The Hiss That Was the Big Bang
Two scientists couldn't get rid of a faint hiss in their radio antenna. They blamed the pigeons. It turned out to be the echo of the beginning of the universe.
What was reported
In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working with a huge horn-shaped antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. Wherever they pointed it, day or night, they heard a faint, steady hiss of radio noise.
They checked every part of the equipment. Pigeons had been nesting in the horn, so they cleaned out what they politely called a white dielectric material, and chased the birds away. The hiss stayed.
Explanations offered
It was the cosmic microwave background: the faint afterglow of the Big Bang, filling the whole sky, predicted by theorists but never heard. Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Part of the static on an old untuned television came from it.
- When
- 1964–1965
- Where
- Holmdel, New Jersey, USA
- Witnesses
- Two radio astronomers at Bell Labs
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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