@chakatfirepaw @ReverendMoose @futurebird Seth was describing a search pattern currently being used by the Allen Telescope Array; which is detailed in this paper from last year: iopscience.iop.org/article/10. .

The "piggybacking" term here has a double meaning. It also refers to searching through radio astronomy observations of unusual natural sources to look for any potential artificial ones.

So the array is doing good science, even if it has not found aliens.