Waves

Thus, since all of the possibilities of a terrestrial origin have been either ruled out or seem improbable, and since the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin has not been able to be ruled out, I must conclude that an ETI (ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) might have sent the signal that we received as the Wow! source. The fact that we saw the signal in only one beam could be due to an ETI sending a beacon signal in our direction and then sending it in another direction that we couldn't detect. Of course, being a scientist, I await the reception of additional signals like the Wow! source that are able to be received and analyzed by many observatories. Thus, I must state that the origin of the Wow! signal is still an open question for me. There is simply too little data to draw many conclusions. In other words, as I stated above, I choose not to "draw vast conclusions from 'half-vast' data".

Wow! signal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pretty crazy shit

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

Waves

http://blogs.discovery.com/cosmic_ra...terstella.html

At a recent astrobiology meeting I sheepishly approached veteran SETI astronomer Frank Drake about the WOW signal. I half expected him to say: “Oh that silly thing!”

Instead, Drake shared the same belief that it was a real interstellar message. (Dr. Ehman has cautiously addressed the same conclusion as a "definite maybe" after ruling out all Earth radio interference explanations.)

Drake speculates that the signal may have been crammed with a packet of information at too high a rate for the Big Ear telescope to resolve.

But why so brief? Drake suggests that an alien civilization may be pinging stars with information packets, a sort of galactic spam. Once the packet is decoded it yields information for tuning to another channel to receive a longer and more detailed message.

So, toward the end of the 20th century humankind may have received the first fleeting evidence of intelligent life off the Earth.



(frank drake is the dude who made the drake equation btw- Frank Drake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

The Rev

That's pretty damn cool. What if it WAS from aliens, but was something totally mundane, like an Altairian Tweet, or something? Xantar may have been sexting his geneto-mate, and the signal accidentally got picked up by our Radio Telescopes.



The Rev

__________________

Bearsy

Chances are if we were to ever get an alien signal, we'd never figure it out... sort of like giving a caveman a dial-up modem and expecting him to figure out what the sounds meant.

But this is sweet. I don't really think it could be alien though, cause wouldn't there be more than one?

__________________

Waves

you can see a list of possible origins on this page, its a write up done by the original scientist who detected the signal. he concludes that its nothing terrestrial but wont make the leap that it is intelligent ETs.

the list is near the bottom alot of it is technical jargon i cant understand

Wow! Signal - 30th Anniversary Report

some have speculated its from a moving ship of some kind, which is why the signal didnt stick around and was never detected again. it wasnt a planet or pulsar because that area has been shot with the telescope and investigated, theres nothing like that around.

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

The Rev

Extra Terrestrial prank call?

Send em just a little info, and watch it drive them crazy!



The Rev

__________________

Geeno

Personally I suspect The Rev as he is the only person I know over 30.

Revvy youve got some 'splainin to do!

__________________

Lloydy

personally i think if the intergalactic telephone rings, picking it up would be a bad idea

__________________
Keep the red flag flying high

Geeno

^aye, they're probably trying to call us in to work.

__________________

The Rev

People have been engaged in prayer for millenia. If they don't think getting the attention of an omnipotent being is a problem, I doubt xantar is going worry them any.



The Rev

__________________

The Rev

The spaceship option got me thinking. Maybe humans aren't the only ones to have launched one of these. If it's transmitting intermittently back to it's home planet, then possibly Earth got in between it and that planet for a brief moment, just in time to pick up the signal. I wonder if anyone has drawn a line the other way, to see if there are habitable stars in that direction?



The Rev

__________________

Waves

i dont think starts are very inhabitable being giant explosions of gas and all (:P) but planets; from the page:
Planets

The positions of all of the planets in our solar system were looked up in an ephemeris (i.e., a book that provides information (like position) about a wide range of astronomical phenomena). None of the planets were close to the Wow! source position. Of course, one would not expect a planet to be generating a narrowband radio emission. Normally, when a planet is observed in the radio band, we detect the radio emission over the entire radio band (assuming the telescope is sensitive enough). That radio emission is usually "thermal emission" due to the temperature of the planet. Remember that every body with substance (mass) generates radio waves (including human beings). Radio telescopes have detected the thermal emission from most of the planets plus our moon. Besides the thermal emission, non-thermal radio emission from Jupiter in the decametric radio band (i.e., wavelengths of 10s of meters) was first detected from the early days of radio astronomy. This emission was moderately narrowband and occurred from charged particles moving in the magnetic field of Jupiter. So, not only did the Wow! source emission not fit the pattern of this Jupiter-style emission nor the thermal-type emission, but, in addition, none of the planets were in the proper position in the sky.

but from this other page: Discovery Space: Cosmic Ray: WOW! Interstellar Spam?

But I never gave this SETI hiccup much thought until I realized that the beam came from the direction of the summer constellation Sagittarius. Of the 88 constellations on the sky Sagittarius is the Monopoly game’s “Boardwalk” and "Park Place” on the sky.

Why so special? Because it lies in the direction of the galactic center. This is a region of the Milky Way galaxy that contains the highest density of stars because we’re looking right into the hub of our star-city. It includes some of the oldest stars in our galaxy.

Sagittarius is the first constellation I would pick to go looking for signals from E.T.

This alone convinces me that the WOW signal was probably a real transmission from an extraterrestrial civilization. What are the chances that out of all the constellations on the sky a weirdo manmade radio artifact just happens to pop up in the direction of Sagittarius?

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

The Rev

Thanks for the correction, Dr. Hawking . I was thinking of G-class stars, which are similar to our own sun and would create conditions (lack of radiation volatility, for example) on surrounding exo-planets. These would be good places to look for intelligent life that may have launched such a probe.

As for the thing about Sagittarius being lined up with the galactic hub, I think you make a really good point, which supports my hypothesis, since that direction would be a good choice to aim a probe sent out to look for other life.



The Rev

__________________