Millions of volunteers' home computers helped UC Berkeley narrow a 21-year search for alien signals to 100 priority targets

For two decades, UC Berkeley's distributed computing project enlisted millions of volunteers to donate their home computers' processing power toward scanning radio signals from space for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The effort generated over 12 billion signal detections, but required a decade of rigorous scientific filtering and analysis to separate noise from genuine candidates. Researchers have now narrowed the search down to approximately 100 signals deemed worthy of deeper investigation—a major reduction that represents the most promising leads in the ongoing quest to detect extraterrestrial intelligence.