Today, the topic of searching for extraterrestrial life, including intelligent life, including extraterrestrial civilizations, is popular. Mankind builds huge antennas, launches telescope satellites, peers, listens to the near and far space in search of, among other things, signs of intelligent life, in the hope of picking up a signal from the "big brothers". We are looking for various solutions to the Drake equation, we estimate that a couple of million years should be enough for everyone to colonize the galaxy, we are in awe of the concept of the "Great Filter". And we all ask with one voice, “Where is everyone? If there are other civilizations - why can't we detect their signs?
And almost no one seems to know, remember, or care that we actually see them! More precisely, they saw it on August 15, 1977. It was on that day that the Big Ear radio telescope in Ohio, as part of the work on the SETI project, recorded a signal whose source was outside the solar system. The signal was called "Wow! signal" according to the exclamation written on the printout of the radio telescope readings. You can read about it in the corresponding article on Wikipedia. In order not to copy it here completely, I will give only the most significant phrase in the context of the article.
Various methods for determining the frequency of the signal gave two values: 1420.356 MHz (J. D. Kraus) and 1420.456 MHz (J. R. Ehman), both within 50 kHz of the frequency of the neutral hydrogen radio link (1420.406 MHz, or 21 cm.)
At this point, let's return to the origins of the SETI project and remember how scientists were going to look for extraterrestrial civilizations and, accordingly, how to let them know about our existence. In 1959, physicists Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison came to the conclusion to use the same hydrogen radio line with a frequency of 1420.406 MHz and a wavelength of 21 cm as a natural frequency standard. It can be assumed with a high probability of success that other civilizations, if they exist and wish to communicate, will choose the same frequency for interstellar communications.
As a result, in 1977, humanity receives a signal at a frequency at which, most likely, other intelligent civilizations would have made themselves felt. No explanation has been found for the origin of the signal, except for its artificial nature. According to calculations, in order to produce such a signal, a transmitting civilization needs to have a transmitter with a power of approximately 2 gigawatts, which is a thousand times more than the most powerful terrestrial transmitter can produce. This may indicate that the transmitting civilization is much more developed or at least has more energy resources than the earthly one, since it can spend so much energy on broadcasting "nowhere".
Unfortunately, since 1977, such a signal has not been re-captured. Most likely, this indicates that the transmitting civilization, although more developed than ours, still has its limitations and “beeps” to different parts of space for a short time, so that sooner or later they will be detected and “beeped” in response. Humanity, by the way, is not left in debt. In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow signal, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico sent 10,000 coded Twitter messages in the direction from which the signal was received in 1977.
However, now, almost 40 years after receiving the "Wow" signal, few people seem to know about it. Scientists have never been able to explain its origin by natural causes or catch it again to prove its artificiality. Mentions of it are found as if it is something passing, which they saw, could not explain and, as unnecessary, was forgotten on the far shelf of science. And with each subsequent discussion, we are all unanimously perplexed - “Where is everyone, why are we nobody do not hear? ”, although " someone"We obviously heard.
