The New "Wow!" Signal - SETI's Recent Close Encounter With An Unidentified Emission

reply to post by JadeStar


This particular SETI by OSU, is that connected to the Radio Observatory owned by The Ohio State University, but last I knew was operated by Otterbein University (Formerly College) - Dr. Phil Barnhart back in 1991/1992??

I worked for Dr. Barnhart as a Physics work study student and he invited me to work with him at the radio observatory on Saturdays, when the men would meet. I went with him to the meetings and assisted him with typing up notes or collecting the pop fund money. Wasn't much, but it was interesting working with him.

Once we find "Aliens" we'll more than likely wish we had not...

Either life is so vast that you find it every other week "given the right technology" and most life is ignored or just accepted as "that planet also has life" or life is so rare that any sign of it by another scientifically advanced race would seek it out curiously and furiously...

If the later is the case we would be doomed...

Long time reader, first time poster here...

Very interesting thread thanks Jadestar!

I'm nowhere near as qualified to talk on the subject as some people here but my intrigue is just as high! A few questions if I may -

This paper was published by someone at SETI in 2010 was it? Has there been any follow up studies of the signal that we know about?

Also, how likely is this to trickle into the mainstream media?

It's all very interesting and exciting

MrBergstrom
Long time reader, first time poster here...

Very interesting thread thanks Jadestar!

I'm nowhere near as qualified to talk on the subject as some people here but my intrigue is just as high! A few questions if I may -

This paper was published by someone at SETI in 2010 was it?

Yes.

Has there been any follow up studies of the signal that we know about?

Not that I know of. Though I plan to hear back from someone at the SETI Institute later in the week to find out if they have re-observed the star and if so how many times since 2010.

Barring that, I have their 2011 interesting signal detection logs so I could just go through them and have a look.

Also, how likely is this to trickle into the mainstream media?

I do not know. I do not suspect it will since it was 4 years ago and the media goes after the new. It might be picked up if it turns out that SETI plans to reobserve the star sometime this year. If that's the case then the first place you're likely to hear about it will be right here on ATS.

It's all very interesting and exciting

It is. The whole field is. Its a shame it doesn't get a bit more publicity. I'm thinking perhaps the new reboot of Cosmos with Neil DeGrasse Tyson might mention it at some point.

reply to post by Brainiac


"Once we find "Aliens" we'll more than likely wish we had not."

I rather imagine its us Humans that will be a problem for the Aliens if and when we even manage to get of this rock. You see we don't work well with others!

Totally unrelated to the case in the OP but i just came across (on SETI's FTP server) another detection of something SETI possibly thought might be ET.

They tracked this signal for almost an hour, March 28 of last year....

SetiLive Candidate Signals
+-------+-----------------------+---------+------+---------+---------------------+---------+--------------+--------+---------+
| ActId | ActType | Target | Zx | SubChan | Start | SecLate | Freq | Drift | Reason |
+-------+-----------------------+---------+------+---------+---------------------+---------+--------------+--------+---------+
| 1129 | target | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:05:24 | -121 | 1,410.029708 | -0.008 | Confrm |
| 1130 | target1-on | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:11:02 | -129 | 1,410.029735 | -0.008 | RConfrm |
| 1131 | target1off | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:16:39 | -146 | 1,410.029732 | -0.008 | RConfrm |
| 1132 | target2-on | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:22:17 | -121 | 1,410.029784 | 0.213 | RConfrm |
| 1133 | target2off | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:27:54 | -127 | 1,410.029856 | 0.213 | RConfrm |
| 1135 | target3-on | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:34:56 | -106 | 1,410.029829 | 0.141 | Confrm |
| 1136 | target3off | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:40:32 | -120 | 1,410.029915 | 0.060 | RConfrm |
| 1137 | target4-on | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:46:09 | -126 | 1,410.029844 | 0.037 | Confrm |
| 1138 | target4off | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:51:46 | -61 | 1,410.029950 | 0.106 | RConfrm |
| 1139 | target5-on-nofollowup | 2804245 | 1900 | 56 | 2013-03-28 04:57:22 | -128 | 1,410.029908 | 0.192 | Confrm |
+-------+-----------------------+---------+------+---------+---------------------+---------+--------------+--------+---------+

The "target on" / "target off" indicates they were moving the array on and off the star or position they were targeting to see if the signal would disappear when the array was off axis. If a signal didn't disappear when they moved the array away from the point in the sky where they detect the signal then it would be some form of Earthly radio interference.

If the signal disappears when moving off and reappears when moving on then the signal is coming from the area of the sky they are pointing (but still could be interference from a satellite).

The they started doing this test At 4:05 UTC and stopped at 4:57 UTC. The signal had a Doppler shift (Drift) indicating it was from off of the Earth.

For 52 minutes that control room might have been very excited, not unlike this scene from the movie Contact (fast forward to 5:20 for the on/off test they did in the movie):




I suspect that they may have found that this particular signal was satellite interference since they flagged it for no further followups at 52 minutes.

Again, this signal had nothing to do with the 2010 signal which was on a different frequency entirely. This signal was near the Hydrogen Line of 1420 Mhz. The one in my original post was near the pi times Hydrogen frequency.

MountainEnigma
reply to post by JadeStar

 

This particular SETI by OSU, is that connected to the Radio Observatory owned by The Ohio State University, but last I knew was operated by Otterbein University (Formerly College) - Dr. Phil Barnhart back in 1991/1992??

I worked for Dr. Barnhart as a Physics work study student and he invited me to work with him at the radio observatory on Saturdays, when the men would meet. I went with him to the meetings and assisted him with typing up notes or collecting the pop fund money. Wasn't much, but it was interesting working with him.

What a wonderful story!

Yes, Dr. Philip Barnhart is currently the Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Otterbein University.

As you know Big Ear was destroyed in 1997 to make way for a golf course.

There is a memorial site for it here which may bring back some memories: www.bigear.org...

reply to post by JadeStar


Not to be confused with Professor Jacob Barnhardt, who definitely knew something about communicating with extraterrestrials.

Your smart jadestar

reply to post by JadeStar


SETI is just a cover-up.

www.evawaseerst.be...

Very nice thread, I really enjoy your astronomy related posts here!

My personal opinion here is that no highly advanced civilization will (actively) send out beacon signals with the intention to be "discovered" but if such signals are detected they are either from a real "stupid" civilization or more likely even a trap (yes, I am serious)...or happened to be accidentally as you already pointed out. My logic here is simply that sending out a strong signal saying "hello, here we are" could result in something very regrettable, especially for a civilization which are still so under-developed that sending out radio signals would be their only means of interstellar communication. (Those who might already travel the galaxy/ies certainly don't need to send out "beacon signals", they simply go wherever they want anyway..and I think they would be smart enough NOT to install a permanent beacon somewhere...)

reply to post by JadeStar


Where was it located? Was it coming from the Sagittarius constellation too?

reply to post by JadeStar

SETI essentially could have picked up a blip of another planet's asteroid avoidance radar. If that were the case, SETI would likely never see it again... it's also possible that such a transmission was some other type of radar

I could get aboard this train of speculation quite happily. Would you say those thousands of other pulses that SETI observes daily were also the same sort of thing? You'd expect lots of pulses, coming from all directions, if the Galaxy were populated with lots of technologically advanced inhabitants.

Had this gotten more attention it would have perhaps made a lot of people smarter, not dumber in terms of how science works.

You've certainly done a wonderful job of that in this thread. Let me add my congratulations to those you have already received.

swanne
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Where was it located? Was it coming from the Sagittarius constellation too?

The star TYC 1220-91-1 lies at coordinates 2 hours, 8 minutes, 29.2 seconds; +22 degrees, 26 minutes, 58.5 seconds. That places it in the zodiacal constellation of Aries, the Ram. It is very near Alpha Arietis, the brightest star in that constellation.
TYC 1220-91-1 is not near the direction of the center of the galaxy, which is in Sagittarius, nor is it particularly near the plane of our (Milky Way) galaxy.

This is literally stellar work by the OP. Anything to reduce our earth-centric views.

JadeStar
Sorry, I just realized I mean't to put the number for PI (3.14159265359) in the original post *times 1420.4 Mhz which gave the frequency they were listening to ~4462.3 Mhz.

Chock it up to running out of coffee after being up all night.

edit on 2-3-2014 by JadeStar because: (no reason given)

What's interesting about the math behind this is that 1420.4 MhZ for us might be 2757.32 Weeble-Plexes per Harg (or whatever measurement they use) for them and if you multiply this by PI, they'd get 8662.4 Weeble-Plexes per Harg for them, which would still be 4462.3 MhZ for us. The same would hold true if they were working in a different base number system than us. I don't if anything I posted made any sense.

Yes it makes perfect sense. Pi is a ratio. It doesn't have to be represented by numbers at all. A circle does this graphically-- circumference as a ratio of diameter. It's still 3.141... when its translated to our number system, regardless of how its expressed in some other number or graphical system. In binary, Pi is 11.0010010000111111...

Junkheap

JadeStar
Sorry, I just realized I mean't to put the number for PI (3.14159265359) in the original post *times 1420.4 Mhz which gave the frequency they were listening to ~4462.3 Mhz.

Chock it up to running out of coffee after being up all night.

edit on 2-3-2014 by JadeStar because: (no reason given)

What's interesting about the math behind this is that 1420.4 MhZ for us might be 2757.32 Weeble-Plexes per Harg (or whatever measurement they use) for them and if you multiply this by PI, they'd get 8662.4 Weeble-Plexes per Harg for them, which would still be 4462.3 MhZ for us. The same would hold true if they were working in a different base number system than us. I don't if anything I posted made any sense.

Correct.

Because pi is the same all over the universe and so is the emission frequency for hydrogen so it is not something that would be Human-centric.

Any intelligent species exploring their universe would know about pi and the hydrogen frequency no matter what units they use to measure them.

reply to post by Ross 54


Good job, thanks for the info!

Astyanax
reply to post by JadeStar

 

SETI essentially could have picked up a blip of another planet's asteroid avoidance radar. If that were the case, SETI would likely never see it again... it's also possible that such a transmission was some other type of radar

I could get aboard this train of speculation quite happily. Would you say those thousands of other pulses that SETI observes daily were also the same sort of thing? You'd expect lots of pulses, coming from all directions, if the Galaxy were populated with lots of technologically advanced inhabitants.

Had this gotten more attention it would have perhaps made a lot of people smarter, not dumber in terms of how science works.

You've certainly done a wonderful job of that in this thread. Let me add my congratulations to those you have already received.

edit on 4/3/14 by Astyanax because: of a bit at the end.

That's a good point, and to bring it closer to home why would any traveller, (UFO) behave any differently and the only difference being radar used in reverse as collison avoidance?
The reason I say that is by taking the remarks of Michael Collins, "I could see stars, I knew where the moon was, just a void where there were no stars" not a direct quote, but good enough. Yeah, I know my road like the back of my hand but at nightime I still switch on the lights.