The head of one of the US’s national observatories says the search for intelligent life somewhere in the universe needs to be paid attention to additional.

Dr. Anthony Beasley told the BBC that there ought to be more prominent government support for a field that has been evaded by government research funders for decades.

His backing for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti) marks a sea change in attitudes to a field viewed as of not long ago as fringe science.

Dr. Beasley offered his comments at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle.

The director of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville in Virginia said that it was currently “time for Seti to come in from the cold and be properly integrated to all other areas of astronomy”.

Dr. Beasley’s comments come as one of the private sector funders of Seti research about reported that the Very Large Array (VLA) observatory in New Mexico would join the push to distinguish indications of intelligent life on different worlds.

The VLA is a multi-antenna observatory and home to what is viewed as one of the best compared to other prepared telescopes on the planet.

As per Dr. Andrew Siemion, leader of the Breakthrough Listen science group at the University of California, Berkeley’s Seti Research Centre, the joining of the VLA would expand the chances of finding intelligent life by “10-or even 100-fold”.

“We are now set for the most comprehensive all-sky survey [for extra-terrestrial intelligence] that has ever been accomplished,” he told the BBC.

Similarly significant, as indicated by Dr. Siemion, is the credibility that the VLA’s inclusion brings to the field.

“We would like to see Seti transformed from a small cabal of scientists and engineers in California, isolated from academia to one that is as much an integral part of astronomy and astrophysics as any other field of inquiry.”

Breakthrough Listen is a privately funded project to search for intelligent extraterrestrial communications all through the universe. The 10-year project started in 2016, funded by the billionaire Yuri Milner as much as $100m (£77m).

The UK’s Astronomer Royal, Professor Lord Rees, is the chair of the association’s international advisory group. He told the BBC that, given that the multi-billion pound Large Hadron Collider had not yet accomplished its aim of discovering sub-atomic particles past the present theory of physics, governments ought to consider modest funding of two or three million pounds for Seti.

“I’d feel far more confident arguing the case for Seti than for a particle accelerator,” he said.

“Seti searches are surely worthwhile, despite the heavy odds against success, because the stakes are so high”.

Nasa once financed the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence as much as $10m every year. However, the funding was rejected in 1993 after the presentation of legislation by Senator Richard Bryan, who trusted it to be a waste of cash.

“This hopefully will be the end to the Martian hunting season at the taxpayer’s expense,” he said at the time.

There has been no huge public funding for Seti in the US or anyplace else on the planet since, albeit alleged astrobiology searches for proof of basic organisms from the chemical signatures in the atmosphere of different universes get expanding backing.

At that point, the initial few planets orbiting distant stars were found, yet it was not known whether this was the norm. Everyone presently realizes that it is – almost 4,000 have been found to date.

It is this improvement, as indicated by Dr. Siemion, that has persuaded many respected researchers that the search for intelligent life on different universes ought to be paid attention to additional.

“Ever since human beings have looked up at the night sky and wondered ‘is there anyone out there?’ We now can answer that question, and perhaps to make a discovery that would rank as the most profound scientific discoveries in the history of humanity”.