We find hidden surveillance electronics in products from China all the time. Server motherboards, keyboard switches, smartphones -- there are a surprising number of examples. It's concerning, but we get it. Nations watch each other.
But in a study published this month (July 2025) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, scientists announced a disturbing discovery: there are hidden magnetic signals coming from common materials we thought we completely understood.
Ordinary metals like copper, gold, and aluminum were thought to be non-magnetic. This isn't a recent theory. It's not like we just found copper. These metals have been known to us since the dawn of human civilization. We discovered copper in the Stone Age. Aluminum was found in ores more recently, but still, it's been around for 200 years. We shouldn't be finding anything surprising in them.
Yet that's exactly what happened in the study. Researchers found subtle electromagnetic signals -- faint magnetic fields -- that had never before been detected. The discovery redefines what we thought we knew about these everyday materials.
For thousands of years, humans have lived among these common elements. We've made them a part of our tools, molded them to fill gaps in our teeth, to cook our food. Why are we just now finding out that there are signals emanating from them?
Because we didn't have the technology. Turns out, detecting these magnetic fields requires highly sensitive lasers humans had not developed until now. To our older technology, the metals appeared non-magnetic because their effects were so subtle. Researchers only now have the sensitive lasers that read these "whispers" of magnetism.
In fact, the technology needed was astoundingly complex.
There is a common method scientists use to detect small changes in a material's magnetization. It's called MOKE (Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect). It involves analyzing how polarized light reflects off a material's surface.
But in this study, researchers used a custom-built version of the MOKE method that was highly sensitive, in the hope they might detect extremely weak signals in metals thought to be non-magnetic. This involved pushing the MOKE boundaries, using precision lasers and an oscillating magnetic field with rotating magnets to "hear" any subtle signals.
And it meant the metal studied had to be astoundingly thin. (Thicker metal would absorb or scatter the laser light, weakening the ability to detect signals.) In this study, scientists used ultra-thin films of copper, aluminum, gold, and platinum 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. And these strips had to be coated with protective layers to keep the surfaces clean from any reaction to the air. The experiment wouldn't work with rusty metal.
When the laser hit the metal under the magnetic field, electrons inside the metal shifted slightly, which caused the reflected light to rotate just a tiny bit--this is known as the Optical Hall Effect. That tiny rotation, measured in thousandths of a degree, told them that even "non-magnetic" metals were giving off subtle magnetic responses.
Obviously, ancient humans wouldn't have been able to hear these signals. Even modern humans couldn't.
It took pushing the envelope in current methods for researchers to find non-magnetic metals aren't at all quiet, like we thought. They produce subtle electromagnetic effects.
Oddly enough, electromagnetic waves are the most likely form of communication that alien civilizations might use. They travel through space and can carry data along the way. But the signals in these experiments are extremely faint and are absorbed long before they escape Earth's atmosphere.
Anyone "hearing" them would need technology that detected noise on the quantum level, and they'd have to be, well, living among us.
What this study proves is, for all these years of human history, common metals could emit electromagnetic signals given the right technology. These signals have always been there, but they've been previously invisible to us.
In data security, this might be seen as a side-channel emission -- a leak. If unintended signals correlate with other activity, they might offer intelligence on human activity for whoever receives them.
Do these electromagnetic signals have a purpose, established by Ancient Aliens, like a bug planted in plain sight we're only now finding? Well, probably not. But it makes you wonder what else in our world is sending signals we have yet to detect?
And the bigger question is, who is listening?