As though 2020’s turmoil was too paltry to earn a prominent spot in the history books of modern civilization, 2021 took a benevolent look at its younger, mercurial brother, smiled and said, ‘Hold my beer bro, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ And indeed, just as the Covid crisis seemed over in early January of 2021, a newsflash hit the world that was mostly ignored – until it wasn’t.Seth Shostak, future winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, stepped, as SETI protocol dictated, unannounced in front of