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Space Science

Ohio State SETI Wow Signal Revisited and Debunked 44

Posted by timothy from the maybe-it's-the-oh-signal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "SETI's famous 1977 'Wow' signal has been discredited in the Astrophysical Journal, using the University of Tasmania Hobart 26 m radio telescope to search for intermittent and possibly periodic emissions at the 'Wow' locale. Of the many 'maybes' that SETI has turned up in its four-decade history, none is better known than the brief, powerful one that was discovered in August, 1977, in Columbus, Ohio. Marked by the signal's rise from zero, to '30-sigma' over background noise, and back to zero in 37 seconds, the famous Wow signal was found as part of a long-running sky survey conducted with Ohio State University's 'Big Ear' radio telescope. To quote from their article in The Astrophysical Journal, Robert Gray and Simon Ellingsen, of Australia's University of Tasmania, 'no signals resembling the Ohio State Wow were detected...' So until and unless the cosmic beep measured in Ohio is found again, the 'Wow' signal will remain a 'What' signal."
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Ohio State SETI Wow Signal Revisited and Debunked More

Ohio State SETI Wow Signal Revisited and Debunked

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  • How does this debunk anything (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shaka999 ( 335100 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @11:59AM (#7281547)
    So it went off the air...big deal. Maybe the little green men just left orbit....geesh.

  • after careful inspection (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i have determined the "Wow" signal to mean "First Post"

    this may actually be true. "Wow" was the first useful signal SETI received.

  • Maybe it was real (Score:1, Informative)

    by scumbucket ( 680352 )
    After all, what do we really know about what is out there is the farther reaches of the galaxy? It seems that as soon as something that might be credible is discovered, SETI just wants to slap it down.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @12:10PM (#7281670)
    I've recently discredited people who claim there used to be a TV chanel 66 broadcasting in my area. I fliped my TV to 66, and there was no picture, therefore there was obviously never any such chanel.
    • That reminds me of an article about a "Creationist Science Fair". There are some really great science experiments here [jesussave.us]. I especially like the experiment "Women Were Designed For Homemaking". This kid is way too advanced for the 7th grade.
      • I especially like the experiment "Women Were Designed For Homemaking".

        Regarding the "lower center of gravity" portion of his argument... he's obviously never met my wife.
      • My favorites were "Pokemon Proves Evolutionism Is False" and "Using Prayer to Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria". Dear God, I want to win the science fair, so let the E. Coli in dish A die, but spare the ones in dish B. Thank you."
    • You forgot this one (and I quote):

      "Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism"

      I knew it!

  • Debunked? Try "Case strengthened." (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    'no signals resembling the Ohio State Wow were detected...'

    If they'd found some sort of a pulsar or something to be responsible for the burst, the case would have been debunked.

    But apparently they haven't, so they've only strengthened the case that something strange happened that day.

  • WoW (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's amazing how much fun you can have with a weather baloon and a radio transmitter.
    Next time I'll send prime numbers in base 14.

    • Re:WoW (Score:1)

      by oni ( 41625 )
      what's the difference between a prime in base 10 and a prime in base 14 when transmitted via radio pulses of base 2?
      • You could use manchester encoding to change it to base 3 from pulses.

        3 states:
        No change in signal(low or high), signal moves to high, signal moves to low.

  • Discredited? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Oddly_Drac ( 625066 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @12:28PM (#7281859)
    ""SETI's famous 1977 'Wow' signal has been discredited in the Astrophysical Journal, using the University of Tasmania Hobart 26 m radio telescope to search for intermittent and possibly periodic emissions at the 'Wow' locale."

    Are submitters reading articles? There was no discrediting of the 'Wow' signal, just an indicator that they couldn't find it again.

    Discrediting is removal of importance. Discrediting is when a national leader claims a 45 minute launch capability for a middle-eastern nation that turns out to have nothing of the sort.

    • Re:Discredited? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TwistedGreen ( 80055 )
      Exactly.
      I don't see how you can call 'not finding anything similar' discredition.
      Discrediting something like that would happen if they DID find something similar, and someow deduced that it DIDN'T originate from intelligent life.

      But not finding something is no proof of its nonexistence. It still happened, and we still don't know what it was.

      Oh, and the article says the "Wow" signal spanned 72 seconds, not 37 seconds.

      I guess it's best not to even read the writeups anymore.
    • They knew the "wow" signal was a hoax once they ran it through a language computer, and translated it.

      It said, "Gentlemen: All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha ha ha ha!"

  • Debunked my ass (Score:5, Informative)

    by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @12:34PM (#7281925) Journal

    The work the scientists of this study have done is important and valuable, but don't overplay it: it merely limits the possibilities of what the Wow signal was a bit more than was previously thought. After all, there are no signals that have ever been transmitted/emitted from Earth that would have met the periodicity/duration criteria built into this test.

    We conclude that the Wow was not due to a source within our flux density limits and repeating more often than every 14 hr, although the possibility of a longer period or nonperiodic source cannot be ruled out.

    In other words, what they proved is that the Wow signal was not an intententional interstellar beacon, or if it was such a beacon, it is now off the air: whatever the Wow signal was, it wasn't aliens sending a galactic hailing signal, or if it was, it is on a longer period than 14 hours, or was shut off in the years between the original Wow signal's emission and the date of current signals from that location.

  • I'm not entirely clear what new conclusions these people have reached. I was under the impression that there was always some question about the Wow Signal for exactly the reasons mentioned.
  • Probably the biggest question is why the second receiver did not get the signal.

    We are pretty much left to weigh two imponderables: the probability that there was a terrestrial signal of exactly 72 seconds, or the probability that we happened to have caught the instant at which a powerful extraterrerial signal.

    Of the two coincidences, I'm inclined to consider the terrestrial interference as the more likely.

    The "debunking" seems to me a lot less convincing than the fact tha the second receiver did not pi
    • There are far too many imponderables to say much about the signal. For one, how other arrays were looking at that part of the sky during the 24 hour period that prededed the detection? Rather than cathing the "instant" they might have caught 72 seconds out of the last 112 or whatever. The signal could have been up for an hour before the array came onto bearing and died as it passed. Because it wasn't detected by the second "beam" doesn't make it impossible, just unlikely. Because we don't know the actual

  • "Big Ear" telescope and Perkins Observatory (Score:5, Informative)

    by srstoneb ( 256638 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:58PM (#7283169) Homepage

    I have a vested, sentimental interest in these places so I'm going to plug them:

    The Big Ear telescope, operated by Ohio State University, was built on the grounds of Perkins Observatory, between Columbus and the town of Delaware. Delaware is the location of my alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan University, which owns and operates Perkins as a public outreach center. (OSU used to have some financial involvement, but pulled out a few years ago.) In other words, Perkins is no longer a research observatory: it is entirely dedicated to educating the public about astronomy and allowing people to look through their telescopes. (In other words, it's awesome.)

    For a couple years after Big Ear had stopped being used it just stood there on the property. I remember taking a walk around the grounds in 1998 with a friend, peaking in the windows of the little building with the control room, filled with junk. It was sort of sad to see it so neglected. Even worse, the land on which it sat had been sold by my school to the neighboring golf course. We actually ran into a golfer while we were there, and he took the time to tell us how much he wished they would tear the telescope down so they could extend the driving range. And not too long afterwards, it happened. Big Ear is gone.

    There's some really great stories to tell about Hiram Perkins, too, but I don't want to ramble on too long... The short version: Perkins Obs. was the second observatory he built, and at the time it was completed, it housed the third largest telescope in the world. That telescope, now with an even bigger mirror, lives at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, but was still owned by Ohio Wesleyan until around the time I graduated (1998) when OWU sold it completely to Lowell. It's now operated jointly by Lowell and Boston University, which happens to be where I went after OWU. I took two trips out there to use it before I got my masters in astronomy and left BU to come back to Ohio.

    Here's a few links to entertain you:

    If you live anywhere near Columbus, I highly recommend visiting Perkins sometime. They have great facilities and a fantastic staff. It's a great way to spend an evening.

    • Re:"Big Ear" telescope and Perkins Observatory (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Fscking golfers. Big Ear was cool. The guys from the ham club used to use it for a ground plane with a short vertical during some 160 meter contests. The director at the time (Bob Dixon) is a ham radio operator, and probably the oldest geek I know.

  • Meanwhile, at the Wow location... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:49PM (#7283659) Journal
    Vorbak: Gleebok, quit leaning on the "transmit" button... they'll hear you!
    Gleebok: Yipes!

    [At this point, their civilization is wiped out by a pod of radio-hating space-slugs. Who then turn their attention on the last remaining radio-transmitting civilization in the galaxy...]

  • matrix-esq (Score:2, Funny)

    by ee_moss ( 635165 )
    Did anyone else notice that the Wow Signal [seds.org] looks strangely like the Matrix [handhelds.org]?

    That's plain creepy, if you ask me.
  • "So until and unless the cosmic beep measured in Ohio is found again, the 'Wow' signal will remain a 'What' signal."

    That doesn't sound like they disproved the signal ever happened.
  • People have been watching the WOW location since 1977, and it is common knowledge no new signals have be detected since the original blip. This isn't news.
  • I wonder could the "WOW" signal be what you we detect when two governments on some alien planet decided that they could not trust each other, so they launched all their nuclear weapons.

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