SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT (publ. 4/27/2011, page A2)
A story about SETI's loss of funding misstated the role of the Allen Telescope Array in the film "Contact." The telescope array depicted in that film was the Very Large Array in New Mexico, not the Allen Telescope Array.





"There is a huge irony," said SETI Director Jill Tarter, "that a time when we discover so many planets to look at, we don't have the operating funds to listen."


"We have the radio antennae up, but we can't run them without operating funds," he added. "Honestly, if everybody contributed just 3 extra cents on their 1040 tax forms, we could find out if we have cosmic company."

The SETI Institute's mission is to explore the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. This is a profound search, it believes, because it explains our place among the stars.

The program, located on U.S. Forest Service land near Mount Lassen, uses telescopes to listen for anything out of the ordinary -- a numerical sequence of "beeps," say, or crackly dialogue from an alien version of a disembodied "Charlie" talking to his "Angels." The entire program was set up to prove what once seemed unthinkable: In the universe, we are not alone.

Lack of funding

But funding for SETI has long been a headache for E.T.-seekers. NASA bankrolled some early projects, but in 1994, Sen. Richard Bryan of Nevada convinced Congress that it wasn't worth the cost, calling it the "Great Martian Chase" and complaining that not a single flying saucer had applied for FAA approval.

View Allen Telescope Array in a larger map


Plans called for construction of 350 individual radio antennas, all working in concert. But what's lacking now is funding to support the day-to-day costs of running the dishes.


About $5 million is needed over the next two years, according to Tarter. She hopes the U.S. Air Force will help, because the array can be used to track satellite-threatening debris in space. But budgets are tight there as well.

Astronomers mourn

The Allen array is not the only radio telescope facility that can be used for SETI searches. But it is the best; elsewhere, scientists have to borrow time on other telescopes.

Meanwhile, other SETI projects will continue, such as the "setiQuest Explorer" (, an application that allows citizen scientist volunteers to look for patterns from existing data that might have been missed by existing algorithms. Through a new partnership with "Galaxy Zoo" (, this project runs in real time, so discoveries can be followed up on immediately.

Bay Area astronomers mourned the hiatus of the SETI program and expressed concern about the future.

Rob Hawley of the Peninsula Astronomical Society called it "unfortunate. The Allen scope was a wonderful experiment. "... Hubble gets all the press, but there are lots of limitations."

Amateur astronomer Sarah Wiehe of Palo Alto said, "just knowing SETI is there was significant for us. This is a setback."

"If we miss a distant signal," she added, "it would be a terrible loss."

what it means

SETI's mission to explore the prevalence of life in the universe, including about 1,235 possible planets recently discovered, is compromised, according to scientists.

what's next

The program needs about $5 million over the next two years to support the telescope facility.

online extra

To learn more about SETI and its programs, go to