I knew nothing about it.  I was a UFO researcher and investigator for MUFON, and I was also the Director of the MADAR Project, which had about 50 team members. MADAR stands for "multiple anomaly detection and automated recording". At the time, we had only one site, at Mt. Vernon, Indiana. We had been detecting geomagnetic anomalies and finding correlations with UAP reports since 1970. Unlike the new MADAR-III in service today which uses a magnetometer and is operating in 120 locations around the globe, the first MADAR used a magnet variometer or 254 mm compass with a small hole drilled in the north position, and a focused vertical lightbeam from a Radio Shack photo-electric relay system. When the needle moved less than an 1/8th of an inch (either way) the light would strike the photocell and the circuit would energize the primary relay which would trigger an array of equipment. A siren would automatically be turned on, also a V-700 geiger counter with a data cassette recorder (45-minutes recording times), another data recorder which recorded the closing and opening of the primary relay which helped us visualize and document the movement of the compass needle, then another recorder which recorded police and aircraft transmissions.

During the summer of 1977, we had recorded seven anomalies in a little over a month, (logged as 9 thru 15) beginning on July 10th. (See printout later in Figure 4 below). All of the events had occurred at night. On July 12, we had three anomalies. The first one occurred at 1:48 a.m. and was very brief (about one second). Background radiation was 18 cpm. The second event was recorded at 4:35 a.m. and lasted 55 seconds, background radiation was 16 cpm.  The third anomaly involved a special smoke alarm that gave us a false reading for several minutes. We learned later that there had been sightings in Illinois and Kentucky right around 2:10 a.m., 22 minutes later! We obtained a signed statement from the local police department confirming that they had monitored radio frequencies that described sightings of UFOs at Mayfield, Kentucky (within 85 miles of our site), and Mt. Vernon, Illinois (sixty miles to the northwest of our site). No other details were available. Police cruisers could have been reporting their visual sightings to dispatchers or citizens could have been calling in reports. Either way, dispatchers were mentioning sightings in their radio communications at around 2:10 a.m. on the 12th of July.

But on August 15th at 10:14 p.m. we had a real  "doozy". (See  "Form 146"). It was a 3 minute 29-second event, the longest and most intense electromagnetic anomaly ever recorded at the site.  The magnet variometer had swung back and forth 18 times!  Not only that but the CD V-700 geiger counter had recorded an average reading of 30 cpm. After the event the readings settled down to 15 cpm, which was normal background for that time period. In those days an increase of that magnitude was considered significant. In today’s world with all the fallout and remants of nuclear disasters still floating around us, 2-1/2 times is now considered significant. Form 10 report

Three decades later, on August 2, 2010, we were shocked to learn about the world famous "WOW! Signal".  The story of the strange signal, which hadn’t even made the “news” until 1997 had been "revisited" in 2007 and one of our colleagues, Byron Weber, had ran across the internet report. The story was the "signal" had been received in Ohio on August 15, 1977, at 11:16 pm EDT and our MADAR event had occurred in SW Indiana at 10:15 pm CDT. Delaware, Ohio and Mt. Vernon, Indiana are 300 miles apart! The stunning reality was, with the time zone changes, that the two events had occurred at the same time! This was either related or one hell of a coincidence!

In this 30th Anniversary of the event in 2007, Ehman had 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.”

Two different values for its frequency have been given: 1420.356 mhz (j. d. kraus) and 1420.4556 mhz (j. r. ehman). the frequency 1420 mhz is significant for SETI searchers because, it is reasoned, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and hydrogen resonates at about 1420 mhz, so extraterrestrials might use that frequency to transmit a strong signal. The frequency of the signal matches very closely with the hydrogen line, which is at 1420.40575177 mhz. The two different values given for the frequency of the signal (1420.356 mhz and 1420.4556 mhz) are the same distance apart from the hydrogen line, ­the first being about 0.0498 mhz less than the hydrogen line, and the second about 0.0498 mhz more. the bandwidth of the signal is less than 10 khz (each column on the printout corresponds to a 10 khz-wide channel; the signal is only present in one column).

Another MADAR colleague, Dan Wilson, had  brought up a good point.  Perhaps this "WOW!" signal was meant for somebody on Earth and not especially for members of the SETI program. The Ohio State University "WOW!" signal came in on channel 2, one frequency out of 50 being monitored. That means it couldn't have been a natural "disturbance"!  As Ehman even stated,  such a disturbance would have shown up in all or most of the frequencies.

As a ufologist involved in deliberate attempts to detect UAP (MADAR Project), I had been reluctant to try to contact Mr, Ehman. I always hoped that somebody he knew and respected would have seen this detailed paper which I initially wrote in 2010 with graphics and audio links. As recently as September, 2020, Ehman stated in an article,  Alien Missed Connection, “No conclusion was ever possible other than it certainly had the potential of being a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence.”

MADAR had picked up an anomaly at the same time as the “WOW!” Signal, and we have established that some MADAR anomalies are related to UAP, so it makes one wonder what was going on in August of 1977? From 1970 to 1990 the MADAR logged 26 "anomalies".  A lightning strike had caused one in 1974. One in 1984 was written off as related to an earthquake, but not actually proven. The sensor was bumped in 1990 and that event was also written off. What happened in the summer of 1977 was truly anomalous.

What I propose we do is to recheck the data from the U.S. Geological Survey to see if they have any records that might shed some light on other incidents. I also propose we try to locate any of the participants in the 1977 event, and in particulat, Jerry Ehman.

At this time our readers may want to look at some of the data graphically presented below.

Figure 4