National Geographic looking to respond to “alien” Wow! signal from 1977
_Featured_, Extraterrestrial, UFO Thursday, June 28th, 2012(Phys.org) Back in 1977, on August 15, to be exact, a mysterious radio transmission was received by astronomers working at an Ohio State radio observatory. It lasted all of seventy two seconds, and was so unique that one of the impressed researchers, Jerry Ehman, scrawled the word “Wow!” on the printout, giving a name to the only such transmission every recorded. It’s never been heard again and scientists are still at a loss trying to explain its source. Now, to commemorate the anniversary of the reception of the Wow! transmission, the National Geographic Channel is sponsoring a Twitter messaging event that will result in Tweets from people from all walks of life having their messages combined into one giant Tweet back to those who may have sent us the Wow! message, perhaps inciting a similar response from beings somewhere out there beyond the edges of our ability to see them.
A scan of a color copy of the original computer printout, taken several years after the 1977 arrival of the Wow! signal. Credit: The Ohio State University Radio Observatory and the North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO).
Not everyone is convinced the radio transmission was sent from alien beings of course, but in this event, that doesn’t matter. Anyone who wants to participate is invited to send a Twitter message to #ChasingUFOs (the name of a new show to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel) between the hours of 8pm and 3am EST Friday/Sat June 29-30. All messages sent will be mashed together and broadcast in the general direction from which the Wow! transmission is believed to have come (in the constellation Sagittarius) on August 15, 35 years to the date after the reception of the mysterious signal.
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