The SETI Project and the Wow signal that has captured radio aficionados for decades involved a strange 72 second anomaly in a received radio signal that was received by the Big Ear Radio Observatory on August 15, 1977. The observer was a volunteer working for the Big Ear Observatory that was searching for extraterrestrial intelligence or SETI. The Big Ear Observatory is located in Columbus, Ohio, on the campus of Ohio State University.
While Dr. Jerry Ehman was looking at the computer’s printouts, he noticed it recording a signal that sent the device off of its usual parameters. He circled the strange looking code and scribbled in the margins the famous Wow. The exclamation, wow, is not new because it has been a common means of showing surprise or as an accolade of good work. Dr. Jerry Ehman has also written a paper explaining the circled code which he interpreted at the time as coming from an extraterrestrial source.
Since the Big Ear Observatory had two cones searching for signals and all signals from both cones were reported on the same computer, he was unable to pinpoint from which direction in the sky it was coming from. Other researchers have speculated that it was coming from the star system Sagittarius. Regardless of where it came from, Dr. Ehman expected that the signal would be resent or have a follow up in 52 minutes. The signal never again came. They waited for the signal to return but nothing just silence.
Speculation began that maybe the signal did not come from an alien or exterrestrial intelligence but was just a random sound bouncing off a satellite in space and entering the earth’s field and Big Ear’s computer as enigmatically as a melting icicle. If the signal did come from extraterrestrial life light years away from our own planet, it might have been a signal sent out by a dying plane or civilization. All kinds of science fiction stories can be conceived, but, without another signal they would be like Star Trek in validity.
The question remains though that Big Ear Observatory had its antenna pointed to the sky. There were other normal signals that had been recorded in the computer’s printouts. Why did this one signal stir Big Ear’s computer? Some conspiracy advocates claim that we were contacted by extraterrestrial intelligence and that Jerry Ehman like other people who have been in actual contact with outer space intelligence was told to claim that no other signals or recordings had been received.
Big Ear Radio Observatory WOW Signal
According to Jerry Ehman who wrote his explanation using his own word with two photos to prove his personal involvement, one of him standing in front of the radio signal collector Big Ear Observatory in Columbus, Ohio, and one of the computer printout with the Wow! The riddle is in the deciphering of the code, “6EQUJ5″. The fact that he felt he had to prove his direct involvement with the SETI project at the Ohio State University campus, indicates that he was under scrutiny by the same people who deliberately target people who may have been contacted by exterrestrial life and in his case, by an authorized research project!
His explanation of the code has to do with the range shown by the value of the numerical and alphabetical code. The range indicates the distance that the signal is travelling to arrive within Big Ear’s normal listening range. Because of the distance involved in analyzing the code, he deduced that it could only have come from some extraterrestrial intelligence at least 220 light years from Big Ear. Actually, no one can say if the code even means anything. The signal was picked up a giant radio receiver. It did not pick up the word, Wow. It was recorded as code of distance travelled to reach Big Ear’s antenna. All the signal proves is that it came from an unknown destination perhaps 220 light years out somewhere within the constellation of Sagittarius .
