Science Week Ireland: Not only might there be alien life out there - they may be looking for us, too.Mr Éamonn Ansbro, an astronomer, heads a programme at the Kingsland Observatory in Co Roscommon which searches for inter-stellar probes.
In other words, evidence that aliens have sent search probes to Earth.
He delivered a lecture entitled "Search for Extra-terrestrial Visitations" at Sligo Institute of Technology last night.
"Why would they be coming here? Why not? If we don't make the effort, we don't find anything," Mr Ansbro said.
The search for alien life has previously centred around radio and optical techniques under the acronym SETI - search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Mr Ansbro said for 40 years, 4.5 million amateurs had been searching for alien evidence through radio receivers and receiver telescopes.
"They are processing potential signals that may be there from an extra-terrestrial civilisation," he said.
SETI participants are not looking to see "if" there are other life forms, but rather operate under the notion that there are aliens and that they are trying to make contact. SETI astronomers like Mr Ansbro set out to find the evidence of that contact.
He argues that since traditional radio techniques have been largely unsuccessful, new methods are necessary for a search of our solar system for evidence of other life forms.
"This is an alternative scientific approach. Instead of actually using radio techniques, this is assuming that we have in our midst extra-terrestrial inter-stellar probes within the solar system and are coming up with a way of detecting them. I think it's important that we widen the search strategy," Mr Ansbro went on.
The Kingsland Observatory in Boyle has high-powered telescopes, cameras recording the sky, tracking systems and for the last 18 months, new SETI tracking instrumentation.
Kingsland astronomers now use a range of detectors including radio, radar, magnetometers as well as infrared, ultraviolet and gamma rays. "The actual operation of the SETI equipment has only been very recent. It's taken three years to develop and only just have an operation now. Hopefully in the next year we might get some data," Mr Ansbro said.
The programme is linked to NUI Maynooth. Mr Ansbro hopes to find data on inter-stellar probes from alien civilisations and also examine atmospheric plasma and other phenomena.