SETI: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Income
Good news for alien privacy advocates. After more than 50 years of hunting for alien radio signals, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been called off–not because it hasn’t made contact, but because it can’t make budget. Last Friday, the SETI Institute shut down its Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a field of radio dishes in northern California it had been using to listen for alien radio emissions, while it searches for $5 million to help cover operating costs for two years. For now, the ATA has been put into “hibernation,” SETI CEO Tom Pierson told donors–and this just as planet-hunting progress is booming.