logoalt Hacker News

The Wow signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977

83 pointsby firefaxyesterday at 9:42 PM20 commentsview on HN

Comments

wewewedxfgdftoday at 12:31 AM

I simply do not believe that the WOW signal mean anything at all.

I'm reminded of the exciting signal at Parkes Observatory that turned out to be the microwave oven making an astronomers lunch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_(astronomy)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-05/scientists-discover-s...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/05/microwave-ov...

If all the modern sophisticated alien signal has detected zero then we really have to stop obsessing about the wow signal from 1977.

fourtharktoday at 1:18 AM

> Response

> In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the Arecibo Observatory was said to have beamed a digital stream towards Hipparcos 34511, 33277, and 43587.[45] The transmission consisted of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag "#ChasingUFOs" (a promotion for one of the channel's TV series).[46] The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.

What an inane, embarrassing "response", if the original was any attempt to communicate. (Sounds like it probably was not, but still...)

show 1 reply
lanstinyesterday at 10:21 PM

Someone needs to write a book with a story of how this might have happened.

show 4 replies
brcmthrowawaytoday at 12:18 AM

What was the WoW signal in signal processing terms? Just a strong CW burst? Any modulation?

Asked differently, if I looked at this signal in an oscilloscope, would it be a perfect sine wave at the hydrogen line frequency?

That's got to be an alien transmitting that.

ElProlactintoday at 12:50 AM

Best prank call ever.

thataccountyesterday at 10:46 PM

Ah yes. Used that image on a book I wrote once.