Nuclear Connection Project
NCP Paper 

NCP-19:
MADAR 15 & the "WOW" Signal
Any Connection?

Fran Ridge in MADAR Control Room in 1977

081210

This report  is actually being written for two projects. The startling information obtained for this report came from work on the MADAR Project but there may be an NCP connection. Recently some new information made it potentially a good NCP candidate. It would be an NCP report for a couple of reasons.  1) First and foremost, it pertains to an incident that involved nuclear radiation. 2) And if there is any connection between the incident and another which received world-wide attention at the time, then, well, you decide for yourself. If nothing else, this is as close to a coincidence as one can get. Some common disturbance may have produced both events.

I once headed and operated a UFO detection project called MADAR  from 1970 to 1991. MADAR stands for "Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automated Recording". The system used a 254 mm magnet variometer which was monitored by a vertical light beam and relay circuit. When the Earth's magnetic field deviated slightly the system was triggered and various equipment recorded the data, one which was the time, another the background radiation, and yet another the actual graphic movement of the sensor. The project logged over two dozen events, some with UFO connections. But 1977 was a banner year for the project because for six weeks that summer there were seven events that were extremely interesting and involved regional UFO activity. But that's another story and you can read the entire report at


MADAR Event #15 turned out to be the final one for the year 1977 and was logged on August 15th at l0:14 PM. It was an 18-pulse, 3-minute and 29-second disturbance. MADAR had logged the best and longest disturbance so far. And the background radiation reading was 30 cpm, a 100% increase! For the record, this was a significant reading! All that we lacked was what we were looking for,  a good UFO report. MADAR had recorded seven events in a little over a month. Something was going on. This included UFOs reported to law enforcement officers within 60-85 miles, an E-M effect on a smoke alarm, and a significant background radiation reading. But this meager evidence didn't turn any heads.

On August 2, 2010, a colleague, Byron Weber, sent me an email. In the memo he wrote:

Both events occurred on August 15, 1977.  The WOW signal was received at 11:16 pm EDST.  The MADAR event occurred at 10:15 (pm or am are not specified on your site).  As best as I can figure, Mt. Vernon is on CDT.  Whether or not it was in 1977 I have no idea.  Proposing the MADAR event occurred pm, and was CDT, then both events occurred at the same time!  That's too many "if's" for a definitive assessment, but very interesting nonetheless.

Mr. Weber must have looked at one of our hard-to-read charts, because the date WAS indeed August 15, 1977, and the time was 10:14 PM. The MADAR Project had logged UFO reports and some earthquakes into the database, but not anything like SETI pulses, and this was not a usual event at all.

On August 15, 1977, Dr. Jerry Ehman, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear Radio Telescope of Ohio State University, was startled to see something on the readout. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar-system origin. It lasted for the full 72 second duration that Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again. Much attention has been focused on it in the media when talking about SETI results. Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment "Wow!" on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.


As always every other night, while the Big Ear was searching the skies for an alien signal, its observations were being recorded on a printout sheet. A long list of letters and numbers was continuously being churned out, one long string for every one of the 50 channels scanned by the telescope. A series of characters appeared recording an unusual transmission at the frequency of channel 2: "6EQUJ5" the list read. This startled Big Ear volunteer Jerry Ehman, a professor at Franklin University in Columbus, who was monitoring the readings that night.

Portion of the readout showing the "WOW" which became the famous name of this signal


The series "6EQUJ5" described the strength of the received signal over a short time-span. In the system used at the time at Big Ear, each number from 1 to 9 represented the signal level above the background noise. In order to extend the scale, the staff added letters, with each one from A to Z representing increasingly stronger signal levels. 6EQUJ5 represented a signal that grew in strength to level "U," and then gradually subsides. In more familiar notation, the signal increased from zero to level 30 "sigmas" above the background noise, and then decreased again to zero, all in the span of 37 seconds.

Two aspects of this signal immediately caught the attention of Ehman and project director John Kraus, who saw the results the following morning. First of all, 37 seconds was precisely the time it takes the Big Ear scanning beam to survey a given point in the heavens. Because of this, any signal coming from space would follow precisely the "Wow!" signal's pattern - increasing and then decreasing over 37 seconds. This practically ruled out the possibility that the signal was the result of Earthly radio interference. Secondly, the signal was not continuous, but intermittent. Kraus and Ehman knew that, because Big Ear has two separate beams that scan the same area of the sky in succession, several minutes apart. But the signal appeared on only one of the beams and not on the other, indicating that it had been 'turned off' between the two scans. A strong, focused, and intermittent signal coming from outer space: could it be that Big Ear had detected an alien signal?

At the same time of this famous event I was watching television but getting ready to retire for the evening. There had been plenty of excitement with the MADAR Project after seven years of a few hit & miss incidents when on July 10th the siren sounded at 1:05 AM. This was a 17-pulse magnetic deviation. The recording can be heard at:


The recording of the August 15 incidents was very similar and the background radiation doubled. We're unable to play that recording because the tape came loose from the cassette reel.

The printout showing events from June 9 to August 27. Column 4 shows UFO classification and "MD" for MADAR event.




Sample of log created by software similar to the Audacity program.

Later we were able to use computer software to graphically display the spikes from the recorded events. This one is the July 10th, 1:04 AM event. The Aug. 15 event was not available for this program.

The interesting aspect of these disturbances, which include the August 15 event, is that the variations seem to be pulsed or the amplitude changes quickly as if caused by an alternating magnetic field. A natural deviation in the earth's magnetic field is more gradual and lasts for a longer period. According to my adviser on the MADAR Project, Mr. Lewis Blevins, who was an E-M expert  and worked on "Project SIGN", they had determined back then that the sensor movement was probably caused by a UFO at less than a 5 mile range. So, what kind of signal or disturbance could effect a small region of two states, Ohio & Indiana?  And if the July 10 disturbance was very similar and had a UFO connection, what does that imply about the August 15  disturbance?

On the 30th anniversary of finding the WOW signal, Ehman updated the findings and his opinions on the Wow! signal. He wrote:

Thus, since all of the possibilities of a terrestrial origin have been either ruled out or seem improbable, and since the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin has not been able to be ruled out, I must conclude that an ETI (ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) might have sent the signal that we received as the Wow! source. The fact that we saw the signal in only one beam could be due to an ETI sending a beacon signal in our direction and then sending it in another direction that we couldn't detect. Of course, being a scientist, I await the reception of additional signals like the Wow! source that are able to be received and analyzed by many observatories. Thus, I must state that the origin of the Wow! signal is still an open question for me. There is simply too little data to draw many conclusions. In other words, as I stated above, I choose not to "draw vast conclusions from 'half-vast' data".         
While checking the 1977 UFO Chronology I couldn't help but notice at the top of the page the alien from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Curious about the timing of the release of the film I checked with Google.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind
was released in November. It was about an unidentified signal from space, and later contact, and just happened to begin in Indiana.  The chrono listed no interesting sightings during the MADAR 15 event that might have had the potential of triggering the MADAR system.

While checking with a colleague in Ohio, our own Dan Wilson, we were able to confirm the time zones. The times are virtually the same for the WOW and MADAR Events. In 1977 we didn't have a TG-105 Time Date Generator like we used with the Lunascan Project, nor a WWV atomic clock signal. We had to call the local bank and get the time, then set the flashcard digital clock by hand, easily a minute off at least. The MADAR System when triggered had a ratchet relay that turned on recorders and a geiger counter at the instant it shut down the clock timer. 
 
Dan brought up a good point. Perhaps this "WOW" signal was meant for something or somebody here on Earth and not especially for the SETI Program. Three hundred and ten miles apart, two entirely different types of equipment picked up something.  Not only was there a scientifically interesting radio signal, but a disturbance with a magnetic/electromagnetic and nuclear component.