S1E17 - The Wow! Signal: The 72-Second Blip That Screamed "Alien"

What if we’ve already heard from an alien civilization, and the message lasted just 72 seconds before vanishing forever? In the summer of 1977, a radio telescope in Ohio captured a signal so inexplicably powerful and perfectly tuned that it became the most tantalizing mystery in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This episode dives into the story of the "Wow! Signal," named for the single word scrawled in red pen by stunned astronomer Jerry Ehman. We’ll journey to that hot August night at the Big Ear observatory, explore the precise characteristics that made this blip scream "artificial," and examine the deca...