Scientists Discover Mysterious Pulses in the Quantum Darkness

You ever get the feeling things aren't what they seem? Maybe you heard the theory we live in a computer simulation…

By David Sussin

You ever get the feeling things aren't what they seem?

Maybe you heard the theory we live in a computer simulation.

Of course, no one really believes that. But the strange truth is, no one can rule it out. That's how little we know for sure.

What we do know is, 85% of our Universe is made of mysterious 'dark matter'. We've never seen it, but we know it's there because we see the effects of it, the gravitational force of this mysterious mass.

It impacts how galaxies rotate, how light bends in space, and how the universe must have formed.

But we don't know what it's made of. Dark matter doesn't emit light, so we can't see it. And it doesn't absorb light like a black hole, so there's no deep, unending blackness to be found.

We assume it's made up of particles because it has mass that effects objects around it. But what particles? It's one of physics' greatest mysteries.

For decades, scientists have run experiments trying to pin down the answer, testing suspected particles with odd names like WIMPs, axions, and "light dark matter".

It's this last suspect - "light dark matter" - that is behind a recent breakthrough from the University of Zurich and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The idea is, what if dark matter has eluded us because it's simply too small, too low energy to measure?

Maybe we just don't have the tools or technology to see it.

Researchers behind this study published in August may have just solved the problem. They figured out a way to detect incredibly small energy deposits, with the goal of uncovering very light "dark matter" particles.

Using innovative tools, scientists probed a world of incredibly tiny energy particles science has never been able to see.

And in doing so, they unexpectedly uncovered mysterious signals of an unknown origin -- maybe beyond our own reality.

They call it the QROCODILE experiment. The name stands for "Quantum Resolution-Optimized Cryogenic Observatory for Dark matter Incident at Low Energy". So, it's good they went with the abbreviation.

The experiment uses a sensitive "superconducting nanowire single-photon detector". It's made from an extremely thin wire placed on a silicon-based surface.

And its revolutionary: it can detect incredibly tiny amounts of energy -- down to just 0.11 electron volts.

It's hard to explain just how small that is. By comparison, a single calorie of food has 2.4 × 10²³ times more energy. We're talking about energy emissions on a subatomic scale.

Using this detector, researchers explored the quantum-scale world all around us but completely invisible. Until now.

They were looking for very light "dark matter" particles. But what they found only opened up new mysteries.

The detector heard signals at energy levels once thought impossible. The experiment lasted over 415 hours (just over 17 days). During that time, researchers detected 15 pulses of unknown origin.

The scientists took steps to minimize background interference and narrow down where the pulses came from -- likely candidates would be cosmic rays or radioactivity from surrounding materials.

In the end, there was no explanation. They don't claim that these pulses were examples of dark matter, but they do conclude all 15 originate from dark matter in some way they don't fully understand.

Were these faint signals from parallel dimensions, or cosmic forces all around us but invisible, like dark matter itself?

The experiment puts us on the verge of discovering something fundamental about the nature of reality itself. At the quantum level, dark matter operates in unexpected ways, exhibiting properties we never anticipated.

If 85% of the universe operates by physics we don't understand, it becomes plausible we're walking around blind to fundamental layers of reality.

Dark matter with small effective electric charges suggests it can interact with electromagnetic fields, if extremely weakly.

It opens the door to shadow or mirror worlds - parallel structures of matter that barely interact with ours.

Perhaps the researchers happened upon the first evidence of a multiverse, different regions of space-time fluctuating into our own. Or other dimensions folding into ours at a subatomic level.

The room you're in, the air you breathe, it's all permeated with this dark matter, on time scales and energy levels we can't perceive.

Dark matter remains one of the most significant mysteries in modern physics.

This new experimental technique may be a step toward finding an actual particle and closing the gap in our understanding.

The next stage of the project, called NILE QROCODILE, will see the experiment moved deep underground to shield readings from cosmic rays. Researchers hope to isolate the dark matter around us and push the boundaries of our understanding.

But they might also glimpse forces operating our world that, maybe, we weren't meant to see.

Sources:

<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/09/250915202843.htm>

<https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/4hb6-f6jl>