You know that part in the movie Contact where Jodie Foster is sitting on her truck listening to her headphones and suddenly she hears an alien signal? I bet you didn't know that that scene was based on a real life event. Except it wasn't on the hood of a pickup truck and it wasn't Jodie Foster. I mean, Jodie Foster MAY talk to aliens but there's no proof of that. Yet.
The signal was detected on August 15, 1977 in Delaware, Ohio by Jerry R. Ehman, a SETI researcher. SETI is short for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. The signal was recorded for 72 seconds before disappearing forever. Mr. Ehman discovered the signal on the paper logs, circled them and wrote "Wow!" next to it. This would become the name by which it would be known.
There's no way of knowing how long the signal actually lasted. Because of Earth's rotation, the Big Ear Radio Telescope (You know that big array of satellite dishes at the end of Contact? Something like that) was only able to record it for 72 seconds. The signal could have gone on for nearly 24 hours, but we may never know. We've never caught it again.
What makes the signal so interesting is the noise. Did you know space makes noise? If you want to hear it just tune your radio to a frequency on which there is no station. You will probably hear static. That's the sound of space! It's kind of an echo of the Big Bang. The Wow! signal was 30 times louder than regular space noise.
Following this finding, scientists tracked this part of the sky (which was determined to be in the Sagittarius constellation) for a solid month. Unfortunately the event never repeated itself. On an even sadder note, the piece of land, on which the Big Ear Radio Array was once located, is now home to a golf course. Good news if you're a golfer. Bad news if ET decides to reach out and touch us again.
But we really don't know if it was intelligent in nature. Maybe it was a bit of rare space noise that we just happened to stumble upon. Maybe it was intelligent but wasn't really directed at us. Just some ET's television signal that just happened to cross our path. We just don't know. And that's really my point here. We're always hearing about how science has an explanation for this or that but they downplay the fact that these are just theories.
Now, I'm not going to go on a crazy rant here and tell you that the New World Order is about to take over and the aliens are helping them. I'm just saying that as Americans, we need to start being thinkers and questioners again. We used to look at things objectively. Now we just accept whatever CNN serves up as gospel. I would guess that 90% of what we see on the news anymore is inaccurate at best, downright fraudulent at worst. And I know plenty of people who would tell me that 90% is way too kind, but I don't want to get sued.
Wake up, people! Start asking questions!
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