August 29, 2025 • 13 mins
Original Article: https://weirddarkness.com/wow-signal-1977-space-mystery-explained/
For 72 seconds in 1977, something spoke to Earth from the depths of space. Nearly five decades later, scientists are finally closing in on what sent that message – and the answer might be more unsettling than aliens.
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WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WowSignal #WowSignal1977 #BigEarTelescope #JerryEhman #SETI #AlienSignal #ExtraterrestrialIntelligence #1420MHz #HydrogenLine #ChiSagittarii #Sagittarius #6EQUJ5 #72Seconds #OhioStateUniversity #SpaceMystery #UnexplainedSignal #RadioAstronomy #NarrowbandSignal #CosmicSignal #DeepSpace #AbelMendez #AreciboWowProject #MagnetarTheory #NeutronStar #SGR180620 #InterstellarHydrogen #SoftGammaRepeater #WowAtHome #CitizenScience #SpaceArchaeology #HectorSocasNavarro #AllenTelescopeArray #VeryLargeArray #RadioTelescope #August151977 #SpaceExploration #CosmicMysteries #AstronomyColdCase #UnexplainedPhenomena #SearchForExtraterrestrialIntelligence #SpaceScience #Astrophysics #RadioFrequency #AstronomicalAnomaly #SpaceResearch #UniverseMysteries #RadioSignalFromSpace
For 72 seconds in 1977, something spoke to Earth from the depths of space. Nearly five decades later, scientists are finally closing in on what sent that message – and the answer might be more unsettling than aliens.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WowSignal #WowSignal1977 #BigEarTelescope #JerryEhman #SETI #AlienSignal #ExtraterrestrialIntelligence #1420MHz #HydrogenLine #ChiSagittarii #Sagittarius #6EQUJ5 #72Seconds #OhioStateUniversity #SpaceMystery #UnexplainedSignal #RadioAstronomy #NarrowbandSignal #CosmicSignal #DeepSpace #AbelMendez #AreciboWowProject #MagnetarTheory #NeutronStar #SGR180620 #InterstellarHydrogen #SoftGammaRepeater #WowAtHome #CitizenScience #SpaceArchaeology #HectorSocasNavarro #AllenTelescopeArray #VeryLargeArray #RadioTelescope #August151977 #SpaceExploration #CosmicMysteries #AstronomyColdCase #UnexplainedPhenomena #SearchForExtraterrestrialIntelligence #SpaceScience #Astrophysics #RadioFrequency #AstronomicalAnomaly #SpaceResearch #UniverseMysteries #RadioSignalFromSpace
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Darren Marler, and this is a weird darkness bonus bite.
Radio telescopes pick up cosmic noise constantly, stars hiss, pulsar's click, galaxies, murmur,
and frequencies humans can't hear. Scientists who monitor these signals
grew accustomed to the background static of the universe the
(00:26):
way city dwellers stopped noticing traffic. On August fifteenth, nineteen
seventy seven, that changed. The Big Ear radio telescope sprawled
across a field at Ohio State University like a massive
metal ear pressed against the ground, listening to space. The
telescope operated automatically through the night, recording data on continuous
(00:48):
printouts while researchers slept. Jerry Emmon, an astronomer with the
Universities Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project SETI, discovered the anomaly
days later while reviewing stacks of computer printouts covered in
columns of numbers and letters. Most of the print out
showed the usual cosmic background radiation ones, twos, occasional threes
(01:11):
representing weak signals from distant stars. Then Aiman's eyes stopped
on a sequence that shouldn't exist six e q u
J five. The numbers in letters represented signal intensity, with
numbers one through nine giving way to letters for stronger signals.
The letter U represented a signal thirty times louder than
(01:33):
the background noise of space. Emmon grabbed a red pen
and circled the sequence. In the margin, he wrote a
single word that would define this mystery for decades. Wow.
The signal had lasted exactly seventy two seconds, the precise
amount of time it would take for big ears receiving
window to sweep past the point source in space as
(01:56):
Earth rotated. The frequency measured fourteen hundred twenty onero point
four to five five six megahertz, frighteningly close to fourteen
hundred and twenty megahertz, the natural emission frequency of hydrogen,
the most abundant element in the universe. Scientists long theorized
that any intelligent civilization trying to communicate across space would
(02:16):
choose this frequency, knowing other intelligent beings would likely monitor it.
The WOW signal violated every expectation scientists had about natural
cosmic phenomena. Natural sources produce either continuous signals that last
hours or brief pulses lasting milliseconds seventy two seconds. SAT
(02:38):
in an uncomfortable middle ground. The signal's narrow band transmission
occupied less than ten killer hertz of bandwidth, far tighter
than any known natural emission. Quasars, pulsars, and other cosmic
objects spray their signals across wide frequency ranges. This signal
focused its power into a laser thin beat beam of
(03:00):
radio waves. The intensity pattern formed a perfect bell curve
as the telescope's beam swept past the source, exactly what
scientists would expect from a distant point transmitter. The signal appeared,
and only one of Big Ear's two feed horns, which
scanned the same patch of sky, seventy seconds apart. Whatever
(03:20):
since the signal had either stopped transmitting or moved in
those seventy seconds. Most disturbing of all, the signal never repeated.
For the next several weeks, Big Ear stared at the
same region of space. Scientists aimed other radio telescopes at
the coordinates the very large array in New Mexico, with
(03:41):
sensitivity hundreds of times greater than Big Ear, found only silence.
Whatever had announced itself to Earth had gone quiet. The
signal originated from the patch of seemingly empty space in
the constellation Sagittarius near the star group Chai Sagatari. No
visible stars, no planets, No obvious sources of radio emission
(04:04):
existed at those coordinates. The regions at two point five
degrees south of the ecliptic plane, where most planets orbit,
and well away from the galactic center, where stellar activity
might produce unusual emissions. New research from the Planetary Habitability
Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico has narrowed down
the source location with unprecedented precision. Abel Mendez and his
(04:28):
team reanalyzed decades of previously unpublished observations from the Ohio
State SETI program, combining them with modern computational methods. Their
work places the signal's origin in a region of space
roughly eighteen hundred light years from Earth, though the margin
of error remains substantial. The team discovered something else in
(04:48):
the archives, previously unnoticed patterns in the data suggesting the
signal might have possessed internal structure, possibly modulation that big
EARS equipment couldn't fully resolve. These subtle variations appeared too
regular for random noise, but too complex for simple interference.
Mendez's team proposed that a magnetar a type of neutron
(05:12):
star with a magnetic field one thousand trillion times stronger
than Earth's might have triggered the signal. Magnetars occasionally release
massive flares that can brighten interstellar hydrogen clouds, causing them
to emit powerful radio signals at specific frequencies. A magnetar
flare could explain the signal's unique properties. The flare would
(05:34):
energize hydrogen atoms and a stellar cloud, causing them to
emit at precisely fourteen hundred twenty megahertz. The emission would
last until the excited atoms returned to their ground state,
potentially matching the seventy two second duration. The narrow band
nature fits this scenario. Hydrogen atoms emit at an extremely
(05:54):
specific frequency when transitioning between energy states. Scientists have detected
some gamma repeaters, a type of magnetar burst that could
provide enough energy to trigger such an emission. SGR eighteen
oh six twenty, located fifty thousand light years away, released
a burst in two thousand and four that briefly outshone
(06:14):
the full Moon in gamma rays despite the vast distance.
A closer magnetar experiencing a similar event could easily produce
the observed signal strength. The hypothesis explains why the signal
never repeated. Magnetar flares powerful enough to trigger this phenomenon
occur rarely, perhaps once per decade per magnetar. The specific
(06:37):
alignment of magnetar, hydrogen cloud, and Earth necessary to produce
the observed signal might not recur for centuries. The ongoing
investigation has spawned an unusual project while at home, where
anyone with five hundred dollars and a backyard can join
the search for similar signals. The project provides free software
(06:58):
that transforms consumer grade radio equipment into a node in
a global detection network. Hector so Costevarro, director of the
European Solar Telescope Foundation and part of the research team,
described their work as space archaeology, digging through old data
with new tools. The team is discovered that the WOW
signal was strong enough that even small amateur telescopes could
(07:21):
have detected it had they been looking at the right
place at the right time. The network of small telescopes
offers advantages that professional observatories lack. They can monitor the
same patch of sky continuously for months, something large telescopes
can't afford to do. A magnetar flare or similar event
could happen at any moment. Professional telescopes might miss it
(07:43):
while observing other targets. Each amateur station leads data to
a central processing system that searches for anomalies matching the
WOW signals characteristics. The software looks for narrowband signals lasting
between ten and one hundred and twenty seconds, appearing at
or near the hydrogen line frequency, with intensity patterns consistent
with astronomical sources. The research team's findings have made radio
(08:08):
interference an increasingly unlikely explanation for the WOW signal. Terrestrial
transmissions would have appeared in both of Big Ears feed Horns.
Satellite transmissions in nineteen seventy seven didn't use that frequency,
and aviation regulations protected the hydrogen line frequency from commercial use.
Military transmissions seem very unlikely. The signal's characteristics don't match
(08:31):
any known communication protocol from that era. The possibility of
extraterrestrial intelligence remains on the table, though scientists approach it cautiously.
The signals frequency, duration, and intensity pattern match what SETI
researchers predicted an alien beacon might look like. The apparent
lack of natural explanation keeps this hypothesis alive even as
(08:54):
researchers pursue more prosaic explanations. The magnetar hypothesis offers a
natural explanation, but it requires a series of coincidences a
powerful magnetar flare occurring at just the right angle to
energize a hydrogen cloud positioned perfectly between the magnetar and Earth.
The probability seems low, yet space contains billions of magnetars
(09:18):
and countless hydrogen clouds. Given enough opportunities, even unlikely events
become inevitable. The team plans to digitize and release all
data from big EAR by twenty twenty seven, marking the
fiftieth anniversary of the Wow signal. Preliminary analysis has already
revealed other anomalous signals in the archives, though none as
(09:40):
dramatic as the original Wow event. Several signals showed similar
narrow band characteristics, but lasted only a few seconds, too
brief for big EAR to fully characterize. Modern analysis techniques
of extracted information from the data that nineteen seventies technology
couldn't detect. Machine learning algorithms can identify patterns that humans miss,
(10:01):
potentially revealing whether the WOW signal was part of a
larger phenomenon. The team has found statistical correlations between various
anomalous signals that suggest they might share a common origin.
Each signal in the archive gets compared against databases of
known satellites, aircraft, and terrestrial transmitters from nineteen seventy seven.
(10:22):
The team eliminates hundreds of false positives this way, leaving
a small core of genuinely mysterious signals. Most last only seconds,
many appear at frequencies other than the hydrogen line. None
match the WOW signals combination of duration, intensity, and frequency.
The research has revealed that big Ear detected several near
(10:45):
WAW events signals that matched most, but not all, of
the WOW signal's characteristics. One signal from nineteen seventy six
showed similar intensity and duration, but appeared at fourteen hundred
twenty one megahertz, just slightly off the hydrogen line. Another
matched the frequency and narrow band nature, but lasted only
(11:05):
twelve seconds. These near misses might represent weaker versions of
whatever phenomenon created the WOW signal. Scientists continue monitoring the
WOW signal's coordinates with increasingly sensitive equipment. The Allen Telescope
array in California periodically aims its forty two dishes at
the region. The five hundred meters Aperture Spherical Telescope in China,
(11:27):
the world's largest single dish radio telescope, has added the
coordinates to its target list. The Aracibo Teams research reopens
the case with what Mendez calls a much sharper map
in hand. Their refined coordinates and signal characteristics allow targeted
observations that weren't possible before. If the magnetar hypothesis proves correct,
(11:49):
similar signals should eventually appear, though possibly not for decades.
The implications extend beyond one mysterious signal. If magnetar flares
can trigger high drogen line emissions, astronomers need to reconsider
how they interpret narrowband signals from space. Some signals previously
dismissed as interference might deserve a second look. Others attributed
(12:12):
to natural processes might hide signs of technology. The WOW
signal remains unique. After forty seven years of searching, no
confirmed detection has matched its specific combination of characteristics. This
uniqueness itself becomes a clue. Whatever caused it was either
incredibly rare or required a precise set of circumstances that
(12:35):
haven't aligned. Since modern telescopes can detect signals millions of
times weaker than what Big Ear could hear. If something
similar to the Wow signal occurred today, multiple observatories would
record it in exquisite detail. Scientists would measure its polarization,
determine its exact bandwidth, and potentially identifying modulation patterns. They
(12:57):
might even pinpoint its source to a specifcipic star system.
Until that happens, the Wow signal persists as astronomy's most
famous cold case, a moment when the universe broke its
silence to say something we couldn't understand in a voice
that spoke once and never again. Scientists keep listening to
(13:17):
those coordinates, waiting for a repeat performance that may never
come from a source that might be natural, alien, or
something else entirely, something we haven't imagined yet. If you'd
like to read this story for yourself, I've placed a
link to the article in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
(13:38):
and more at Weird Darkness dot com slash news
I'm Darren Marler, and this is a weird darkness bonus bite.
Radio telescopes pick up cosmic noise constantly, stars hiss, pulsar's click, galaxies, murmur,
and frequencies humans can't hear. Scientists who monitor these signals
grew accustomed to the background static of the universe the
(00:26):
way city dwellers stopped noticing traffic. On August fifteenth, nineteen
seventy seven, that changed. The Big Ear radio telescope sprawled
across a field at Ohio State University like a massive
metal ear pressed against the ground, listening to space. The
telescope operated automatically through the night, recording data on continuous
(00:48):
printouts while researchers slept. Jerry Emmon, an astronomer with the
Universities Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project SETI, discovered the anomaly
days later while reviewing stacks of computer printouts covered in
columns of numbers and letters. Most of the print out
showed the usual cosmic background radiation ones, twos, occasional threes
(01:11):
representing weak signals from distant stars. Then Aiman's eyes stopped
on a sequence that shouldn't exist six e q u
J five. The numbers in letters represented signal intensity, with
numbers one through nine giving way to letters for stronger signals.
The letter U represented a signal thirty times louder than
(01:33):
the background noise of space. Emmon grabbed a red pen
and circled the sequence. In the margin, he wrote a
single word that would define this mystery for decades. Wow.
The signal had lasted exactly seventy two seconds, the precise
amount of time it would take for big ears receiving
window to sweep past the point source in space as
(01:56):
Earth rotated. The frequency measured fourteen hundred twenty onero point
four to five five six megahertz, frighteningly close to fourteen
hundred and twenty megahertz, the natural emission frequency of hydrogen,
the most abundant element in the universe. Scientists long theorized
that any intelligent civilization trying to communicate across space would
(02:16):
choose this frequency, knowing other intelligent beings would likely monitor it.
The WOW signal violated every expectation scientists had about natural
cosmic phenomena. Natural sources produce either continuous signals that last
hours or brief pulses lasting milliseconds seventy two seconds. SAT
(02:38):
in an uncomfortable middle ground. The signal's narrow band transmission
occupied less than ten killer hertz of bandwidth, far tighter
than any known natural emission. Quasars, pulsars, and other cosmic
objects spray their signals across wide frequency ranges. This signal
focused its power into a laser thin beat beam of
(03:00):
radio waves. The intensity pattern formed a perfect bell curve
as the telescope's beam swept past the source, exactly what
scientists would expect from a distant point transmitter. The signal appeared,
and only one of Big Ear's two feed horns, which
scanned the same patch of sky, seventy seconds apart. Whatever
(03:20):
since the signal had either stopped transmitting or moved in
those seventy seconds. Most disturbing of all, the signal never repeated.
For the next several weeks, Big Ear stared at the
same region of space. Scientists aimed other radio telescopes at
the coordinates the very large array in New Mexico, with
(03:41):
sensitivity hundreds of times greater than Big Ear, found only silence.
Whatever had announced itself to Earth had gone quiet. The
signal originated from the patch of seemingly empty space in
the constellation Sagittarius near the star group Chai Sagatari. No
visible stars, no planets, No obvious sources of radio emission
(04:04):
existed at those coordinates. The regions at two point five
degrees south of the ecliptic plane, where most planets orbit,
and well away from the galactic center, where stellar activity
might produce unusual emissions. New research from the Planetary Habitability
Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico has narrowed down
the source location with unprecedented precision. Abel Mendez and his
(04:28):
team reanalyzed decades of previously unpublished observations from the Ohio
State SETI program, combining them with modern computational methods. Their
work places the signal's origin in a region of space
roughly eighteen hundred light years from Earth, though the margin
of error remains substantial. The team discovered something else in
(04:48):
the archives, previously unnoticed patterns in the data suggesting the
signal might have possessed internal structure, possibly modulation that big
EARS equipment couldn't fully resolve. These subtle variations appeared too
regular for random noise, but too complex for simple interference.
Mendez's team proposed that a magnetar a type of neutron
(05:12):
star with a magnetic field one thousand trillion times stronger
than Earth's might have triggered the signal. Magnetars occasionally release
massive flares that can brighten interstellar hydrogen clouds, causing them
to emit powerful radio signals at specific frequencies. A magnetar
flare could explain the signal's unique properties. The flare would
(05:34):
energize hydrogen atoms and a stellar cloud, causing them to
emit at precisely fourteen hundred twenty megahertz. The emission would
last until the excited atoms returned to their ground state,
potentially matching the seventy two second duration. The narrow band
nature fits this scenario. Hydrogen atoms emit at an extremely
(05:54):
specific frequency when transitioning between energy states. Scientists have detected
some gamma repeaters, a type of magnetar burst that could
provide enough energy to trigger such an emission. SGR eighteen
oh six twenty, located fifty thousand light years away, released
a burst in two thousand and four that briefly outshone
(06:14):
the full Moon in gamma rays despite the vast distance.
A closer magnetar experiencing a similar event could easily produce
the observed signal strength. The hypothesis explains why the signal
never repeated. Magnetar flares powerful enough to trigger this phenomenon
occur rarely, perhaps once per decade per magnetar. The specific
(06:37):
alignment of magnetar, hydrogen cloud, and Earth necessary to produce
the observed signal might not recur for centuries. The ongoing
investigation has spawned an unusual project while at home, where
anyone with five hundred dollars and a backyard can join
the search for similar signals. The project provides free software
(06:58):
that transforms consumer grade radio equipment into a node in
a global detection network. Hector so Costevarro, director of the
European Solar Telescope Foundation and part of the research team,
described their work as space archaeology, digging through old data
with new tools. The team is discovered that the WOW
signal was strong enough that even small amateur telescopes could
(07:21):
have detected it had they been looking at the right
place at the right time. The network of small telescopes
offers advantages that professional observatories lack. They can monitor the
same patch of sky continuously for months, something large telescopes
can't afford to do. A magnetar flare or similar event
could happen at any moment. Professional telescopes might miss it
(07:43):
while observing other targets. Each amateur station leads data to
a central processing system that searches for anomalies matching the
WOW signals characteristics. The software looks for narrowband signals lasting
between ten and one hundred and twenty seconds, appearing at
or near the hydrogen line frequency, with intensity patterns consistent
with astronomical sources. The research team's findings have made radio
(08:08):
interference an increasingly unlikely explanation for the WOW signal. Terrestrial
transmissions would have appeared in both of Big Ears feed Horns.
Satellite transmissions in nineteen seventy seven didn't use that frequency,
and aviation regulations protected the hydrogen line frequency from commercial use.
Military transmissions seem very unlikely. The signal's characteristics don't match
(08:31):
any known communication protocol from that era. The possibility of
extraterrestrial intelligence remains on the table, though scientists approach it cautiously.
The signals frequency, duration, and intensity pattern match what SETI
researchers predicted an alien beacon might look like. The apparent
lack of natural explanation keeps this hypothesis alive even as
(08:54):
researchers pursue more prosaic explanations. The magnetar hypothesis offers a
natural explanation, but it requires a series of coincidences a
powerful magnetar flare occurring at just the right angle to
energize a hydrogen cloud positioned perfectly between the magnetar and Earth.
The probability seems low, yet space contains billions of magnetars
(09:18):
and countless hydrogen clouds. Given enough opportunities, even unlikely events
become inevitable. The team plans to digitize and release all
data from big EAR by twenty twenty seven, marking the
fiftieth anniversary of the Wow signal. Preliminary analysis has already
revealed other anomalous signals in the archives, though none as
(09:40):
dramatic as the original Wow event. Several signals showed similar
narrow band characteristics, but lasted only a few seconds, too
brief for big EAR to fully characterize. Modern analysis techniques
of extracted information from the data that nineteen seventies technology
couldn't detect. Machine learning algorithms can identify patterns that humans miss,
(10:01):
potentially revealing whether the WOW signal was part of a
larger phenomenon. The team has found statistical correlations between various
anomalous signals that suggest they might share a common origin.
Each signal in the archive gets compared against databases of
known satellites, aircraft, and terrestrial transmitters from nineteen seventy seven.
(10:22):
The team eliminates hundreds of false positives this way, leaving
a small core of genuinely mysterious signals. Most last only seconds,
many appear at frequencies other than the hydrogen line. None
match the WOW signals combination of duration, intensity, and frequency.
The research has revealed that big Ear detected several near
(10:45):
WAW events signals that matched most, but not all, of
the WOW signal's characteristics. One signal from nineteen seventy six
showed similar intensity and duration, but appeared at fourteen hundred
twenty one megahertz, just slightly off the hydrogen line. Another
matched the frequency and narrow band nature, but lasted only
(11:05):
twelve seconds. These near misses might represent weaker versions of
whatever phenomenon created the WOW signal. Scientists continue monitoring the
WOW signal's coordinates with increasingly sensitive equipment. The Allen Telescope
array in California periodically aims its forty two dishes at
the region. The five hundred meters Aperture Spherical Telescope in China,
(11:27):
the world's largest single dish radio telescope, has added the
coordinates to its target list. The Aracibo Teams research reopens
the case with what Mendez calls a much sharper map
in hand. Their refined coordinates and signal characteristics allow targeted
observations that weren't possible before. If the magnetar hypothesis proves correct,
(11:49):
similar signals should eventually appear, though possibly not for decades.
The implications extend beyond one mysterious signal. If magnetar flares
can trigger high drogen line emissions, astronomers need to reconsider
how they interpret narrowband signals from space. Some signals previously
dismissed as interference might deserve a second look. Others attributed
(12:12):
to natural processes might hide signs of technology. The WOW
signal remains unique. After forty seven years of searching, no
confirmed detection has matched its specific combination of characteristics. This
uniqueness itself becomes a clue. Whatever caused it was either
incredibly rare or required a precise set of circumstances that
(12:35):
haven't aligned. Since modern telescopes can detect signals millions of
times weaker than what Big Ear could hear. If something
similar to the Wow signal occurred today, multiple observatories would
record it in exquisite detail. Scientists would measure its polarization,
determine its exact bandwidth, and potentially identifying modulation patterns. They
(12:57):
might even pinpoint its source to a specifcipic star system.
Until that happens, the Wow signal persists as astronomy's most
famous cold case, a moment when the universe broke its
silence to say something we couldn't understand in a voice
that spoke once and never again. Scientists keep listening to
(13:17):
those coordinates, waiting for a repeat performance that may never
come from a source that might be natural, alien, or
something else entirely, something we haven't imagined yet. If you'd
like to read this story for yourself, I've placed a
link to the article in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
(13:38):
and more at Weird Darkness dot com slash news
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