"British" government officials didn't quash the setting up of an arm of the SETI project at Jodrell Bank radio telescopes in N. England.

Richard Davis, a senior lecturer in physics and astronomy at Manchester University said: "People often wonder why Seti hasn't been successful, but a serious search has not been made to date. This is the first time we've had a system that's really up to the job. If there are any transmissions out there, we'll find them."

As the Monty Python sketch once remarked " There's bugger all (intelligence) down here on earth"