Robert Hansen Gray (March 7, 1948 - December 6, 2021) was an American data analyst, author, and astronomer, and author of ''The Elusive Wow: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence''.

Education

Gray attended

Shimer College Shimer Great Books School ( ) is a Classic_book#University_programs, Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, or ...

, a

Great Books A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Cl ...

school then located in

Mount Carroll, Illinois Mount Carroll is a city in and the county seat of Carroll County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,479 at the 2020 census. History Mount Carroll began life as a mill town around 1841. In 1843, a referendum moved the county seat fro ...

, where he received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in 1970. He went on to obtain a

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in urban planning and policy analysis from the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the Universi ...

in 1980.

Career

Data analysis

In 1984, Gray founded the company Gray Data in Chicago, which provided data analysis research services and published reference cards for microcomputer software. He continued to work as a data analyst through his company Gray Consulting.Amir Alexander
"One Man’s Quest for SETI's Most Promising Signal,"
The Planetary Society, January 27, 2012.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

Gray is best known for his work as an independent

SETI Seti or SETI may refer to: Astrobiology * SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ** SETI Institute, an astronomical research organization *** SETIcon, a former convention organized by the SETI Institute ** Berkeley SETI Research Cent ...

researcher. ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' called Gray "the 'Wow!' signal's most devoted seeker and chronicler, having traveled to the very ends of the earth in search of it." The Wow! signal was detected by the

Ohio State University Radio Observatory The Ohio State University Radio Observatory was a Kraus-type (after its inventor John D. Kraus) radio telescope located on the grounds of the Perkins Observatory at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio from 1963 to 1998. Known as Big Ear ...

(also known as Big Ear) on August 15, 1977. The signal was so pronounced in the data, and so similar to a radio signal rather than a natural source, that SETI scientist Jerry R. Ehman circled it on the computer printout in red ink and wrote "Wow!" next to it. After hearing about the Wow! signal a few years after its detection, Gray contacted the Ohio team, visited Big Ear, and spoke with Ehman,

Robert S. Dixon The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (usually shortened as SETI) is an expression that refers to the diverse efforts and scientific projects intended to detect extraterrestrial signals, or any evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. ...

(director of the SETI project) and

John D. Kraus John Daniel Kraus (June 28, 1910 – July 18, 2004) was an American physicist and electrical engineer known for his contributions to electromagnetics, radio astronomy, and antenna theory. His inventions included the helical antenna, th ...

(the telescope's designer). In 1980, Gray began scanning the skies from his backyard in Chicago, using a 12-foot commercial telecommunications dish. He operated his small SETI radio observatory regularly beginning in 1983 and for the next 15 years, but did not find a trace of the Wow! signal. In 1987 and 1989 he led searches for the signal using the Harvard/Smithsonian META

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

at the

Oak Ridge Observatory The Oak Ridge Observatory (ORO, code: 801), also known as the George R. Agassiz Station, is located at 42 Pinnacle Road, Harvard, Massachusetts. It was operated by the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian as a facility of the Smit ...

Harvard, Massachusetts Harvard is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 25 miles west-northwest of Boston, in eastern Massachusetts. It is mostly bounded by I-495 to the east and Route 2 to the north. A farming community se ...

. In September 1995 and again in May 1996, Gray and Kevin B. Marvel reported searches for the signal using the

Very Large Array The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory in the southwestern United States built in the 1970s. It lies in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena, Ne ...

(VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico (which is an array of 27 dishes simulating a single dish with a diameter of up to 22 miles), becoming the first amateur astronomer to use the VLA, and the first individual to use it to search for extraterrestrial signals. The VLA was, until the end of the twentieth century, the most powerful radio telescope ever built. In 1998, he and

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

professor Simon Ellingsen conducted searches using the 26-meter dish at the

Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory The Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory is a radio astronomy, radio-astronomy-based observatory owned and operated by the University of Tasmania, located 20 km east of Hobart in Cambridge, Tasmania. It is home to three radio astronomy antennas ...

Hobart, Tasmania Hobart ( ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent (Tasmania), River Derwent, it is the southernmo ...

. Gray and Ellingsen made six 14-hour observations where the Big Ear was pointing when it found the Wow! signal, searching for intermittent and possibly periodic signals, rather than a constant signal. No signals resembling the Wow! were detected.

Writing

Gray and Marvel published a 2001 paper in ''

The Astrophysical Journal ''The Astrophysical Journal'' (''ApJ'') is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. The journal discontinued its print edition and ...

'' detailing his use of the VLA in search of the signal. Gray and Ellingsen published "A Search for Periodic Emissions at the Wow Locale" in the October 2002 issue of ''The Astrophysical Journal'', reporting on searches for the Wow! signal. In 2011, Gray published the book ''The Elusive Wow: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence'', summarizing what is known about the Wow! signal, covering his own search for the signal, and offering an overview of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. In 2016, Gray published an article in ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' about the

Fermi paradox The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. Those affirming the paradox generally conclude that if the conditions required ...

, which claims that if extraterrestrials existed, we would see signs of them on Earth, because they would certainly colonize the galaxy by interstellar travel. Gray argued that the Fermi paradox, named after

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

-winning physicist

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...

, does not accurately represent Fermi's views. Gray stated that Fermi questioned the feasibility of interstellar travel, but did not say definitively whether or not he thought extraterrestrials exist.

Personal life

Gray lived in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, with his wife, photographer Sharon A. Hoogstraten. He died on December 6, 2021, from complications from lung cancer in Chicago.

Bibliography

Books

* Robert H. Gray, ''The Elusive Wow: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence'' (Palmer Square Press, 2012)

Articles

* "A VLA Search for the Ohio State 'Wow'" ''

'', vol. 546, no. 2, January 2001 (with Kevin B. Marvel)
"A Search for Periodic Emissions at the Wow Locale"
''The Astrophysical Journal'', vol. 578, no. 2, October 2002 (with Simon Ellingsen)
"A VLA Search for Radio Signals from M31 and M33"
''The Astrophysical Journal'', vol. 153, no. 3, February 2017 (with Kunal Mooley)
"An ATA Search for a Repetition of the Wow Signal"
''The Astrophysical Journal'', vol. 160, no. 4, September 2020 (with Gerald Harp, Jon Richards, Seth Shostak, and Jill Tarter)
"The Fermi Paradox Is Not Fermi's, and It Is Not a Paradox"
''

'', January 29, 2016 (first appeared in ''

Astrobiology Astrobiology (also xenology or exobiology) is a scientific field within the List of life sciences, life and environmental sciences that studies the abiogenesis, origins, Protocell, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the univ ...

'', vol. 15, issue 3, March 2015)
"The Extended Kardashev Scale"
''Astronomical Journal'', vol. 159, no. 5, April 2020
"Intermittent Signals and Planetary Days in SETI"
''Intl. Journal of Astrobiology'', vol. 19, April 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Robert H. Living people 1948 births American science writers Amateur astronomers University of Illinois Chicago alumni Shimer College alumni Search for extraterrestrial intelligence