ThatDamnedPanda
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A couple of posts that I've exchanged with Arpig in the "creationist science" thread got me thinking, once again, about something I often ponder. I thought I'd start a thread, partly to see what other people may think about it and partly because it occurs to me that a lot of people might never have even heard of it, and may find it interesting. It'll probably get moved to some other forum at some point, god only knows which one. But I'll start it here, because we don't have a science forum and it does relate somewhat to the creationism thread.
In August of 1977, astronomers at Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope, scanning the skies for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), found something nobody had ever heard before and nobody has ever heard since. For 72 seconds, the telescope tracked a radio signal of such power and such complexity the astronomer reading the data wrote the word "WOW!" in the margin next to the transcription. The signal fit most of the criteria for what would be accepted as evidence of an extraterrestrial origin, and every possibility of terrestrial origin was either completely ruled out or judged to be so unlikely as to not even be worth considering. In fact, the only conclusion that can not be categorically ruled out or proved to be unlikely is that it was, indeed, a signal from another civilization. Planets, aircraft, terrestrial spacecraft, groundbased transmitters, reflections off of asteroids or other space debris - all were determined to be either impossible, or too improbable to seriously consider. As odd as it may seem, the possibility that this was an alien radio signal is left as the most likely, or perhaps the least unlikely, explanation.
quote:
As he had done a thousand times, Jerry Ehman glanced over the Big Ear's computer printouts, not really expecting to find anything unusual. But what Ehman saw on that Aug. 15, 1977 - and his startled reaction - would be recorded in radio astronomy textbooks and discussed by researchers to this day.
The Columbus man saw a signal so strong that it catapulted the Big Ear's recording device off the chart. An excited Ehman scribbled "Wow!" on the printout, a tag that is indelibly linked to the recording. "I mean, without thinking, I wrote 'Wow!' " Ehman recalls. "It was the most significant thing we had seen."
Ehman's position today is that he is unwilling to say anything more than that the signal "might" have been a transmission from an alien civilization. As a scientist, he feels that there just isn't enough information to declare that it was an ETI; he refuses to "draw vast conclusions from half-vast data." Despite over 40 years of periodic searching in that section of the sky - over a hundred searches by radio telescopes all over the world - the signal has never been detected again, and it appears that no more data will be forthcoming. All we have is 72 seconds, the time it took for the radio telescope to track across that portion of the sky on that one summer night. The radio telescope that first detected it searched again over 50 times before it was torn down a couple of years ago to make room for a golf course. To my knowledge, nobody's even looking anymore. It's quite probable we'll never know for certain what Jerry Ehman heard that night.
But... for those of you who have heard of the "Wow!" signal... what do you think it was?
Jerry Erhman on the "Wow!" signal
Space.com's article
MSNBC - The "Wow!" Mystery Turns 30
< Message edited by ThatDamnedPanda -- 8/28/2009 12:40:21 PM >
_____________________________
Panda, panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
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The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 
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