing from billions of lights years away.

They wanted to know from how far they could be coming from. Now, it has been found that the burst appear to follow a mathematical pattern. A group of researchers working on this puzzle took benefit of a simple formula, which is, higher frequency radio waves face less interruption as they traverse space.

Telescopes detect them earlier than lower frequency waves. The researchers said that the time delay between higher and lower frequency radio waves for the same pulse event could be used to find out the distance that the waves have traveled.

The researchers calculated the dispersion distance from each of 10 fast radio bursts. After calculating, they found that each distance is integer multiple of a number- 187.5. When the researchers plotted a graph then the points formed had a striking pattern.

The resaerchers have claimed that there is a 5 in 10,000 probability that the line-up is coincidence. If the pattern is real then it is very hard to explain.

If the pattern is real then it could either be some strange celestial physics going on, or the bursts are artificial produced by human or alien technology. Most lately, the fast radio bursts were detected in 2014, when the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, caught a burst in action for the first time.

Till now, it is not known what causes them. But seeing the brevity of the bursts, it can be said that their source had to be small. Also, they seem to be coming from far outside the galaxy.