Encounter 39 · 39 of 42 · 15 August 1977
Wow
On 15 August 1977 a radio telescope in Ohio printed a signal that lasted seventy-two seconds. Jerry Ehman wrote a word in the margin. It has not come back.
Big Ear, Delaware, Ohio
The paper still has a margin. Notice that.
What do we do with a sentence that has no second sentence?
The situation
The Big Ear telescope at Ohio State was surveying the sky for narrowband radio signals. On a printout for 15 August 1977 the intensity codes ran up to a sequence later rendered as 6EQUJ5. Ehman circled it and wrote “Wow!”
Humor belongs here. A scientist wrote a comic-book word on a serious machine’s paper. Deadpan is the right tone. The joke is that the universe offered one line and then declined to explain it.
Wow!Jerry Ehman, handwritten on the Big Ear computer printout, 15 August 1977.
What they knew
- The signal was strong, narrow, and near the hydrogen line.
- It lasted about seventy-two seconds, the time the telescope’s beam would take to drift across a point in the sky.
- It did not repeat in later looks at the same coordinates.
What they could not know
- Whether it was artificial, astrophysical, or a joke the equipment played on itself.
- Whether looking again was even pointed at the same thing.
- What, if anything, to do besides wait.
What was at stake
Not a life. A question about whether anyone is there, which is a large question to hang on one line of printout.
The next move
They looked again. Others looked. The signal has not been confirmed. SETI did not close.
What they had
- A printout
- A margin
- A habit of circling what does not fit
What happened
The Wow! signal is still a Wow! signal. Popular culture hired it as proof. The observation is a single event without a second. Chance is allowed to remain chance.
What do we do with a sentence that has no second sentence?
Private. No one else will see it.