The search for extraterrestrial
life is an old, old hunt.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the inventor
of alternating current (AC), claimed to
have detected signals from an extraterrestrial
intelligence in 1901 with a tall,
copper-insulated tower. In fact,
he was listening to discharges from
distant lightning.
The project we call SETI -- the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence --
really began in 1959 when
Giuseppe Cocconi and
Philip Morrison advocated using radio
waves to look for signals
from extraterrestrial civilizations.