Jerry Ehman, a radio astronomer, was looking through data collected by The Big Ear Telescope in 1977 and he came across something staggering. This was done in the search for any communication from alien life. He made the freak discovery on the data print out, circled it in red pen and wrote 'WOW!' next to it, thus the WOW signal was born.
The Big Ear was listening for radio waves from an area of sky near the constellation of Sagittarius. The data print outs were a visual representation of the sounds it was collecting. In all the 1's and 2's on the print out, Jerry saw 6EQUJ5. This is the actual recording that was picked up.
The same patch of sky has been listened to for years to see if anything else comes from it, but nothing ever has. It's estimated that the distance the signal traveled to get to us was 200 light years. This means the signal would have taken 200 years from being transmitted to the day it actually reached us. If we send one back it will take 200 years to get back to them.
We may never know where the signal came from or who sent it. It looks like this is another mystery we will never solve.
