Week of September 15, 1997  Week of January 12, 1998

Welcome to this web site. Here you will find a different approach to The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  The Optical Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherwise known as Optical SETI (OSETI), seeks to detect pulsed and continuous wave laser beacons signals in the visible and infrared spectrum.   This web site contains an extensive amount of documentation about OSETI.  It also is the means by which The Columbus Optical SETI (COSETI) Observatory will distribute data of its observations after it comes on-line later this year.  In 1998 it is hoped to put out real-time data over the Internet.  Later, remote control of the observatory over the Internet may become possible.

The COSETI Observatory is a pioneering prototype observatory located in Bexley, Ohio, USA, just four miles from downtown Columbus and close to Port Columbus International Airport. Bexley is the place made famous by syndicated columnist and best selling author Bob Greene.  Telescope aperture size is 10" -- somewhat smaller than those huge radio dishes we are so used to seeing in TV programs and movies about ETIs!

If you have been knowledgeable about SETI for some time or have recently seen the movie CONTACT (the reader is highly recommended to see this wonderful film), you will be aware that little or nothing has been said by the "official" Microwave SETI (MSETI) community to indicate that there is indeed a viable optical approach to SETI.   This web site seeks to redress this and show that not only is OSETI a sensible scientific endeavor, but that it is more likely that ETIs would use lasers for their interstellar SETI-type communications than radiowaves.  The question is "Would ETIs use hot photons (visible or infrared) or warm, fuzzy ones (microwaves)?".   Within these pages I aim to prove that "hot photons" are far superior for wideband interstellar communications.  By this means, I hope to encourage other professional and amateur scientists to conduct their own OSETI research.   Contributions of OSETI articles and data to this web site from scientists, engineers and enthusiasts are requested.

Dr. Stuart A. Kingsley
Director, The Columbus Optical SETI Observatory