Spectral analysis of the famous 1977 Wow! Signal

Looks and sounds like a "universal" distress call to me!!

At this page there is another waterfall signal displayed, and it doesnt look at all like the version you got from youtube.

The date on this image is from 1977, so I presume its the wow signal, since they're talking about it...



Edit - according to this page, the image above is a "simulation" of how the wow signal would look.

Edit 2- according to this page

At the time Big Ear recorded the radio signal that later became known as the "Wow!" signal ... there was no audio recording equipment attached to the output of that radio telescope. Hence, it is impossible to provide an audio tape of that signal.

Since we obtained one data point per channel every 12 seconds (10 seconds for observing plus 2 seconds for analysis and printout), any variation in the signal more frequently than once every 12 seconds could not be detected. The average value of the signal was almost perfectly constant over the total time of 72 seconds that it was in our beam

The youtube audio is fake.

If I had to guess, it looks like a form of TV broadcast. Some kind of limited data band on the very top, what appear to be fairly distinctive stereo L and R audio channels paired together, then at the bottom some kind of video encoding.

That's really the "Wow!" signal?

Can the different parts be separated and analyzed on their own?

reply to post by alfa1


I think you are right, it doesn't say "Send beer and pizza". Darn it.

In fact this audio has been on youtube in various reincarnations since 2007.

The earliest version I could find was uploaded Dec. 7, 2007. In the description, the uploader does not say this is the audio of the Wow! signal, but just describes the original discovery in 1977. He probably added electronic music to make it "spacey":

Threads like this are so much fun... Just an interesting topic overall. Going back to the WOW signal and how its never been found again since, it really makes you wonder what's out there. I also believe that the reason why we've never found it again is because we found a needle in a haystack once, now we're trying to find that same needle again in the vastness that is space... I would bet good money on that signal being terrestrial, but I also WANT to believe, so its definitely easier to reach towards such extremes like that.

reply to post by stormcell


Audacity looks promising for this stuff, but for now i'm sticking with the program that I know (i'm learning Audacity though)

reply to post by alfa1


I feel pretty fooled about this now

Thanks for digging that up. ATS at its finest.

where is this sound clip from? Someone mentioned it looked like a captured TV broadcast because at one portion is DEFINATELY waveform, and some of this visually coencides with a standard NTSC OTA.

And what is this clip of? is there a way to back-convert it to broadcast and put it through some rabbit ears?

reply to post by pauljs75


I'm not that much of an expert to seperate and analyze with such a low quality sound bit, but i believe you hit the nail on the head, sir.

Originally posted by shiman
The software I used is very outdated, built originally for Windows 98, called Spectrogram 16. If anybody knows newer software that allows for higher resolution capture, then I could probably convert that waveform back into sound In my free time.

Any thoughts?

Hiya shiman,

I'd probably recommend (if it mega interests) to pick up some books on signal processing if this kind of thing makes you curious. It's mostly maths, but it's a very interesting thing to study and applies to so many different technologies. The maths are pretty universal.

Once you understand the maths involved and have a general feel for it you will find that software becomes less of a concern.

Hope it helps.

Originally posted by jhn7537
Threads like this are so much fun... Just an interesting topic overall. Going back to the WOW signal and how its never been found again since, it really makes you wonder what's out there. I also believe that the reason why we've never found it again is because we found a needle in a haystack once, now we're trying to find that same needle again in the vastness that is space... I would bet good money on that signal being terrestrial, but I also WANT to believe, so its definitely easier to reach towards such extremes like that.

The thing is they don't even know its origin, it might never have come from a planet... who's to say that i never came from an alien ship at the edges of our solar system communicating with one of its comrade ships accompanying it before taking off somewhere else , like maybe something like this .... "about to engage warp driveto get to the andromeda galaxy, follow my co-ordinates, ok pal?" And that why it was short, and never repeated? Anything's possible.
PEACE!!

reply to post by shiman


Thanks. But it does seem obvious, doesn't it?

I've played with Audacity a bit, so the two waves paired together above the bottom part do stick out as resembling stereo audio channels. Just like stereo there's a slight difference, but the waveforms tend to match for the most part.

Also the video now says it's not the "Wow!" signal, so what is it?

Using the typical image searches, I've had no luck trying to find images of TV broadcasts displayed as waveforms in a similar manner. So I couldn't say that's what it is with 100% certainty. Yet if I had to guess what CC or data and RGB (chroma) info looked like, combined with stereo audio, and video (luminance) data... It seems like it would be close to this.

If we could get the "audio" looking part converted to .wav somehow, it'd be interesting to hear what it sounds like. It doesn't appear encoded, so if it's from origins on Earth it should be easy enough to figure out where it's from. (Might be muddy and garbled to hell from lack of sufficient resolution, but should make out some kind voice(s) or music.)

reply to post by shiman


You could try Ultima Sound II, it's a free download from C|Net. Might not be as robust as what you already have but it does have some cool experiments and sample sound wavs.

Edit: Not free free. Ugh, I hate that.

reply to post by pauljs75


Well, if you look at the name of the video uploader, you'll see that the video and screenshot are both authored by me.

If not Audacity, then Cool EditPro is nice and easy to use, you can get very detailed with that.

2nd

Just a random question, out of curiosity. But have you ever analysed the sounds that the planets make? It's more than likely been done before so might be waisted time. But then like one poster said if anything was ever found they would probably not tell us anyway.

Every time I hear the audio to the planets sounds I find them quite haunting. I think it's Saturn that was my favourite.

Anyway just an idea. Popped in my head so thought I'd ask. Great thread by the way, very interesting.

It is interesting that those waves look like a modern stereo image. Is there a way to isolate just the "stereo" waves rest?

Also I know Audacity has spectral analysis and probably about every music editing program out there today. Audacity is free so I would try that first. Plus there's plenty of cool plugins you can use to play with the audio such as inverting the sound, reversing, and all sorts of filters.

Originally posted by jhn7537
Threads like this are so much fun... Just an interesting topic overall. Going back to the WOW signal and how its never been found again since, it really makes you wonder what's out there. I also believe that the reason why we've never found it again is because we found a needle in a haystack once, now we're trying to find that same needle again in the vastness that is space... I would bet good money on that signal being terrestrial, but I also WANT to believe, so its definitely easier to reach towards such extremes like that.

This wiki link reasons on why they believe the signal after all might be of intelligent extraterrestrial origin

Interstellar scintillation of a weaker continuous signal—similar in effect to atmospheric twinkling—could be an explanation, but that would not exclude the possibility of the signal's being artificial in origin. But even the significantly more sensitive Very Large Array could not detect the signal, and the probability that a signal below the Very Large Array level could be detected by the Big Ear due to interstellar scintillation is low.

Other speculations include a rotating lighthouse-like source, a signal sweeping in frequency, or a one-time burst.Ehman has voiced doubts that the signal was of intelligent extraterrestrial origin: "We should have seen it again when we looked for it 50 times. Something suggests it was an Earth-sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris."

He later recanted his skepticism somewhat, after further research showed an Earth-borne signal to be very unlikely, given the requirements of a space-borne reflector being bound to certain unrealistic requirements to sufficiently explain the signal. Also, the 1420 MHz signal is problematic in itself in that it is "protected spectrum": bandwidth reserved for astronomical purposes in which terrestrial transmitters are forbidden to transmit. In his most recent writings, Ehman resists "drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data"—acknowledging the possibility that the source may have been military or otherwise a product of Earth-bound humans.

Scientists say that if the signal came from extraterrestrials, they are likely an extremely advanced civilization, as the signal would have required a 2.2-gigawatt transmitter, vastly more powerful than any on Earth.

reply to post by asmall89


The audio I analzyed is in fact, not the Wow! Signal as revealed in an earlier post.

It would be possible to re-construct the audio portion of this captured TV/HAM broadcast (as per this link mediapreservation.wordpress.com... dio-from-pictures/) if the audio was in a higher quality, i am curious as to what it originally was before people falsely claimed it was the Wow! Signal.

It would be impossible, however, with the source I had achieved because the audio resolution is terrible, hampering the spectral resolution.

reply to post by Devilishwork


There are youtube videos depicting spectral analysis of planetary interference recordings, they're quite interesting to watch and listen to (very spacy feel, haha).

There are theories that state Alien craft hide out in the rings of saturn due to the visual and radio interference.

So! Some further investigating, and it turns out the user coffee300am on youtube uploaded a sound clip and claimed it was the wow! Signal.

I feel foolish for falling into the trap, but I've found what the sound was originally.



I tested this myself by speeding up the sound ONLY by a factor of 50% (using the Change Speed option in the Effects drop down in Audacity) repeatedly until i heard audible speech.

I'm sorry everybody! I didnt mean to get everybody's hopes up