The Ohio State University Radio Observatory and the North American AstroPhysical Observatory

On August 15 1977, Jerry R Ehman was working as an astronomer at SETIs Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio University when he picked up on a signal sequence which lasted for 72 seconds stemming from the constellation Sagittarius.

Ehman was so shocked by what he had picked up that he wrote wow! next to the signal on a piece of paper, which is what it has become known as since.

Last week, astronomer Antonio Paris from the St Petersburg College announced that he had believed he had solved the case, attributing it to two comets 266P/Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) that released a hydrogen emission that reached a frequency of 1,420 megahertz.

The two comets past Earth on the same day in August 1977, according to data Prof Paris analysed from Nasa.

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However, other experts have disputed the claim, including the discoverer of the Wow! Signal, Mr Ehman.

Mr Ehman said that the Big Ear telescope had two feed horns which would have captured two different signals if it were two comets, yet it only recorded one.

He told Live Science: We should have seen the source come through twice in about three minutes: one response lasting 72 seconds and a second response for 72 seconds following within about a minute and a half.

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He added that the signal was cut off almost immediately, but that a comet could not escape the telescopes feed so quickly.

Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at SETI the search for extraterrestrial intelligence institute that he also believes it was not a comet.

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The Crop Circles are often believed to be created by aliens, as there is no proper explanation behind this phenomenon.

He told Astronomy Now: I dont know of any detection of the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen from a comet, and as I used to study galaxies in the neutral hydrogen line, I probably would have heard of that.

However, Prof Paris is sticking to his guns: Astronomers have not detected hydrogen emission from comets because there has not been much research specifically on this subject.

While there has been a handful of studies, I suspect we are the first to build a ten-metre telescope to specifically look at this type of Solar System body.

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Alien contact? 'Wow! Signal' case back open as astronomers rule out comets - Express.co.uk