ET Phone Earth - Citizen Scientists Recruited to Help Make the Connection

With so many people interested in the search for alien intelligence, experts have found a way to recruit that interest to help in the search. Fox News reported that a senior astronomer with SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Institute) said all that is required is Internet access and a desire to help out.

"We're looking for a signal that simply says one thing: there's somebody out there clever enough to have built a radio transmitter," SETI astronomer Seth Shostak is reported to have told Fox News.

Shostak said signals are being collected by 42 massive radio telescopes in California, but there are too many for SETI’s computers to analyze. So the public is being recruited to help. Amateur astronomers, even young children with an interest, can download – for free – SETIlive.org.  These citizen scientists can report patterns, particular those seen with the naked eye. If there is enough of a pattern from any one area, the real experts will step in. Some 60,000 people have reportedly already downloaded the program.

There’s been a lot of activity reported on UFO stalker in local skies recently, including. Maybe this is a good area for citizen scientists to try their hand at conquering the final frontier.