Wow! signal

[Voyager275]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

The Wow! signal is controversial. There are people who believe is was extraterrestrials, and those who believe it came from a natural source. What do you think. I think it is our first sign of extraterrestrial life.

[kiwi1960]

This is ...old, yes, its controversial... had the signal been repeated, then you could confidently say it was aliens...

However..... many strange things exist in the Universe.... including distortions of the radio spectrum due to a star farting..... or whatever...

this is why it needs to be repeated more than just a few times, and make sense... before you can yell "aliens" from the balcony...

[Voyager275]

This is ...old, yes, its controversial... had the signal been repeated, then you could confidently say it was aliens...

However..... many strange things exist in the Universe.... including distortions of the radio spectrum due to a star farting..... or whatever...

this is why it needs to be repeated more than just a few times, and make sense... before you can yell "aliens" from the balcony...

If it is aliens, and they act like humans, then they probably didn't send more than one towards our location

[GoSlash27]

I would say it's natural.

Right in the resonant band of hydrogen and it's merely representing signal intensity.

If ET is going to broadcast messages out into the universe, they probably ain't gonna do it using AM and if they do, it ain't gonna be a short blip with no follow- up.

I'm with Kiwi on this one; just a star fart.

Best,

-Slashy

[ChrisSpace]

I'm not going to make an opinion until we can definitively say if there are any civ-harboring planets in that area. Or any potentially civ-harboring planets at all. Until then, I'll say its natural.

[jwenting]

it's almost certainly a glitch in the receiver or signal processor. Either that or it's a terrestrial source. Wouldn't be the first time SETI picked up a new local radio station or aircraft passing overhead and people got all excited about having received an alien signal.

[Godot]

it's almost certainly a glitch in the receiver or signal processor. ...

AFAIK the question whether the Wow!-Signal could be a malfunction of the receiver or a terrestrial (including orbiting satellites) source has been discussed and checked time and again and was classified as highly improbable.

Therefore IMHO it is clearly extraterrestrial.

For the question whether it originates with natural causes (maybe cosmical processes we don´t know of yet), or was produced by intelligent lifeforms, I withhold my opinion.

I don´t think we will find any indications/clues regarding the source of the signal during my lifetime ... maybe it will even still be an unsolved mystery at the time, human civilization collapses

[Aethon]

The odds of wow being a signal from extraterrestrial life are very small.

Here's the best report on the Wow signal I've ever read, by the man himself.

http://www.bigear.org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm

[Sharkman Briton]

You've all convinced me it's a star fart, and thank goodness stars ain't made of Sulfur or Methane cause' the whole universe would be stunk out.

[Starwaster]

=

this is why it needs to be repeated more than just a few times, and make sense... before you can yell "aliens" from the balcony...

How about from street level?

[Mazon Del]

If it is aliens, and they act like humans, then they probably didn't send more than one towards our location

Actually, most proposed programs to send signals out to contact aliens tend to have the idea of a signal that repeats every so often at a given area to both increase the probability of being seen and also to help them ensure that it is not a random/natural event. One such proposal was to basically have the signal fire off in Fibonacci separated time patterns. 1 hour for like 5-10 minutes, 1 hour, 2, 3, 5, etc. For a full day perhaps. Wait some time (a week, month, etc) and then do it again. Repeat as long as the budget holds out.

It's pretty likely that if we spot an Earth grade planet and it has signs of a biosphere, some rich person would likely fund a SETI-telescope of sorts to just full time be sending them messages.

[Steel]

I read that the Wow! Signal wasn't the only strange looking signal observed by these guys (nor was this sort of weird signal a rare event), it was just the only one someone thought to write "Wow!" by and so its the only one that's still remembered