Astronomers might finally have explanation for mysterious Wow! signal

An unexplained radio signal detected in 1977 known as the Wow! signal, which some have interpreted as an alien message, may have been the result of a natural galactic laser-like beam.

On 15 August 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University detected a brief, powerful burst of radio waves with an unusually narrow range of frequencies, similar to atomic hydrogen’s natural emission frequency. No known astronomical processes could have produced such an emission, and astronomer Jerry Ehman, who worked at the…