Trevor Collins

But then you'll see a sequence

that says 6EQUJ5.

And I'll break down exactly what that means.

But suffice to say, you don't see anything else like that on the data sheet.

So he circles this.

This feels unique.

Wow.

What is this?

Right.

It stands out to him in the days after this was recovered.

Interesting.

And that is kind of given this mystery its namesake, the wow signal, the signal that literally just wowed the astronomer Eamon to the point where that's all he could say.

So this very strong, focused signal baffled scientists.

And so from here and for the decades following, many began to investigate where this signal might have come from,

Explaining it, trying to theorize what it could be, anything from alien intelligence to natural phenomenons.

We'll talk about all of that, but I do want to get into the nitty gritty a little bit more in the investigation before we get into the theories.

So researchers found that the peak of the wow signal occurred near the 21 centimeter line.

In other words, this is called the hydrogen line.

The hydrogen line is a specific radio frequency naturally emitted by the hydrogen atom.

And since hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, many believe that this would be the logical frequency for any intelligent civilizations to use to communicate.