Nick writes:

> We are looking for radio waves because that is the state of our
>  technology
>  today.  For example, maybe another civilization communicates with lasers
>  or
>  some other technology we have not even dreamed of yet. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The answer that Carl Sagan gave 40 years ago to these same comments --
especially when they were offered as criticisms of even beginning the radio
search, simply because it was in all likelihood too primitive to be a medium
used by advanced civilizations -- was basically an agreement to the
criticism: The analogy he used was that of an aborigine on New Guinea, but
one who was extremely proud of the level of technology they had achieved. By
beating on the drums on the side of one hill, his message could be relayed to
the next hill, and then the next, and eventually make it across all of New
Guinea in just a day or so, a distance that would take him many months to
walk. And while he and his entire community could rightfully be extremely
proud of what they had accomplished, they nevertheless could be in the midst
of a massive international radio communications network that was going on all
around them -- and actually right through them -- and never have the
slightest idea that it was there.

But, as Sagan said, if you're one of the aborigines, and all you have are
drums, all you can do is try to beat your drums a little louder and a little
longer. For us, radio is all we have and all we know. We have to do this --
simply because we know nothing else.

As to other technologies, optical seti (which is really just another form of
radio) is being actively pursued at several locations: Berkeley, Columbus,
and Harvard. Some of their URLs are:

     http://www.coseti.org/
     http://www.artofelectronics.com/oseti/
     http://seti.ssl.berkeley.edu/opticalseti/

Wirt