Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence has so far primarily meant focusing on one particular type of signal—and that signal has normally been based on our own current cutting-edge technology. But what if that’s the wrong way to look for signs of alien intelligence? What if a resource-conscious civilization decided it was too complicated to send femtosecond lasers in high-energy bursts across the universe? A new paper, available as a preprint on arXiv, from researchers Dániel Apai, Chia-Lung Lin and Kevin Wagner suggests that might actually be what happens and that we should start looking for long-duration pulsing interstellar beacons.