Abstract
In their unrelenting attempt to find evidence for extraterrestrial life, governments have spent many billions of dollars on space probes of various kinds and giant radio telescopes vainly searching the cosmos for intelligible signals from other worlds. On the popular level, reports of sightings and alien landings have proliferated enormously in recent decades. The entertainment media have feasted on mega-profits from this mania (, etc.) for many years, with no end in sight.