India, Oct. 12 -- What does it look like, our history of trying to find alien life? How far back does it go? Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American innovator who helped advance radio communication and the adoption of electricity, is tinkering with a radio-wave receptor when he picks up strange repeating beeps. He thinks they are from aliens attempting to reach us. It turns out they're just cosmic noise; chirps from the magnetic fields disturbed by large planets in our solar system. Already, though, the idea that we might someday "meet the neighbours" is generating excitement. The eccentric astronomer David Todd convinces the US Navy to help him listen for signals from our nearest neighbour, Mars. As its orbit swings it closer to Earth than it h...