Project Argus – A Global Search for our Cosmic Companions

H.P. Shuch (1999), JBIS, 52, 276-285

Refcode: 1999.52.276

Abstract:
The author proposes a radically new approach to microwave SETI. Instead of a small number of extremely large, sensitive radio telescopes, we contemplate a global network of thousands of very small, inexpensive and relatively insensitive amateur instruments, coordinated through the Internet, making up in strength of numbers what they lack in individual sophistication. Network design, instrument design, and the results of a pilot study are discussed, and standards of proof of ETI contact analysed. One advantage of the proposed network is that, when fully operational and properly co-ordinated, it will see in all directions at once, so that no direction in the sky shall evade our gaze. Another is that it will control both Type I and Type II experimental error, by affording us with simultaneous spatial coverage from widely separated terrestrial locations. This will minimise the incidence of false positives experienced by single-instrument searches, while eliminating the false negatives generated by the current temporally-displaced follow-up detection strategy.