5 ms·

Was this signal suspected to be from earth? Otherwise why point out the signal was “extraterrestrial origin after all”?

irjustin 1y ago
It's not, but interference is a big problem. You need to rule out that you accidentally picked up some radio broadcast and state that otherwise anyone worth their salt will first ask, "Are you sure it didn't come from the local radio station?"
- godelski 1y ago
  To add to this, it has generally been believed that the Wow signal didn't come from Earth. But being a rare event no one wanted to rule it out completely. Technically these papers don't even rule that out. But they do a good job at expanding the problem of figuring out what that signal might have been. I'll put it this way: people would probably be more surprised if the Wow signal was terrestrial in origin than extra terrestrial.
  - firefax 1y ago
    I actually briefly worked as a "paranormal investigator" when I was hard up for money --- someone came to me with some satellite photos they felt had evidence of UFOs. I found a scientist who ran said satellites, who explained what seemed odd were artificacts of the instrument, and they were only noticed because they occured in the area of the Nimitz[1], which then got heavily OSINTed by the woo woo crowd. I never took another of those kinds of job, because when the guy got an answer he didn't like he blew up on me, accused me of being part of the "deep state" and some kind of X-Files level man in black. (I offered him his money back because I got the sense he was a "true believer" and had dipped into savings, and it had only taken a few emails from my old uni email to show I wasn't a crank to clear up his questions, to no avail.) I am glad we've gotten to the point that saying life is "out there" isn't considered wackadoo, even if couched with the caveat it may be so far away we may never interact, which is my stance. It is my understanding that part of why the "wow signal" is so... "wow"... is that it did not repeat. We have at times, in science, encountered stellar phenomon which sound artificial. Repeated noises/radiations -- classic example being when we first discovered pulsars in the 60s. The thing with the "wow" signal is... it happened once then... nothing. Now, maybe there's some natural phenomenon that does it's thing on a very long timescale but it's my understanding that they've ruled out terrestial sources, and so... the mind jumps to crazy stuff like the enterprise going to warp 10 or whatever. I'll go ahead and say right here if it's definitively proven to be aliens, I'll give a hundred dollars to the Tor Project. I'll also go ahead right here and say that while it was unusual, I think that we will one day find out the source was extraterrestrial but not "alien" in the sense of another civilization sending us a signal or us picking up something from a spacecraft. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200514012341/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200514012341/https://www.nytim... [2] "When observations with another telescope confirmed the emission, it eliminated any sort of instrumental effects. At this point, Bell said of herself and Hewish that "we did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem—if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe, how does one announce the results responsibly?"[12] Even so, they nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for "little green men" (a playful name for intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Discovery
    - sumtechguy 1y ago
      One guy I know had one of those UFO pics. When I saw it I knew instantly it was an iridium flare. I knew it because I was dead set on seeing a good one with several apps on my phone to track them. I showed him exactly where he was standing on a map, the time of day, and which satellite it was and when he could see it again by time/date/location. He had none of that. He became totally mad at me. I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude.
      - godelski 1y ago
        > I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude. They are absolutely beautiful! I was lucky enough to once see a meteor (presumably) bounce off the atmosphere. Was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. For an instant (and not any longer) it was almost like day and there was a green ripple that quickly dissipated. Seen nothing like it before or since. The world is full of amazing and beautiful phenomena. Many of which also contain deep mysteries. It is a shame that people like that are so set on having answers that they prevent themselves from being part of such rewarding a rewarding journey. I guess it happens a lot even to normal people too. Even if the answer they are so set on isn't half as fantastical.
        zikzak 1y ago
        I was sitting with my dog in my yard one night and a green meteor lit up the evening sky like the day. It also made a sizzling noise (or maybe crackling). I found out that the green was probably nickle content and the sizzling sounds also has an explanation which I don't recall. What amazed me was that until I understood what I saw was a natural phenomenon, it seemed absolutely mind blowing and still stands out as one of the coolest things I've experienced yet no one I talked to saw it, there was no mention of it on the city subreddit, etc. This was before the age of everyone having dashcams and doorbell cameras but something that remarkable happening over a densely populated suburban area at around 9pm not even being noticed by a single person I knew or was in contact with on socials suprised me.
    - 1y ago
snowwrestler 1y ago
Yes, various terrestrial sources have been proposed for this signal over the years, primarily because of its strength. To have an extraterrestrial origin, and still be so anomalously strong at the point of reception, it must have been so strong at the source that it didn’t fit any known cosmic process. Given the inverse square law, the easiest explanation for the unusual strength was simply that it was unusually close. But this work seems to rule that out and also propose a process to create such a strong signal.

It's not, but interference is a big problem. You need to rule out that you accidentally picked up some radio broadcast and state that otherwise anyone worth their salt will first ask, "Are you sure it didn't come from the local radio station?"

godelski 1y ago
To add to this, it has generally been believed that the Wow signal didn't come from Earth. But being a rare event no one wanted to rule it out completely. Technically these papers don't even rule that out. But they do a good job at expanding the problem of figuring out what that signal might have been. I'll put it this way: people would probably be more surprised if the Wow signal was terrestrial in origin than extra terrestrial.
- firefax 1y ago
  I actually briefly worked as a "paranormal investigator" when I was hard up for money --- someone came to me with some satellite photos they felt had evidence of UFOs. I found a scientist who ran said satellites, who explained what seemed odd were artificacts of the instrument, and they were only noticed because they occured in the area of the Nimitz[1], which then got heavily OSINTed by the woo woo crowd. I never took another of those kinds of job, because when the guy got an answer he didn't like he blew up on me, accused me of being part of the "deep state" and some kind of X-Files level man in black. (I offered him his money back because I got the sense he was a "true believer" and had dipped into savings, and it had only taken a few emails from my old uni email to show I wasn't a crank to clear up his questions, to no avail.) I am glad we've gotten to the point that saying life is "out there" isn't considered wackadoo, even if couched with the caveat it may be so far away we may never interact, which is my stance. It is my understanding that part of why the "wow signal" is so... "wow"... is that it did not repeat. We have at times, in science, encountered stellar phenomon which sound artificial. Repeated noises/radiations -- classic example being when we first discovered pulsars in the 60s. The thing with the "wow" signal is... it happened once then... nothing. Now, maybe there's some natural phenomenon that does it's thing on a very long timescale but it's my understanding that they've ruled out terrestial sources, and so... the mind jumps to crazy stuff like the enterprise going to warp 10 or whatever. I'll go ahead and say right here if it's definitively proven to be aliens, I'll give a hundred dollars to the Tor Project. I'll also go ahead right here and say that while it was unusual, I think that we will one day find out the source was extraterrestrial but not "alien" in the sense of another civilization sending us a signal or us picking up something from a spacecraft. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200514012341/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200514012341/https://www.nytim... [2] "When observations with another telescope confirmed the emission, it eliminated any sort of instrumental effects. At this point, Bell said of herself and Hewish that "we did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem—if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe, how does one announce the results responsibly?"[12] Even so, they nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for "little green men" (a playful name for intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Discovery
  - sumtechguy 1y ago
    One guy I know had one of those UFO pics. When I saw it I knew instantly it was an iridium flare. I knew it because I was dead set on seeing a good one with several apps on my phone to track them. I showed him exactly where he was standing on a map, the time of day, and which satellite it was and when he could see it again by time/date/location. He had none of that. He became totally mad at me. I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude.
    - godelski 1y ago
      > I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude. They are absolutely beautiful! I was lucky enough to once see a meteor (presumably) bounce off the atmosphere. Was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. For an instant (and not any longer) it was almost like day and there was a green ripple that quickly dissipated. Seen nothing like it before or since. The world is full of amazing and beautiful phenomena. Many of which also contain deep mysteries. It is a shame that people like that are so set on having answers that they prevent themselves from being part of such rewarding a rewarding journey. I guess it happens a lot even to normal people too. Even if the answer they are so set on isn't half as fantastical.
      - zikzak 1y ago
        I was sitting with my dog in my yard one night and a green meteor lit up the evening sky like the day. It also made a sizzling noise (or maybe crackling). I found out that the green was probably nickle content and the sizzling sounds also has an explanation which I don't recall. What amazed me was that until I understood what I saw was a natural phenomenon, it seemed absolutely mind blowing and still stands out as one of the coolest things I've experienced yet no one I talked to saw it, there was no mention of it on the city subreddit, etc. This was before the age of everyone having dashcams and doorbell cameras but something that remarkable happening over a densely populated suburban area at around 9pm not even being noticed by a single person I knew or was in contact with on socials suprised me.
  - 1y ago

snowwrestler 1y ago

Yes, various terrestrial sources have been proposed for this signal over the years, primarily because of its strength. To have an extraterrestrial origin, and still be so anomalously strong at the point of reception, it must have been so strong at the source that it didn’t fit any known cosmic process. Given the inverse square law, the easiest explanation for the unusual strength was simply that it was unusually close. But this work seems to rule that out and also propose a process to create such a strong signal.