" Florence Raulin-Cerceau of the Alexandre Koyré Center in Paris has documented the early attempts at communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI), or what is now often called active SETI. As early as the 19th century, inventors imagined "sky telegraph" equipment to communicate with the supposed inhabitants of the solar system's planets," Raulin-Cerceau recently wrote with her colleague in the French magazine Pour la Science. The first of these inventors was Carl Friedrich Gauss , the German mathematician. In the 1820s, he spoke of reflecting sunlight towards the planets with his land surveying invention, the heliotrope. He is also credited with the idea of cutting a giant triangle in the Siberian forest and planting wheat inside." http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_retrospection&task=detail&id=3019

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI_Institute

The Drake equation As interpreted by xkcd

Even though we though we don't have proof, I know it in my bones it's there. Earth can't be that unique considering the size of our universe.

This is the start of a new comic looking at the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. The text for this one would be something like, "If there's one question that plagues me...when will we get confirmation of other intelligent life in the universe?"