If E.T. phones earth, he'll get a "disconnect" signal. Lacking the money to pay its operating expenses, Mountain View's SETI Institute has pulled the plug on the renowned Allen Telescope Array, a field of radio dishes — popularized in the Jodie Foster film "Contact" — that scans the skies for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. In an April 22 letter to donors, SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson explained that last week the array was put into "hibernation," safe but non-functioning, due to inadequate government support. The timing couldn't be worse, say SETI scientists. After millenniums of musings, this spring astronomers announced...