Could the greatest search for extraterrestrial intelligence be hiding in one of the darkest places in the universe? That was the question explored by scientists during a workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where researchers gathered to discuss whether an advanced civilization could one day harness the staggering energy of a supermassive black hole. Their objective wasn’t to prove the existence of aliens but to ask a different question: If an advanced civilization did exist, what evidence might it leave behind? Leading the discussion was Olivia Curtis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center. Importantly, the scientists were not claiming to have found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.