For people who are interested in searching for extraterrestrial life, the “Wow!” signal is one of the most famous events ever recorded.

The signal was captured back on August 15th, 1977 by the Big Ear radio telescope observatory at Ohio State University. On that day, a narrowband radio signal was received and recorded.

Days later, Jerry Ehman, an astronomer, reviewed the data and something jumped out at him. The signal sequence had a pattern that was nothing like the normal background noise that is always present. This pattern lasted for 73 seconds, so it was much more than just a little blip. When he noticed this, he wrote “Wow!” in the margins, and so the signal was named.

For over four decades now, this signal has been studied formally and informally by thousands of people, and none of them have been able to come up with a satisfactory answer as to where the signal came from. There have been many attempts to explain the signal, but they have all either been ruled out or lack any type of strong support that would prove them true.

One of those unproven theories is, of course, that the signal came from aliens. In a letter to iconic astronomer Carl Sagan in 1994, Ohio State University Radio Observatory director, John Kraus, wrote:

“The ‘Wow!’ signal is highly suggestive of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but little more can be said until it returns for further study.”

The latest studies, which are published on arXiv (here and here) have not yet been peer reviewed, but they do offer detailed information about the signal itself in a way that is much clearer than would have been available before. The team wrote in the study, saying:

“Our study did not conclude that the Wow! Signal constituted evidence of a signal emanating from an extraterrestrial civilization. However, null results are instrumental in refining future technosignature searches. NASA and other agencies remain committed to their search for biosignatures within the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets.”

Publishing this information will open the door for future researchers to have better information that can help to hopefully further narrow down where this signal came from.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?