I agree with others that have said "if we are the only ones, it's a terrible waste of space". I held this belief long before the movie "Contact", but it's a very good statement then and now. I'm a disabled AirForce veteran (no, I don't know anything about the "untold stories of project bluebook". This is a project that I have been into since the day I heard about it.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.