Mystery Of The WoW! Signal Four Decades Ago

Did We Make Contact in 1977?

The SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project has been around for decades, monitoring any signals from space to find alien life. But it’s most infamous finding came in the summer of 1977. The Big Ear radio telescope on the grounds of Ohio State University captured an anomaly, and was discovered a few days later by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman. Upon finding this while reviewing the data, he was so impressed he circled it and scribbled the word WOW next to it. This will later become known as the WoW! signal. (See picture below)

Origin of Signal

At first there were a few different theories as to how this was possible. Is it possible we just received a response from another alien life form somewhere in deep space? Or was this a signal from Earth that was deflected by space debris? Upon research they realize it was a single source, and exactly 72 seconds long, and 30 times louder than the background noise of deep space. The intensity of the signal rose for 36 seconds, peaking at the middle, and then decreasing for a steady 36 seconds. It contained one very specific frequency that was unique compared to the area it came from. It was later agreed that the source came from the constellation of Sagittarius, and contained all the makings of an extra terrestrial signal. They were able to narrow it down to an area near the star Tau Sagitarri, which is 120 light years from Earth.

Waiting For A Response

Since then this signal has not reoccured. Astronomers have tried blasting signals in that direction again in hopes of a reply. However there hasn’t been a repeat signal or reply since 1977. On the 35th anniversary in 2012, astronomers sent into space a collection of 10,000 tweets containing a diverse trove of content to space, hoping to be found by some species. Stephen Hawking has warned against this practice, saying that if aliens were to find the origin of our signals, they will have precise coordinates of where we are in the universe. They will probably also know how primitive we are and compared aliens finding us to Columbus discovering Indians in the Americas. In his reference, he implied that humans would be the Native Americans in hypothetical encounter with aliens in the near future.