This One Is Particularly Odd: Coincidence?

This "entry" into the list of "coincidences" could be one of the most significant. {I thought that I had reported on this not terribly long ago, but I can't find it, so here we go.}

11:16pm, Delaware, OH, August 15, 1977. Professor Jerry Ehman of Franklin University, Columbus, OH was taking the night shift at the Ohio State University Radiotelescope {"The Big Ear"}. Something odd happened.

This telescope, for its time, was a fine instrument. More than three football fields in size [this is their quoted remark], it was easily capable of detecting weak radio signals from space, and the possibility that one could be from "alien intelligences" was, of course, the most "romantic" of its creators' dreams. That evening that hope just might have come true.

The famous WOW signal received and noted by Dr. Ehman that evening is pictured above. It has been described as a "72-second long blast" equivalent to a "noise" {signal} 30 times larger than the background levels. This was completely out of the norm. MANY checks of the telescope were done over the following days, finding nothing wrong. MANY hypotheses were floated to attempt to debunk or normalize the signal, but none worked. MANY revisitings of that area of space {where the Big Ear was surveying at that 72-second moment} were done, but no hint of another signal ever materialized. Someone [rather stupidly] said that if this signal was sent by other-worldly intelligences, then surely they'd repeat it, only to be reminded that we've sent unique signals which we never repeated ourselves.

The data stands as a great mystery. So what's the coincidence?

In Mt. Vernon, IN a talented "amateur" [so talented that it's ridiculous to lay that label on him, but he had no "affiliation" and his devices were "home-grown", so amateur it will be] had built a complex of machines that he hoped might give him not only raw data but early notice of UFO events. That's Fran Ridge above sitting with his equipment way back in 1977.

Fran called his system "MADAR" { Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automatic Recording"}. It detected [as far as I understand it] both radiation anomalies and magnetic field anomalies, then it must have looked for instances where such correlated.

August 15, 1977, Mt. Vernon, IN. I don't believe that Fran was sitting in front of his recorders at the time --- the whole point of automatic recording is so you don't have to --- but something happened that evening. MADAR had recorded several disturbances that summer, but this one was odd. It lasted 209 seconds and was easily distinguished from the background noise. But WHEN exactly did it occur?

The time on the recording says 10:15pm, one hour off. But at the time Mt Vernon was an hour behind Delaware OH, so "it's a coincidence." With MADAR lasting 209 seconds starting approximately one minute before WOW, these signals significantly overlapped --- in fact WOW might have been temporally "nested" within MADAR.

So, what does it mean? Delaware, OH, {at the teardrop} and Mt Vernon, IN {at the orange ring} are about 300 miles apart. The MADAR system was too simple to allow a determination of directionality but it was roughly north-ish. The WOW signal came out of the direction of Sagittarius which I believe [let's not "go to court" on this one] is SSW in Delaware OH's viewing angle in August. The two detection devices might have been looking in a compatible direction for the "coincidence".

What might that mean? It COULD mean that WOW and MADAR had detected a high flying technological device in the skies somewhere over Indiana and Ohio that evening. It then could mean that this device produced radio, magnetic, and radiation "signals". Does that tell us anything about UFOs when they are cruising about perhaps not on some sort of agenda? Should we scour the UFO report literature to see if anyone reported a "light-in-the-sky" over central Indiana that evening? I'd say that that was a very good idea.

Things like Fran's MADAR research aren't going to give us final answers to the UFO mystery, but it sure would help if there were [and had been] a lot more stations like his operating. And this is why Fran Ridge will go down as one of UFOlogy's unsung heroes when folks look back 100 tears from now.

Thanks old timer. We old folks need some appreciation now and then.