This is the last recording I will make for this podcast. It is time to finally move on.
I began this podcast with Episode 1 near the end of 2012 when I was in my mid 50s. Although we have been on a very long hiatus since Episode 50, I had the intention that when I retired I would either bring the podcast out of hiatus or permanently end it. As I got closer to that time, I understood that I only wanted to restart the podcast if I could put a fair bit of time and energy into it and put out frequent, quality content. Like the previous episodes, the new ones would be commercial free, audio only, go as deep as we could on our core topics, and would sometimes refer to Douglas Adams.
Now that I am retired, and things are much more real, I have decided that I am not going to do this. I won't revisit all my thinking about this, but part of it is that similar content is now widely available on multiple platforms, often accompanied by skillfully produced video. David Kipping's Cool Worlds is a good example.
So, while I am not necessarily exiting podcasting forever, I am going to meet the commitment that I made to myself not to fade the Wow! Signal without notice, but to unambiguously announce the end of the podcast while expressing my deep gratitude to everyone who participated and who made the content much, much better than I could have made it by myself. I'm proud of our 50 Episodes and 34 Bursts - shorter, more focused episodes - and even the pubs I hosted and enjoyed immensely.
The podcast rss feed and the wowsignalpodcast.com domain will remain up for some time to come, but if you want to listen to any past episodes, I suggest you go to wowsignalpodcast.com and download the .mp3 files that interest you to listen to them at your convenience. I will have many of the episodes available on YouTube as well. If there is an episode you would really like a transcript of, I can probably supply one - just get in touch and I'll see what I can do.
I'm going to thank everyone I can think of, and I apologize in advance if I left anyone out. I'll start with the folks who actually helped me create the podcast, and often had the idea for an episode or burst: Daniela DePaulis, Nick Nielsen, James Garrison, and Mike Mongo. I'm sorry I've been out of touch and hope we can meet up someday.
Now, my many great guests. I'll list their names now. Some of them appeared more than once. There were people I never had on that I regret missing, and if you think I should have emailed you with an appearance request, you may well be right.
Our first guest was Antonio Paris, founder of Aerial Phenomena Investigations. This was followed by:
Geoffrey Landis (twice)
Nikola Danaylov
David Grinspoon (3 times)
Seth Shostak
Bing Garthright
Duncan Forgan (twice), Isaac Stott, Ben Wright McGee
Fraser Cain
Paul Shuch
Geoff Marcy + Ana Heras
Daniel Cartin
Nicholas Joll
Heath Rezabek, Robin Hanson
Steven Dick, Betul Kacar
Duncan Lunan , Alan Penny
Abel Mendez (twice)
Bob Dixon
JL Galache + Duncan Lunan
Tom Barbalet
Andrew Siemion
Martin Elvis
Bradley Schaefer
Tabetha Boyajian
Stella Kafka
Bradley Schaefer
Douglas Vakoch (twice)
Nathaniel Comfort
Ben Montet
Doug Vakoch
Jon Lomborg
Frank White
Sofia Sheikh
Daniel Oberhaus
Beatriz Villarroel
Julia Demarines
Adam Dipert
Stella Kafka
Paolo Costaño
Wade Roush
David Skogerboe
Chelsea Haramia
Thomas Moynihan
In addition, the following people were guests on Bursts:
Mike Mongo
Nora Noffke
Daniel Cartin
Jeff Nosanov
Josh Grindlay
Jason Hessels
Beatriz Villarroel (twice)
Tabetha Boyajian (twice)
David Blank
Also, thanks to our Patreon donors and our Wow! Signal Pub participants, and Erin Carr and Joyce Abma for voiceover help.
Finally, thanks to all the musicians who let me use their music: Ahleuchatistas, Mike Griffin, DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd, Sleep Research Facility, House Band of the Universe, George Hrab, Eben Brooks, and many others.
Well, everything ends sooner or later, and this podcast is ending now. It ran for 12 years, we had a good run, and I am happy I did it.
I hope I'll run into you in real life, or on other platforms or in other projects. I have largely curtailed my social media presence in recent years, but you can still find me on Bluesky. Hey, we may even do another pub someday. See you there?
