AR-1977-001 — Archive Record

The Wow! Signal — Assessment and Archive Entry

1977 Open Access

On 15 August 1977, Dr Jerry Ehman, working as a volunteer at the Big Ear Radio Observatory at Ohio State University, detected a narrowband radio signal lasting 72 seconds. The signal, which Ehman annotated with the word “Wow!” in the margins of the data printout, has not been detected again despite repeated searches.

The signal originated from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, at a frequency close to the hydrogen line (1420 MHz). These characteristics are consistent with what SETI researchers had predicted an extraterrestrial signal might look like.

The Institution’s Assessment

The Institution’s assessment of the Wow! Signal, filed in December 1977, differs from the published scientific consensus in three respects:

First, the Institution’s signal analysis, using methods not published in the open literature, identifies a modulation pattern within the 72-second transmission that is inconsistent with simple natural emission. The pattern is regular at a scale below the resolution of the published data.

Second, the Institution’s archive contains a prior entry — not a prediction, but a record of a previous observation — describing a signal with identical frequency characteristics detected in August 1927, exactly fifty years prior. The 1927 observation was made at a different location and by a different operator with no connection to Ohio State. The archive entry for the 1927 signal is restricted at the Third Degree.

Third, the direction of origin. The Institution’s analysis places the signal’s origin, accounting for proper motion corrections not used in the standard SETI literature, at a location that corresponds to a coordinate noted in the founding archive of 1706. The nature of that notation is restricted at the Fourth Degree.

The Institution does not state that the Wow! Signal was extraterrestrial in origin. The Institution notes that the three discrepancies above have not been addressed in the published literature and that the Institution has not published them.