Nikolai Kardashev

Nikolai Kardashev (1932-2019) was a Soviet/Russian astrophysicist and pioneer in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Graduating from Moscow State University in 1955, he earned his PhD in 1962 and led early Soviet SETI efforts, studying CTA-102 quasar in 1963, proposing it as potential alien evidence—later disproven. In 1964, he published 'Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations,' introducing the Kardashev scale classifying civilizations by energy use: Type I (planetary), Type II (stellar), Type III (galactic). He organized the 1971 Soviet-American CETI conference at Byurakan Observatory with Carl Sagan. Awarded the Demidov Prize in 2014, his scale remains central to SETI and futurism, though no direct UAP/UFO or military program links exist.