The Wow! Signal was a narrowband strong radio signal detected in the year 1977 by the Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope. It had all the characteristics present to make it be a radio signal of extraterrestial origin. However, we dont know where it originated, if it contained any encoded information (any modulation), and if it repeated, thus making us unable to determine if its a signal of extraterrestial intelligent origin, or just something that was emitted from Earth or a natural celestial object.

I want to give my thoughts out on this signal, since i really want to share my opinions on it and see what people think of them. (please take notice that I recommend you dive into the sources I provide for my reasoning for further information).

My first opinion is, that I personally believe the Wow! signal has strong reason to be of extraterrestial intelligent origin. Here is why:

• The Wow! signal's frequency was almost at the exact frequency of the hydrogen atom, the most common element in the entire observable universe. The Wow! signal had a frequency of 1420.4556 megahertz (source 1), while the exact frequency of the hydrogen atom (commonly known as the 21cm line/hydrogen line) is 1420.40575 megaherts (or 1420.4058). The difference between the Wow! signal's frequency and that of the hydrogen atom is only around 50 kilohertz, an interesting, short difference that many radio signals of natural-origin dont come close to. It is currently predicted that any intelligent civilization among the stars would attempt to communicate with another intelligent civilization nearby using radio waves that are at the 1420MHz frequency, because of the assumption that every civilization knows about hydrogen being the most common element in the universe, thus being a standard thing that every civilization would know about and therefore be alerted to when receiving any signal at that frequency.

• The Wow! signal was over 30 times stronger than the local background noise at the time during its detection. (source 1.2, source 6). At the moment when the signal was detected, there were no reported manmade satellites or spacecraft in the location of the sky of its detection (source 2) that could have caused a strong signal to by detected by the Big Ear radio telescope.

• The Wow! signal displayed the exact characteristics we would expect an alien radio signal to display should it be detected by the Big Ear telescope. An alien signal would see a rise in intensity over the first seconds, then see a peak in intensity a couple seconds later, and then have its intensity decrease over the next seconds later, because of the Big Ear's design and limitations ( source 1.3, source 3, source 4). The Wow! signal completely showed this rise and fall of signal intensity. (to read more, visit sources).

• The Wow! signal was very narrowband in terms of signal bandwidth, and almost no natural celestial object in the universe (if any) is capable of producing such signals. (source 1.4, source 5), especially those with frequencies so close to the 21cm line.

• The Big Ear telescope was not well designed to accurately detect any potential information encoded within the radio signal itself. (source 2.3)

• The apparent location in the night sky we think is the source for the Wow! signal is an area in space in the constellation of Sagittarius that has a few but notable amount of Sun-like stars (the exact location is not able to be determined), one of them being a star called 2MASS 19281982-2640123, an almost exactly identical twin of our Sun, with a luminosity barely different than of our Sun (1.0007 times more) , a temperature of 5,783 kelvin compared to our Sun's temperature of around 5,772 kelvin, and a mass around 0.99 solar radii (source 7. source 8). 2MASS 19281982-2640123 is the best candidate out of a couple of Sun-like star candidates in that area of space to be the likely source of the Wow! signal due to its similarity to our own star. The star is around 1,800 light years away. An Italian astronomer, mathematician and space scientist named Claudio Maccone make calculations with the help of the famous Drake equation and demonstrated that the nearest intelligent civilization might be on average around 1000-2000 light years away from Earth (source 9).

My second opinion (the one more controversial), is that we as a civilization have not thought enough when attempting to search for extraterrestial radio signals, and we have attempted to discredit the Wow! signal in ways that have been debunked/or seem hypocritical or hilarious:

• We assume that any extraterrestial radio signal must repeat multiple times, yet we sent the famous Arecibo radio signal to the Messier 13 globular star cluster only a single time (source 10), and if any potential intelligent civilizations would be able to pick up our radio signal (impossibly so), they would only see the radio signal occur one time, and not repeat. We do not often think that intelligent civilizations are not required to send any radio signals multiple times, and based on how they think before the sending of a signal, they might just want to send a radio signal one time (although this is unlikely because they would want to ensure any receiver knows it is an artifical signal). What would an intelligent civilization think the Arecibo signal is if it only was detected one time?

• I think we do not search the cosmos properly for any radio signals. Our capabilities to scan the cosmos/ or listen in to a specific region of space or even a specific star are very limited, and often we are unable to scan and listen in for more than a year. (source 11). I think that we overestimate the time it would take for any intelligent civilization's radio signals to arrive on Earth, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, or even 5 years are not enough time at all to detect any extraterrestial radio signal. The reason i believe why its because we need to think on a cosmological timescale. There is a very narrow period of time where any intelligent species is able to develop radio technology, an example is us humans. We have only existed on Earth as a civilization for a fraction of a percent of the planet's existence, and even less time as a modern civilization. An intelligent civilization trying to contact any civilization that could be on Earth using radio signals would almost always fail, because of just how short the timescale of our capability to use radio has been. Any signal they send would probably arrive 2 million years ago, 919,000 years ago, 474,000 years ago, during the time of the Roman Empire, during the fall of the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, in the 1800s, etc. Any signal they try to send would have to arrive at the exact timeframe where we as a civilization have radio technology, the odds of that being extremely narrow. We need to think the same way about any extraterrestial civilizations that might be among the cosmos. We should in theory be listening or scanning a specific area or celestial object in the sky for decades, centuries or maybe even millenia (impossible with our current technology).

Also, I think we overestimate how easy it is for us to even detect any intelligent radio signal, for two reasons. Reason 1, I think that most of us humans think of planets and stars as very big objects compared to the environment of space, and that any civilization that might exist in the cosmos can easy send a radio signal to any celestial body it wants. In reality, planets are very small compared to a star, and stars are extremely small compared to the distance of objects in general in space. Not only that, but planets orbit their stars, and stars orbit around the Milky Way (source 12). In order for us to detect any intelligent radio signal, we need to hope that any intelligent civilization is able to calculate where our planet is relative to their home world's night sky, and we need to hope that they are able to send a signal to hit at the exact physical location in space where our planet will be in the time it takes for the signal to traverse the distance between their planet and our planet. This is extremely hard to do as it is difficult to predict where a planet will be in the night sky in the far future. Not only that, but any intelligent civilization would need to also calculate the precise, physical location our planet's star system would be in the far future to send a signal that is able to be detected by us, since planets move along with their star system as it orbits the galaxy in any way. (This problem with any civilization being able to send detectable signals is another reason i believe the Wow! signal was extremely likely, if not almost certain to be of extraterrestial origin. The Wow! signal was extremely strong compared to anything in the background at the time of its detection, it was narrowband and at a frequency predicted all civilizations would use, and the signal appeared to be pointed right at our planet, indicating that perhaps an intelligent civilization was able to calculate the exact location our planet would be in the far future when the Wow! signal would arrive, taking into account planetary orbit and stellar orbit). When we sent the Arecibo radio message in 1974, we did not aim it at anything in the Messier 13 star cluster over 25,000 light years away, making it absolutely impossible for any civilization in the star cluster to detect it, if there even are any able to detect radio signals in 25,000 years). When we search for radio signals by scanning the sky and listening to specific spots, we assume that we are being bombarded by signals transmitted from intelligent civilizations, which is highly likely to not be the case due to that problem. Reason 2, is that radio signals degrade over time. The Arecibo radio signal we transmitted to the M13 star cluster will not be able to be detected at all in 25,000 years as the signal would have degraded to the point that it is close to indistinguishable from background radio noise. Intelligent civilizations wanting to communicate with other intelligent civilizations must not only take into account the physical location of the targets they want to send a signal to in the time when the signal arrives, but also how powerful they transmit he signal, to avoid it being degraded. Its not a guarantee that every civilization that could exist has technology that is powerful enough to transmit signals at specific targets at a level of power that prevents it from being degraded. The Wow! signal was extremely strong at the time of its detection in 1977, and assuming that it did originate from the area of space in the constellation Sagittarius that we think it originated from, and maybe also assuming it did originate from 2MASS 19281982-2640123, it would mean that if an intelligent civilization did transmit the Wow! signal, they would have had to transmit the signal at a level of power far beyond what we are capable to transmit, indicating that they would be much more advanced than us in terms of radio technology.

• We have tried to discredit the Wow! signal as a potential radio signal from an intelligent civilization in a way that has been for the most part debunked. Antonio Paris, an assistant professor of astronomy/astrophysics at St. Petersburg College in Florida, thought that the Wow! signal could have been caused by 2 comets named 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs that were near the area of space the Wow! signal was detected, however there is no evidence that such natural celestial objects can emit a very narrowband radio signal the intensity of the Wow! signal, and that during the detection of the Wow! signal, the comets were not in the correct location to have any emitting radio signals be detected by the Big Ear space telescope, and there is no known reason as to why these comets would emit such a strong, narrowband radio signal only once (source 1.5, 13, 14, 15), along with other issues related to how these comets were thought to be the source for the Wow! signal (see sources for more information).

This apparent solution to the origin of the Wow! signal made a lot of headlines, both on this subreddit, across all Reddit, and across the world in general, but the solution is untrue and has a lot of flaws that have no explanation for. This debunked comet solution has made most people on Earth discard the validity of the Wow! signal as a potential radio signal from an intelligent civilization, and now it is rare for anyone to mention it, which is dissapointing, as it now discourages anyone from conducting more investigation and research into the signal and its detection, and attempting to listen in to the area of space we think it originated from.

• We have tried to discredit the Wow! signal as a potential radio signal from an intelligent civilization possibly because of the fact that we have not seen it repeat, but then we can ask ourselves, why did we send Arecibo only one time? We can also bring up the entire issue i talked about relating to how long we scan for radio signals in the grand timescale of the universe, or the fact that we do not have any telescopes scanning every single celestial object in the entire nighty sky 24/7 for a potential repeat of the Wow! signal. We do not have any telescopes scanning/listening it to the area of the sky we think the Wow! signal could have originated from, and we do not have any telescopes scanning/listening in to 2MASS 19281982-2640123. The Wow! signal could be repeating at any moment in time, and we for the most part would be unable to detect it. And, we would not be detecting it at the correct time either.

• We have tried to discredit the Wow! signal as a potential radio signal from an intelligent civilization (as a whole) because the area of the sky in the constellation Sagittarius where we think the signal originated has the most likely Sun-like star candidate (2MASS 19281982-2640123) in that area have been ruled out as the source of the signal (hilarious, depressing source 16) even though there is absolutely no reasonable conclusion to suggest its ruling out (Many people I have personally talked to that know about Wow! believe that because this star was ruled out as the source for the signal, the Wow! signal is not valid, in case for the reader who asks why would the ruling out of a single potential candidate for the Wow! signal's source make the entire signal as a whole not valid). The Green Bank Telescope Array in West Virginia and the Allen Telescope array in California were used to listen to 2MASS 19281982-2640123 over a 24 hour period on May 21, 2022 to detect any potential artificial signals coming from the star. No signal was detected. The star was therefore ruled out as the source for the Wow! signal, and headlines were published. There is an obvious sign of ''coming to conclusions too fast'' in this attempt to listen to the star candidate in that area of the sky. Again, we have not listened and scanned for any radio signals originating from 2MASS for long enough (compared to a geological time scale of time, we would have listened to 2MASS for like a fraction of a microsecond of time). We are also yet again overestimating how easy it would be to detect a radio signal coming from such a distant star of space (2MASS is around 1800 light years away). This attempt to listen to 2MASS to see if its the source of the Wow! signal or not is hilarious, and does not immediately rule out the star candidate as the potential source, and absolutely does not rule out the signal as a whole from being of extraterrestial origin.

Conclusion: These are my two opinions on the Wow! signal, its validity, its characteristics, its attempted debunks, and unreasonable thinking that makes the general public believe the Wow! signal is no longer a mystery or a signal worthy of intense investigation. Now, i hope that you think of my opinions and share your reaction in the comment section so I can see your thoughts, or any potential error that i have made when thinking about Wow!.

Now, i want to personally write relating to all of this. We are extremely new to the universe and we really should think better when attempting to see if we are alone in the entire observable universe or not. We need to account for every factor, every situation, and we need to make sure that we do any analysis/investigation correctly without any flaws like unnecessarily jumping to instant conclusions when doing a very short analysis, not seeing further details of something, doing any research that doesnt take into account everything present, etc. Also, i would like to say that some of us on Earth saying that there is no intelligent life in the Universe because we have never detected anything is like me going to the living room of my residence (our location in our Milky Way galaxy), for 1 microsecond looking around (the time we have done any efforts to search for intelligent life), analysing my surroundings just using my primitive eye that currently has -2.60 diopters of nearsightedness (our technology), seeing that although there are objects that indicate that there should be persons around my residence which are my family like chairs, a kitchen, a sofa and other things (our calculations indicating that the universe should be abundant with civilizations in general), because i currently see no people in the living room, i conclude that i am completely alone in my residence.

Sources:
source 1 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Frequency, 1.2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Intensity, 1.3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Time_variation, 1.4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Bandwidth, 1.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Discredited_hypotheses
source 2 – http://www.bigear.org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm#satellites, 2.2 http://www.bigear.org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm#aster, 2.3 http://www.bigear.org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm#intermittency
source 3 – http://www.bigear.org/shostak_wow_20021205.htm
source 4 – http://www.bigear.org/about.htm
source 5 – https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/seti-observations
source 6 – http://www.bigear.org/wow20th.htm#intensity
source 7 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2MASS_19281982-2640123
source 8- https://earthsky.org/space/source-of-wow-signal-in-1977-sunlike-star-2mass-19281982-2640123/
source 9- https://www.dia.mil/FOIA/FOIA-Electronic-Reading-Room/FileId/170023/
source 10- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message
source 11- https://www.space.com/cosmic-seti-alien-life-search-underway
source 12 – https://www.universetoday.com/85730/do-stars-move/
source 13 – http://naapo.org/WOWCometRebuttal.html
source 14 – https://www.cnet.com/science/aliens-wow-signal-comets-antonio-paris-seti/
source 15 – https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/6ganha/no_the_wow_signal_was_probably_not_caused_by/
source 16 – https://www.astronomy.com/science/sun-like-star-ruled-out-as-source-of-mysterious-wow-signal/