The year 1979 marks the 20th anniversary of the first publication in a scientific journal of a realistic strategy of a search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. The article, entitled "Searching for Interstellar Communications", was written by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison, both then of Cornell University and appeared in NATURE.* By perceptive, incisive reasoning the authors develop the proposal that a search be made of some of the nearest sun-like stars for signals at or near the 21 ,-centimeter wavelength of neutral hydrogen.
It is most appropriate that in this, the first issue of COSMIC SEARCH, this article by Cocconi and Morrison, now a classic of classics, is reproduced (with mathematics omitted). For historical interest, the first page of the article is reproduced just as it appeared. Following this article, Morrison reflects on the search from the perspective of two decades.--Eds.

