sdude7 wrote:

Could be. But don't messages/signals simply take one hell of a
longtime to
travel through space? The chances of us listening at the right moment
in the
right part of the sky... And considering the apparent age of the
universe
and the time it appears to take for a civilisation to evolve to a
point
where it develops the technology (similar enough to ours that we would
detect it) and then to take into account how long that civilisation
lasts.... seems that the odds of contact are not really in our favour.
But I
still hope nonetheless. :-)

Keep in mind that even now, our ability to search is very limited.  We
only search the tiniest portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, only
spend a brief time looking at some of the nearest stars, and do so
intermittently.  It is quite conceivable that Alpha Centauri is sending
is signals _right now_ and has been since we started SETI, but we
haven't found it yet because we haven't tuned to the right frequency.

-- 
   Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/  \ To be adult is to be alone.
\__/  Jean Rostand