The Truth About: The WOW! Signal

Did Scientists Receive the First-Ever Communication From Alien Life Way Back in 1977?

It was on August 15, 1977, that Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope received what many consider to be the most convincing scientific argument of extraterrestrial life — a signal from outer space. Discovered by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman when reviewing data, the 72-second event came from somewhere around the Sagittarius constellation. To this day, there is no agreed-upon explanation for what the telescope received, with opponents of the alien life theory suggesting natural phenomena or even a human-made source. It was on August 18 that the event would get its most widely known name, Ehman writing “WOW!” in the margins of computer printouts next to the letters “6EQUJ5”. Ehman was at the time a professor at Ohio State and also volunteered with SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He knew what to look for.

Scientists had long believed that the first confirmation of alien life would come in the form of radio signals. The physicists Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi of Cornell University suggested that radio waves would be the first indications of a civilisation that would be observable across a galaxy. A 1959 paper by the pair speculated that should any such society be deliberately trying to…