Wow Signal! Is the Greatest Astronomical Mystery of the Past Fifty Years on the Verge of Resolution?

A message from extraterrestrials? Capturing a natural phenomenon? Terrestrial interference? 48 years ago, the Big Ear Observatory in Ohio in the United States was capturing a signal of power so crazy that the scientist who discovered it, Jerry R. Ehman, simply named it “Wow!”. At the time, it was immediately thought that it was possible proof of the existence of the extraterrestrials and that this message sent through space was perhaps an attempted communication.

Amazed and fascinated, he will surround a sequence of figures and letters in red and simply annotate “Wow!”, Hence the name of this famous signal. It is then that the survey begins since this WOW signal! Could be proof that we are waiting to prove that extraterrestrials exist and that life has developed elsewhere in the universe.

Almost fifty later, the greatest astronomical mystery has still not been resolved and we have only hypotheses to put in our tooth. There are three: the WOW signal! is of extraterrestrial origin, it is the capture of a natural phenomenon or else, an object manufactured by man has caused interference with the observatory.

But recently, a study published in pre -impression on the server arxiv August 14, 2025 seems to have found the culprit. And the Wow signal! Origin … a magnetar.

Magnetar, Kézako?

It is a neutron star (a very massive star residue) which has a particularly powerful magnetic field. The latter would be found in a cold hydrogen cloud and would therefore have excited the atoms of the cloud by causing a brightness such as we have captured it from the earth.

This hypothesis does not date from this year, but from last year when work carried out by researchers from the University of Puerto Rico went in this direction. The recent study is based on SETI data (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence) accumulated for almost half a century to support their hypothesis and specify the place where the WOW!.

Thus, the WOW signal! would not have an extraterrestrial origin, but would simply be capturing a natural phenomenon in the same way as fast radio starts or “fast radio burst” (FRB) in English. But, it is still only a hypothesis, the mystery, if it is clearing more and more, therefore remains whole.

Are we alone in the universe?

Ah this famous question. She fascinates us and terrifies us at the same time. If the WOW signal! is increasingly similar to an astrophysical phenomenon all that is most normal, we are not more advanced as to the resolution of this general mystery.

Are we an anomaly or are we a simple universal standard? If there are extraterrestrial life forms, why haven't they discovered them yet? There are several theories that can not move forward towards an answer, but to think the question differently.

First, the universe is… large. It seems stupid to say, but it must be remembered. We are only a planet among billions and billions of others. We are not able to observe them all and discover them at the same time and we are not even talking about going there. If extraterrestrial life exists, we may not have discovered it yet because it is far too distant and too well hidden in the midst of the immensity of the universe.

Second, why not take the problem on the other side? If the extraterrestrials do exist, what reason would they push them not to pay us a little visit? Maybe they are not technologically advanced enough? Maybe they are afraid of us or the unknown? Or maybe they hide? But who or what?

Third, it is possible to take the problem of the question of extraterrestrial life, as we would with the experience of Schrödinger's cat. In other words, as long as it has not been discovered or that it has been proven that it does not exist, extraterrestrial life exists and at the same time does not exist.

Wow signal! which was akin as the beginning of a proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life if it were proven to be of natural origin, would not mean that small green or blue or red men as you want do not exist, but perhaps we have not yet sought in the right place.

This is why we linger on the discovery of potential worlds on which life could develop. But it may still be too reductive, because we are committed to finding worlds where life, as we know it, could develop without necessarily opening the door to other possibilities.

Perhaps one day, we will find another civilization through the universe and at that time, we will finally have a real WOW signal!. Or maybe in the infinite immensity in which we float, we are indeed alone.

Source : Gizmodo