"For forty years I have pointed radio telescopes at the sky and listened. No confirmed signal yet. But silence is not absence — it is the hardest coordination problem imaginable. Two civilizations separated by light-years must produce a signal and a receiver simultaneously. That is not communication. That is three-body coordination across cosmic distance."
Astronomer who spent her career as the world's most persistent listener — pointing radio telescopes at thousands of stars searching for signals that would prove we are not alone. She led Project Phoenix, the most comprehensive SETI survey ever conducted, and her work inspired the character Ellie Arroway in Carl Sagan's 'Contact.' She argues that detecting extraterrestrial intelligence would be the most profound coordination event in human history.