Life in outer space? Japan astronomers hunt aliens

uk.reuters.com...

The project, led by Japanese astronomers, will bring together a dozen or more observatories from all over the country to study one star that researchers see as a potential home to an extraterrestrial civilization.

This article struck me as being very interesting as there are so many members here who talk about how every major government in the world knows about the existence of extra terrestrial life and that they ridicule or even assasinate anybody that would suggest such a thing. Also, apparently Japans government denies any knowledge or cases of UFO's similar.
So Japan, the leading country in technology has set up a search for the possibility of life in the universe.
First signs of disclosure?
At first glance it just seems like a Japanese SETI but seems much more complex than that with astronomers studying and recording radio signals from one star over several nights next year. Any thoughts on what star this might be?

This seems to be a pretty large project so do you think it's a serious quest for life out there or just a miniscule headline to keep the 'UFO nutters' happy which will disappear out of the media never to be heard of again?
I look forward to hearing your opinions.