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Speaker 1: Approach production. Hi, Welcome to Silent Secrets, a bedtime podcast

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Speaker 1: for curious minds. I'm jay, I'm glad you're here. This

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Speaker 1: is your time to let go of today, to settle

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Speaker 1: in and slow down, and let curiosity gently carry you

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Speaker 1: towards sleep. In each episode, let me share a true

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Speaker 1: story of the unexplained, not to alarm you, but to

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Speaker 1: quiet your mind, to remind you that the world is

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Speaker 1: full of wonder and some things we'll never truly understand.

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Speaker 1: So take a deep breath, feel your body sink into comfort,

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Speaker 1: Let the weight of the day drift away as we

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Speaker 1: begin tonight's story. On a warm summer evening in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven, in a quiet lab in Ohio, a man

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Speaker 1: staring at a long sheet of printed data saw something

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Speaker 1: that would change his life forever, and perhaps just for

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Speaker 1: a moment, change how we look at the universe. The

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Speaker 1: man's name was Jerry. He was a volunteer scientist working

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Speaker 1: with a Big Year radio telescope. The data came from

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Speaker 1: a search for something we've all wondered about. Are we alone?

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Speaker 1: That evening, the telescope picked up a signal, a powerful,

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Speaker 1: clear radio transmission from deep space that lasted seventy two seconds.

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Speaker 1: It was unlo like anything ever detected before. Jerry circled

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Speaker 1: the sequence of numbers and letters on the print out.

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Speaker 1: I wrote just one word in the margin, Wow, And

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Speaker 1: that's how the mystery got its name, the Wow Signal. Tonight,

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Speaker 1: we step into the quiet of space, listening for whispers

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Speaker 1: from the stars and revisit the moment when something or

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Speaker 1: someone may have been calling out to us. To understand

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Speaker 1: why the Wow signal matters, we need to talk about SETI,

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Speaker 1: which is the acronym for the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Speaker 1: Since the nineteen sixties, scientists have pointed radio telescopes at

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Speaker 1: the star listening for patterns or signals that might include

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Speaker 1: intelligent life. Radio waves are perfect for this. They can

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Speaker 1: travel vast distances across the galaxy, They pass through dust

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Speaker 1: and gas that blocks visible light, and a powerful signal

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Speaker 1: in the right frequency range could stand out like a

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Speaker 1: flashlight in a dark room. In the nineteen seventies, the

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Speaker 1: SETI programs were limited but passionate. The Big Ear Telescope,

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Speaker 1: located at Ohio State University, was one of the few

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Speaker 1: instruments constantly scanning the skies looking for anything unusual. Most

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Speaker 1: of the time it found nothing but noise, the background

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Speaker 1: hum of the universe, But every so often something strange

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Speaker 1: would appear, and one summer evening, something extra did. It's

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Speaker 1: August fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven, the Biggier telescope was pointed

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Speaker 1: towards the constellation Sagittarius, scanning an area of the sky

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Speaker 1: near the Sagittary star group. The telescope didn't create images. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it printed out streams of numbers and letters, a coded

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Speaker 1: representation of the signal intensity. Most of the time these

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Speaker 1: print outs looked the same zeros and ones, meaning nothing unusual.

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Speaker 1: Occasionally a two or a three, which meant a slightly

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Speaker 1: stronger signal, maybe just interference. Jerry, who had worked with

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Speaker 1: Big Year for years, was used to scanning these data

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Speaker 1: sheets and finding nothing remarkable. But when he looked at

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Speaker 1: this particular sheet of paper, one line stopped him cold.

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Speaker 1: There it was six e q U J five. This

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Speaker 1: wasn't just random noise. The numbers and letters represented a

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Speaker 1: sharp rise and fall in signal intensity, peaking at you,

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Speaker 1: far stronger than anything normally detected. The signal had all

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Speaker 1: the hallmarks of something artificial. Narrow band concentrated on a

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Speaker 1: single frequency at fourteen hundred and twenty megahertz. This frequency

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Speaker 1: is special because it's the exact frequency emitted by hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: the most common element in the universe. Scientists believe any

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Speaker 1: intelligence civilization might use this frequency as a cosmic calling card.

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Speaker 1: Jerry was so stunned that he circled the sequence and

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Speaker 1: wrote wow and read ink on the margin. The Wow

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Speaker 1: signal lasted just seventy two seconds, exactly the length of

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Speaker 1: time Big Ear could listen to a single point in

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Speaker 1: the sky before Earth's rotation moved out of its range.

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Speaker 1: When the telescope scanned that part of the sky again, minutes, hours,

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Speaker 1: and days later, the signal was gone. It's never been

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Speaker 1: detected again. What Jerry saw that evening remains unique in

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Speaker 1: all of seti's history. Scientists immediately began trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out what could have caused the signal. Was it satellite

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Speaker 1: No known satellites were in the position at that time.

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Speaker 1: Was it a plane or Earth based interference? The frequency

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Speaker 1: was within a protected range reserve for astronomy, meaning no

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Speaker 1: commercial or military transmissions should exist. There was it a star?

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Speaker 1: On natural phenomenon, stars and galaxies emit wideband signals, not

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Speaker 1: narrow focus bursts like this one. Was it a message?

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Speaker 1: The possibility lingered. Could this have been a beacon, a

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Speaker 1: deliberate transmission sent across the stars. The WOW signal's origins

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Speaker 1: appeared to be near the constellation of Sagittarius, close to

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Speaker 1: the center of our Milky Way galaxy. This region of

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Speaker 1: space is dense with stars, nebulae, and planets, a logical

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Speaker 1: place to search for intelligent life, but with no repeat signal,

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Speaker 1: pinpointing its source has been impossible. Over the years, many

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Speaker 1: theories have been proposed. Some suggest it could have been

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Speaker 1: a rare event like a comet or asteroid releasing radio energy.

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Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, a team suggests that the signal might

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Speaker 1: have come from hydrogen clouds around two comets, but this

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Speaker 1: theory remains controversial. Others believe the WAW signal could have

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Speaker 1: been a leak of radio waves from another civilization's technology,

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Speaker 1: like the way Earth leaks TV and radio signals into space.

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Speaker 1: The most exciting theory is that this signal was a

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Speaker 1: deliberate attempt to be noticed, a powerful beacon scent across

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Speaker 1: the stars. The WOW signal remains the most compelling candidate

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Speaker 1: for alien communication ever detected. No other radio signal has

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Speaker 1: matched its strength, clarity, and mysterious one time nature. For

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Speaker 1: SETI researchers, it's both thrilling and frustrating. It shows that

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Speaker 1: the universe can surprise us, but also reminds us how

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Speaker 1: fleeting such moments are. Picture the night sky above you.

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Speaker 1: Billions of stars, billions of worlds somewhere out there, perhaps

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundred light years away, may have whispered to us

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Speaker 1: just once. The Wow signal has never been repeated. The

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Speaker 1: question it's raised still lingers. What was that moment? Proof

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Speaker 1: that we're not alone? Thank you for listening to silent secrets.

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Speaker 1: I hope tonight's story has given your mind something soft

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Speaker 1: to wander through as you drift towards rest. But the

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Speaker 1: quieter the night wrap around you now, and know that

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Speaker 1: mysteries will still be here tomorrow. Close your eyes, breathe deeply,

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Speaker 1: and let's sleep take over until we share another secret

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Speaker 1: next time. Good Night in strels