CTA-102 is a powerful celestial source of radio waves, catalogued in the early 1960s by the California Institute of Technology, and proposed, in 1963, by N. S. Kardashev in the scientifically conservative Astronomical Journal of the USSR as evidence of a Type Two or Type Three Kardashev civilization. A worldwide sensation followed a TASS agency announcement that Gennady Sholomitskii of the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, following up Kardashev's idea, had found CTA-102 to be the beacon of a "supercivilization".¹ Shortly after, observations from Palomar Observatory identified CTA-102 with a quasar.

 

Reference

1. Sholomitskii, G. B. "Variability of the Radio Source CTA-102," Information Bulletin on Variable Stars, Commission 27 of the IAU, no. 83 (February 27, 1965).