Robert H. Gray

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, a Great Books school then located in Mount Carroll, Illinois, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1970. He went on to obtain a master's in urban planning and policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago 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.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Gray is best known for his work as an independent SETI researcher. The Atlantic called Gray "the 'Wow!' signal's most devoted seeker and chronicler, having traveled to the very ends of the earth in search of it." 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. (which is an array of 27 dishes simulating a single dish with a diameter of up to 22 miles), The VLA was, until the end of the twentieth century, the most powerful radio telescope ever built. No signals resembling the Wow! were detected. 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 about the Fermi paradox, 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-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, 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, He died on December 6, 2021, from complications from lung cancer in Chicago.