SETI pilot survey tests game-theory strategy for alien signal timing, finds no evidence

By the Everything Space news desk · 03 Nov 2026 · written from the sources below

Image: Phys.org

Researchers used the Allen Telescope Array to scan a point in the sky where distant civilizations might independently choose to send a signal, establishing a new search method though no technosignatures were found.

Researchers at the SETI Institute have begun a multiyear radio survey built around a new idea: that an alien civilization trying to reach Earth might pick a specific time and place to transmit, based on shared astronomical landmarks rather than prior communication.

The method borrows from game theory's concept of a 'Schelling point,' a choice two parties might independently make to coordinate without talking beforehand. Applied to SETI, the team proposes that a distant civilization watching Earth pass in front of the sun could use that transit to calculate a precise moment and direction to send a signal. From Earth's point of view, that direction is the 'anti-solar point,' the spot in the sky opposite the sun.

Using the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, the team ran a three-night pilot observation in the summer of 2023, gathering about 17 hours of data and nearly 32 terabytes of information. The scan logged roughly 1.9 million radio signal detections, but after filtering, none could be attributed to extraterrestrial technology. All were traced to human-made interference.

Although no technosignature was found, the pilot served as the first real test of a long-standing theoretical proposal and gave researchers sensitivity limits for the search, showing that transmitters as powerful as the former Arecibo planetary radar could have been detected at distances up to about 124 light-years.

The team has since logged more than 121 additional nights of observation as part of a larger campaign expected to run for several years, tracking the anti-solar point as it shifts position with Earth's orbit. An automated signal-processing system developed for the project helps separate potential candidate signals from the much larger volume of terrestrial interference.

The researchers describe the approach as a way to think about SETI searches from the perspective of a potential sender rather than only as a receiver, and they plan to publish results from the first year of the expanded survey in the future.

Written in Everything Space’s own words by our news-desk model from the sources above, and checked against them in code: every number in this report appears in its sources, and no sentence is copied from them.