Veteran astronomer Frank Drake has been searching for extraterrestrials for a long time -- dating back to 1960. So far, the search has not heard any transmissions from civilizations out there.
But now, with more and more planets being discovered around other stars, there is growing interest in making some contact with possible intelligent life well beyond our solar system. That includes his employer SETI, or the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.
Now Drake would like more antennas and other listening devices to increase coverage of the vast array of planets with possible intelligent life.
And one area he would like to include is in the far north of Alaska. He said would like listening instruments in the Barrow area, to help survey the sky from that far north vantage point. "There is a lot less radio and other traffic there," he said.
Even better, he said, would be looking from a quieter perspective around the village of Atqasuk. "Less radio traffic from there," he said in a recent interview with KBRW in Barrow.
Drake has visited Barrow and vicinity twice in the past decade, where he spoke to high school classes and the public about his search for intelligent life and its transmissions to us.
But what is the difficulty in getting such listening devices in Barrow and Atqasuk? "One word," he said -- "money." He said the SETI organization needs more funding to continue the search, especially with reduced funding from other sources such as NASA.
"We believe we are conducting the most profound search in human history -- to know our beginnings and our place among the stars," said SETI astronomer Seth Shostak, editor of the SETI Institute Explorer magazine.
During the recent KBRW interview, Drake was asked how soon we on Earth might get some word from out in the cosmos from a planet with intelligent life. He said just a guess, but it could be in 30 years or so.
"It depends on how much fishing we do," he added. So perhaps if SETI is able to get listening stations in Barrow and Atqasuk , home of very skilled people who fish, such a connection with other intelligence in our galaxy might be sooner rather than later.
Earl Finkler was a Barrow journalist for years before moving to Wisconsin.