Man is truly gearing up to make an Extra-Terrestrial contact the soonest possible time with a funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, one of the richest men on Earth.

Allen pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life.

Thomas Pierson, director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) said “with the contribution, Allen will have given $US25 million ($33.32 million) for construction of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a network of 350 radio telescopes being built to find signs of life in space.”

In a statement, SETI said scientists will use radio telescopes to measure the density of the early universe, the formation of stars and magnetic fields, and they will also be capable of searching for “possible signals from technologically advanced civilisations elsewhere in the galaxy.”

The announcement of Allen’s donation coincided with the completion of the project’s research and development phases, which Allen funded with an $US11.5 million ($15.33 million) donation.

The $US13.5 million donation will pay for the first two phases of construction of the ATA, according to the statement.

One network of 32 telescopes will be available for research by the end of 2004 and the entire network of 350 telescopes will be completed “late in the decade,” it said.

SETI and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory of the University of California at Berkley teamed up for the ATA project.

“I am very excited to be supporting one of the world’s most visionary efforts to seek basic answers to some of the fundamental question about our universe and what other civilisations may exist elsewhere,” Allen said in a ceremony in Mountain View, California, where SETI is based.

With this effort to contact ETs in a very logical and technical way, would mean that mankind’s consciousness is now gradually shifting to another level wherein we want to accept the existence of other life forms in the Universe.