Humans have sought "signs from above” for millennia. The scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) began circa 1960, and, today, grows ever deeper and more technologically diverse. The scope of modern research is breathtaking. Methods include continuous scans over the entire sky for electromagnetic (EM) signals, targeted EM searches near known Earth-like exoplanets, the hunt for exotic forms of communication, and the careful search for ET artifacts on/near Earth.

Our speaker, Dan Werthimer, is Chief Technologist at the Berkeley SETI Research Center. Since 1979, Dan has helped to design and build numerous sensitive tools for the detection of ET. In 2019, Dan earned Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.

This Wonderfest Zoom presentation was recorded on July 7, 2022, and the video was edited by Wonderfest's Neeti Sonth. Wonderfest is the San Francisco Bay Area's nonprofit "Beacon of Science." Please visit wonderfest.org for more information.