Seth V Stan The Re Match
One of the great set-piece ufological battles of last year was when nuclear physicist Stan Friedman took a break from his busy round of nuclear physicisting and confronted SETI scientist Seth Shostak on the American "Coast To Coast" radio show hosted by George Noory. The debate was was reported in much of the UFO media almost in term of a boxing bout (e.g.: http://www.theufochronicles.com/2005/02/great-ufo-debate-friedman-v-shostak.html)

Friedman is pretty scathing about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or at least when it has capital letters and Seth Shostak is conducting the search:

"Although SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been getting a free ride from the popular press and the scientific community, a closer examination of its assumptions (there is no evidence to examine) clearly indicates it is basically a cult movement with the acronym really standing for Silly Effort To Investigate".

Shostak naturally doesn't agree, and a forthcoming book, "Confessions of an Alien Hunter", published by the National Geographical Society, sets out his views on SETI and UFOs. Get ready for round two, because Stan's not going to like this bit in the promotional blurb:

"The UFO phenomenon has gone beyond being simply a popular myth; it is a cause c'elebre for many who feel that the government and the science establishment are conspiring to squelch the news of alien presence. Despite the drama and appeal of this argument, there's little evidence to support it... It's quite possible that by the year 2025, conclusive evidence for a civilisation light-years distant will be found. Reports of UFOs, which have taught us nothing, will be supplanted with a torrent of data, beamed from deep space on a radio wave or a laser beam."

Where's that torrent of data coming from, and what's it going to tell us? You'll have to read Shostak's book to find out, but it looks like the SETI crowd can do vague speculation as well as anyone:

"...what we might discover somewhere out there, existing among the stars. It is likely that the true intellects of the cosmos are non-biological, and some of them will be privy to wisdom accumulated over ten billion years. What, if anything, they would tell us, and what their existence would portend for both Homo sapiens and the future of the universe...?"

Get a ringside seat here...