The Mystery of the Wow! Signal

An exploration of the Wow! Signal, picked up at the Big Ear radio telescope in 1977. This signal remains unexplained to this day, and represents the best candidate we've ever detected of a signal of intelligent alien origin.

The Wow! Signal with Discoverer Dr. Jerry Ehman

The Big Ear Wow! Signal (30th Anniversary Report)

SETI in the 1970s

The Elusive Wow: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Robert H. Gray

Supermind by JMG

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Music featured on Event Horizon

[GT-wjgl]

I cant believe we left the aliens on read like that.

[orangeSoda]

If we get a new Wow signal, the old one will be known as Wow classic.

[oiocha]

If we don't listen to it 24/7 for decades, then we'll probably never hear it again.

[erictaylor]

I imagine that the signal was generated by mistake, then quickly shut down.
Imagine a young alien. It's his first day on the job, perhaps, even, he is still in training. He works in a vast radio array tasked with contacting alien cultures.
One day he sees a signal that he has been told to respond to. He sends the response signal just as his boss walks in and see's what he's doing.
"Johnson, my God what are you doing?" He hits the off switch as quickly as he can then says, "We don't contact them. Those aliens a freaking nuts!
I hope the poor kid din't get fired.

[kbug]

I got chills when he said that the signal was corrected for Doppler shift!

[morbidmanatee]

I actually held the print out itself in my hand when I used to do volunteer work at Big Ear back in the late 80s

[nealsterling]

That's a highly fascinating topic, i had no idea that there where so many mysterious circumstances about it, aside from that it could be of alien nature.

[xcq]

What perplexes me a lot are the obvious contradictions here: We are generally not allowed to transmit on the protected H1 frequency, so there's not a lot of noise from us in that range, but we listen for others primarily there. If a signal doesn't repeat it's not worthwhile for us, but when we send messages, we do it only once or for a very short period of time.

[Valentin]

It's criminal that this video doesn't have at least a million views

[akw]

"WTF?!" Would have been just as iconic.

[Dr_Do-Little]

Imagine the commotion if it was to repeat in the future!

[xanosdarkpaw]

SETI can't confirm an alien signal if it don't repeat. What do we do when we send out our own SETI signals? We send them once to each star...

[AtticSnacks]

Can't wait for this week's episode.
I've always personally wondered why we haven't simply sent off a signal very similar, but distinguishable, in the same direction.

[zapfanzapfan]

Crowdfunding to keep one telescope in the Allen Array always (well, 12 hours a day or so) pointed in the signal's direction? I think it would be worth it.

[Nessevan]

Of the dozens of 'Wow signal' videos, I found this by far the best one. Explaining it clearly without expecting E.T. to pop op around the corner at any given moment.

[redriver]

You're killing it John. Love it! Excellent environment to get my "nerd on". Thank You.

[WestOfEarth]

SETI scientists: Let's restrict use of 21 cm wavelength in order to pick up alien signals
Aliens: Let's restrict use of 21 cm wavelength in order to listen for alien signals


*crickets*

[johnga]

Thorough, thoughtful, mildly spooky. Thanks for the nice video.

[ykbyucb]

This is what keeps me coming back the best explanation of the WOW! Signal I have heard. Great job!

[smc]

Good thing he wrote something as ubiquitous as "wow!" instead of "gadzooks!" or "how disconcerting!"