Why spend millions on something that may or may not exist. Let the aliens spend their money and contact us.
Yeah, we should probably give up looking for a cure for cancer too, because a cure may or may not even exist.
>>> Why spend millions on something that may or may not exist. Let the aliens spend their money and contact us.
I suppose the same argument could be made regarding any philosophical or scientific endeavor. The answer “may or may not exist”, so why search for it.
Perhaps the tabloid type headline misdirected you from what the observatory does. “Aliens” grab readers, but SETI was simply one of the lesser activities carried out there.
The bread and and butter was general conventional deep space studies, search for Earth-threatening asteroids, plot and track for NASA space junk that threaten the space station and general satellite use, etc. The facility is there, it’s a waste to not use it.