The Signal Ending Explained: Are There Aliens Visiting Earth? Who Causes the Arial Mishap?

The Signal Plot

Paula, a talented astronaut, suddenly disappears along with all the passengers in her plane after she comes back to Earth from a mission. Her husband Sven and young daughter Charlie find out that there is something amiss about this sudden disappearance and decide to figure out what happened to her. However, what they find leaves them shocked and will leave everyone on Earth absolutely gobsmacked. There’s a deeper conspiracy at play and figuring it out might be life or death!

The Signal Ending Explained

When the series starts, we see Sven and Charlie waiting eagerly for Paula as she finally comes back from space after many months. Unfortunately, after waiting for some time, they find out that the plane with Paula, Hadi and the others were on is nowhere to be found. Both of their families come under scrutiny as the authorities try to figure out what happened to the plane and Sven is shown a part of a transmission that Paula had left for him before the plane apparently crashed. The transcript makes everyone doubt that Paula and Hadi were the one who caused the crash, putting both families in harm’s way.

As they face these horrifying consequences and are left confused by the lack of answers, Sven finds out important information from different people who let him know that Paula had come across proof of life outside our planet and that they are coming to Earth soon. Before this, Sven was also scared that Paula might have caused the crash thanks to her psychosis she was not taking the medication for. Soon, the complete recording is released by the media proving that Paula didn’t cause the crash but Sven is unable to ignore the red flags and believes that the crash was caused by someone else.

Getting to the bottom of it, Sven realises that Paula had given away the coordinates of where the aliens will land on Earth so that no one is able to keep the truth hidden but when the time comes, it turns out that Paula had lied and had given the real coordinates to Charlie. They take help from Benisha Mudhi, the billionaire who funded Paula’s space mission, and unfortunately, after getting the coordinates from Charlie, Sven realises that it was Mudhi who had caused the plane crash in order to keep both the astronauts quiet.

Taking the two civilians with her to the new landing area, Mudhi and her colleagues realise that Paula had already figured out her boss’s true motives and had lied to them all. After the aliens don’t land, Mudhi instructs Nora to get rid of the two of them but she spares their lives, which ends in them being able to figure out the real coordinates and they finally see the alien spaceship, or rather, the Voyager 1 Probe’s remains on the Waidu Desert.

The ‘hello’ that Paula had heard on the ISS wasn’t from an alien but from the Golden Record aboard the Voyager 1. Interestingly, we hear that the only way that the Voyager could come back to Earth was if someone, or something, sent it back to us.

In the end, Mudhi is also arrested thanks to Nora’s testimony and Sven and Charlie are finally able to say goodbye to Paula.

The Signal is streaming on Netflix.

Also Read: The Signal Review (2024): Lost in Space and Logic