[erdos4d]

I can't understand SETI at all. We have been listening to the sky for over 40 years with radio scopes and have found nothing, yet funding is persistently available to keep it up. Meanwhile, there are credible reports of UFO/UAP/whatever flying about and nobody will put sensors out to try to gather data on those things. Just recently the US congress has hearings about how the US does not really control its own airspace due to these objects buzzing about, many of which are reported to so radically outperform available human tech that there is only one plausible explanation for them. Yet the SETI community is complete crickets on this issue. Is the goal of SETI to fail? Is it just a radio astronomer job program? Is the UFO stigma really that great? I honestly don't understand doing something that fails consistently when there is ample evidence of a successful outcome by observing things right here on Earth.

[macksd]

Possibly it's just a matter of astronomers being particularly interested in this topic and pursuing it the way they're best qualified to, because we happen to already have all sorts of equipment for gathering signals.

I like the idea of gathering more data on UFO sightings as there have been very credible reports shared by the military lately, but what other sensors do you think would be practical to deploy? They may happen a lot overall, but you can't predict where to place sensors. We see them now because someone happens to have a camera pointed in the right direction, or because they show up on some broad-area radar. What else could be deployed in a practical way to gather meaningful data?

[ASalazarMX]

They observe things right here on Earth, even up to the orbit of satellites. That effort, no matter how secretive, is very well funded. Now, looking for a needle in the universal hay stack takes time and dedication, you can't seriously expect a massive sky scan to be completed in four decades, specially when the funding is not that generous.

[akvadrako]

The reason is that there are no credible reports of UFOs that make one think alien.