The “Wow!” Reply
Web, Content Production
2012
About
To launch Nat Geo’s new show, Chasing UFOs, we looked to a well-known mystery in the search for intelligent life: The Wow! Signal, an inexplicable radio signal received in 1977. We devised a plan for our show’s cast to help us orchestrate a worldwide response to the Wow Signal, and then help us send our messages into space using the world’s most famous radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory.
In 1977, we received a signal from space.
It came to be known as the “Wow Signal.”
It remains unexplained.
Building buzz ahead of the premiere, we launched a viral campaign to collect as many tweets to send to space as possible. Participating celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel created video messages, propelling spread and participation. The night of the premiere, the response was overwhelming: tens of thousands of tweets poured in from individuals to scientists and celebrities alike.
We collected all tweets using the #chasingUFOs to comprise our radio transmission. Working with the scientists at Arecibo, they helped us translate this into a format they could transmit, and on August 15th 2012, the 35th anniversary of receiving the original signal, we transmitted our response, filming a video to document our response.
