Wow!

“I am still waiting for a definitive explanation that makes sense,” Ehman said.

And we all are, at least, the ones who actually know about it.

The picture represented above, was the first detected strong narrowband radio signal, the results of the SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University on August 15th, 1977.

The question that still is asked today (among those who have been aware) was postured by astronomer Jerry Ehman, of Ohio State University in Columbus, and if you want to read his entire specs, scientific evidence and data, specifications, postulations, and conclusions, you may look into his published online work here: http://www.bigear.org/wow20th.htm.

Unless you are an astronomy aficionado, science teacher, or a kid or adult who just loves science as a hobby or for fun(like I do), I’m sure this strange signal that came from space sounds odd and completely crazy.

Well, let’s start from the beginning.

What is the SETI Project?

Well, it actually means Search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and it is done by monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.



As early as the 1900’s, the search for intelligent life from out beyond our world has been a dream, a mind boggling mystery, and something science has been practicing since the advent of radio.

Movies, books, and popular media love to show us what we think that intelligent life could be. Or what it could look like.



Even the brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla tried a hand at detecting these anomalies, suggesting that an extreme version of his wireless electrical transmission system could be used to contact beings on Mars in 1896. At his Colorado Springs experimental station, in 1899, he had detected an odd repetitive static signal that seemed to cut off when Mars set in the night sky, which he mistakenly believed was from that planet. From further analysis, it was shown that he may have possibly misunderstood the technology he was using, or was merely observing signals from Marconi's European radio experiments, and even speculation that he could have picked up naturally occurring radio noise caused by a moon of Jupiter (Io) moving through the magnetosphere of Jupiter.

The Wow Factor of the Wow! signal is that there was no known planet nearby, and the nearest star in that direction is 220 light years away. So, the immensity of strength in the signal is a phenomenon in of itself. The signal lasted thirty seven seconds long, from the direction of Sagittarius, the pulse of radiation was confined to a narrow range of radio frequencies around 1420 megahertz.

The Big Ear telescope only covers one-millionth of the sky at any point of time. The odds of getting the timing right again for that exact moment and fraction of sky, with the signal or beaming from an alien transmission seems highly unlikely, yet, statistical anomalies can and will happen in this strange and wonderful universe.

Sometimes the most strange and unexplainable phenomena is the most important and valuable to us, in relation to our human nature and our understanding of life as we know it. We just have to find better ways to understand it. To funnel it. And appreciate it.

There are some who do not think the signal is bonafide, genuine proof of aliens, like Dan Wertheimer. He is the Chief Scientist for the SETI@home project, and he believes in something a bit more mudane as for the explanation: pollution. “We’ve seen many signals like this, and these sorts of signals have always turned out to be interference,” he says. He believes that it was merely radio-frequency interference from Earth-based transmissions. Well, still, I say, Wow!

The feeling that we are not alone, that we can find a being of similar or higher intelligence is something we all question, and even might desire to see one day.

Nothing like this signal has ever been found again, through hundred of sweeps throughout where Ehman had originally registered the signal, and though that may sound like a dead end—-it doesn’t mean that the search is over.

In fact, due to some extra research into the matter, amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero may have found the location of the signal.

On November 8, 2020, Alberto Caballero published a scientific journal relating to the Wow! Signal, and it’s source. And the source is a specific star of origin. It’s a sunlike star – labeled 2MASS 19281982-2640123 – 1,800 light-years away, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Caballero’s discovery is certainly not the first or the last of scientific proposals regarding the origin of the Wow! Signal.

Astronomer Antonio Paris had given his own explanation to the Wow! Signal in 2016: the faint comet 266P/Christensen, which was near the region of sky the signal was hailed at the time. This was based on the possibility that comets could emit radio signals at or close to the same frequency of 1,420 MHz. Ehman, as well as other scientists, remain dubious of the probability of this being true.

Astronomer Seth Shostak at the SETI Institute said of the explanation: “I don’t think anyone ever found such emission from comets.”

Whatever the case may be, whether these experiments may or may not prove what they had set out to prove, but they definitely set imagination to new and extraordinary heights.

I for one, won’t stop searching, dreaming, and learning.

We will find that Wow! Again.

I know it.