SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation
Alien-Hunting School Employee Resigns - Phoenix News Story - KPHO Phoenix
Slashdot Science Story | SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation
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Processing Power May Have Cost School District More than $1 Million
He searched for UFOs, aliens and creatures from outer space.
Brad Niesluchowski has resigned from the Higley Unified School District in Gilbert after allegedly downloading software that seeks out alien life forms.
"We support educational research and certainly would have supported cancer research," said Higley superintendent Denise Birdwell. "However, as an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T."
Birdwell held a news conference Monday, where she stated that the former technology supervisor downloaded a University of California Berkeley program known as SETI@home onto more than 5000 district computers.
The program seeks out people around the world to volunteer their home computers to scan data in the search for extra terrestrial intelligence.
Birdwell said the massive software slowed down educational programs in every classroom and cost the district more than $1 million in added utility fees and computer replacement parts.
Apparently, the alien-seeking software had been running since Niesluchowski was hired nearly 10 years ago.
"Basically our processors were hooked up and running 24 hours a day, 12 months a year, every day of the school year," Birdwell said.
Niesluchowski's wife, Susan, insisted her husband is a good man and great father who did nothing wrong.
She said the software was authorized by a previous administration and her husband has better things to do to than look for aliens.
"We have seven kids together," Niesluchowski's wife said. "When do you have time to do these things? He is responsible person. Why would he want to do something like that? "
However, according to the Seti Web site, Niesluchowski was a hero in the alien seeking world.
His screen name Nez showed that he was the most active alien seeker for Seti in the entire country.
Gilbert police are now involved in the investigation and criminal charges may be filed.
