Alien Hunters: What If ET Ever Phones Our Home?

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

For decades we’ve been sending signals – both deliberate and accidental – into space, and listening out for alien civilisations’ broadcasts. But what is the plan if one day we were to hear something?

If we ever detect signs of intelligent alien life, the people likely to be on the receiving end of a cosmic signal are the scientists of Seti, aka Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

This loose band of a couple of dozen researchers around the world doggedly listens to the cosmos in the hope of catching alien communications. It’s often in the face of scant funding and even ridicule.

They watch signals coming from the world’s largest radio telescopes, looking for anything unusual, or even the flashes of laser “lighthouses” designed to catch our attention.

Seti started as one man using one telescope dish in 1959. Today computers are used to sift through the cosmic radio traffic, flagging up to astronomers any potential calls from extraterrestrial life.

But what might happen if one of those computers found a bona fide alien phone call?

Conspiracy theorists will argue there would be a government cover-up. Even more nervous types might say there would be global upheaval.

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