I wasn’t searching for aliens.All I ever wanted was to watch the stars—those patient, burning witnesses to time. From the terrace of my house, with a modest telescope and two phones, I sometimes sat from 10 p.m. to dawn, tracking constellations, waiting for glimpses of Saturn’s rings or Jupiter’s moons. I especially timed my sessions to 4 a.m., when Zeta Reticuli would rise, faint but present in the southern sky.But it wasn’t 4 a.m. that night. It was 11.The sky was still and heavy. Stars hung motionless like pinholes in a velvet sheet. I had just begun observing when I