August 11, 2015: SETI - Seth Shostak

Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer and director of SETI Research, joins Art Bell for a conversation that turns into a direct confrontation with claims made by Stephen Greer on a previous broadcast. Shostak describes the Allen Telescope Array scanning 30 million channels simultaneously and credits Moore's Law for doubling search capability every few years.

Art Bell plays audio of Greer claiming SETI founder Frank Drake told him the institute received and suppressed interplanetary signals. Shostak responds that he personally asked all four scientists connected to the project, including Drake, and none had heard of Greer. He notes Greer places the Wow signal at Harvard when it was detected at Ohio State, and asks why a privately funded organization would suppress the discovery that would secure its future. Shostak confirms he chaired the committee that wrote international detection protocols, which contain no secrecy provisions. On the Wow signal itself, decades of follow-up with more sensitive equipment have never reproduced it, and modern real-time analysis has eliminated the ambiguous detections that plagued earlier methods. After decades of searching, no confirmed extraterrestrial signal has been received.

A sharp, good-humored exchange between a veteran broadcaster and a scientist willing to answer every challenge directly.