The Wow! Signal: What Was Actually Detected?
A famous string of characters was not an alien message. It was a telescope record of signal strength. What can the 1977 observation really tell us?
COLLECTION
Unexplained Signals & Sounds
Signals From the Unknown
Explore the Wow! Signal, the Bloop, number stations, and fast radio bursts through instruments, evidence, competing explanations, and clear uncertainty boundaries.
4 Articles
1 Explained · 1 Deep Dive · 2 Case File
Articles in this Collection
The Bloop: How an Ocean Mystery Was Investigated
The Bloop sounded like a creature from the deep. Hydrophone data and years of comparison pointed instead to a powerful source made of ice.
Number Stations: Strange Signals With Human Origins
Voices reading numbers over shortwave radio sound unreal, but documented espionage cases show why one-way broadcasts can be useful.
Fast Radio Bursts: From Mystery to Astrophysics
Fast radio bursts began as isolated millisecond anomalies. Large catalogs, repeating sources, and a Galactic magnetar changed the question.