Eberhart feels certain that there is a government cover-up somewhere--maybe the result of bureaucratic incompetence, or perhaps the result of a Cold War fear that the Russians would find out what had happened.
"A technical secret can become so big that it keeps itself," he says.
The relationship between the US Government and the investigators of extraterrestrial intelligence still remains strained at times, despite the recent allocation of funds for NASA's SETI project.
"Many people in the government who have never met a scientist might be skeptical," says Bob Arnold, "and the program could still be stopped."
Although he estimates that the cost of SETI to the US citizen is only about "five cents per taxpayer per year," the program is still "met with opposition and ridicule by scientific ignoramuses" on Capitol Hill.
Long-time opponent Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin gave the program one of his famed Golden Fleece Awards in 1978, and late Massachusetts Rep. Silvio Conte and Sen. Dick Bryan of Nevada also have spoken out against the program.
Arnold sees these outbursts as "attempts to grandstand... these congressmen are saying, 'Look at me, I'm the savior of the taxpayers.'"
SETI scientist Frank Drake, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, is considered by many to be the founder of SETI-type research. He agrees with Arnold's assessment.
"In all cases, it was clear that they really didn't understand the project at all, but attacked it to get publicity. Extraterrestrial life gets publicity."
"In the end it backfired, because they got a lot of criticism. But [these people] can be damaging, because funding can be cut. They're very misguided, but they do have impact."
Despite all the skepticism and opposition, the searches, scientific and not, go on. NASA SETI is continuing to expand, and Horowitz is also planning to move on to a bigger radio receiver. Data collected in SETI and CUFOS investigations is useful to research in areas as varied as radio astronomy, sociology, and psychology.
One useful application involves attempts to build compact, ultra-sensitive radio receivers.
"Our receivers picked up Pioneer 10 in 1985. It was a sanity check, a proof of concept. It proved that SETI could pick up a weak transmission. It was a triumph of engineering," says Arnold. Pioneer's signal was 1 watt, no stronger than a Christmas tree light.
But what really keeps the ufologists going are reports of actual sightings. In the Massachusetts area alone, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) investigators have examined about a dozen cases in the last year, including two sightings of 12 to 18 inch glowing green disks near highways, a 30-foot metallic disc seen near Cape Cod in January, a silver domed disc seen in Malden in October of 1990, and two reports of a large angular object, flying at tree level.
Drake thinks that all the research is a result of "wanting to understand the place of humans in the universe." He asks, "What have we become, what can civilization become? Can we lead a benign existence, or is warfare inevitable?"
Arnold states it a little differently: "We're crossing a new threshold in the intellectual life of our species. We may not be the only kids on the block... and the first day of school is about to start."