  The idea of searching for optical signals from extraterrestrial civilizations
has become increasingly popular over the last five years, with dedicated
projects at a number of observatories. The method relies on the detection of a
brief (few ns), intense light pulse with fast photon detectors. Ground-based
gamma-ray telescopes such as the Whipple 10m, providing a large mirror area and
equipped with an array of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), are ideal instruments
for this kind of observation if the background of cosmic-ray events can be
rejected. We report here on a method for searching for optical SETI pulses,
using background discrimination techniques based on the image shape.
