The Wow! signal is a transmission picked up by the Big Ear radio telescope. The signal was so unusual it caused the researcher to write WOW! in the margin of the record, thus the name. The signal is possibly our best evidence of an artificial radio transmission from space. Even skeptical researchers have agreed that it is very unlikely to be reflected Earth based transmissions or an aberration in a natural continuous noise. What is even more bizarre is that the signal comes from the middle of no where in space. Meaning no planets, no solar system. Is this an SOS from an intergalactic titanic?
Now while the scientific skeptic in me wants to believe that this is probably caused by some unknown astrophysical phenomenon we have yet to discover, another part of me wonders if intelligent, signal producing life may not be the phenomenon we have yet to discover.
Now don't get me wrong. I am not a believer in ETs and Area 51 or abductions or anything like that. I don't believe that aliens are little green men among us and that Earth is such a damn interesting place that they keep wanting to come back and stick things in the anuses of people living in rural areas.
(courtesy of XKCD)
But who can say that in all the vastness of the universe we are the only life that decided to broadcast? I prefer to imagine that just maybe we are catching the very smallest sliver of some larger drama. Think of all of the stories we can't even imagine telling.
check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
