Mar 01, 2001

Searching for alien life

Volunteers use computers to analyse radio signals for signs of 'ET'

NEW YORK - Mr Michael Johnson is so committed to finding life in outer space he bought a US$800 (about S$1,390) computer to do nothing but analyse radio signals for signs of 'ET'.

Combined with his two other computers, he has donated nearly two years of processing power to the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (Seti).

'If I'm the one who finds the signal, hooray for me,' said Mr Johnson, 35, an Omaha, Nebraska, resident who works for a long-distance telephone company.

Even if the question of whether 'we are alone' remains unanswered, Mr Johnson is by no means alone.

Nearly 3 million Internet users worldwide have donated their idle processing power to Seti(at)Home, one of about a dozen Seti efforts to detect alien life.

By stringing those computers together, researchers can have a clearer overview.

Seti(at)Home, which runs out of the University of California at Berkeley, uses the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico to record signals from outer space.

Researchers slice those signals and distribute them to volunteers, whose computers analyse the data and send results back for further analysis at Berkeley.

Volunteers only have to connect to the Net and can set the software to do so automatically.

Mr David Anderson, the project's director, says Seti volunteers have already identified myriad 'candidate signals' that warrant further review, though most are likely to be background noise or man-made signals from Earth.

In less than two years, the Seti computers have together completed more than 570,000 years of calculations.

The 550,000 volunteers contribute the power of about twice the world's fastest super-computer, the US$110-million ASCI White, built for nuclear-weapon simulations.

The project has a loyal following. Scores of Seti clubs have formed worldwide. It is highly competitive, with a website tracking the most productive individuals and groups.

Mr Bill Fuller, 56, a computer consultant near Magdalena, New Mexico, understands Seti may never find alien life, but thinks it is worth the effort: 'If you don't look for the things you don't expect to find, you don't find them.' -- AP

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