It's just around sunset right now, and I'm waiting eagerly to see fireflies.

I grew up with them in Kansas.

I called them lightning bugs.

And they just light up the sky, they're amazing to see.

If you haven't seen them, they're definitely worth a trip to try and find them.

They're typically in wooded, dark areas, and when they light up the sky, it's actually little chemical reactions happening inside of their bodies that they use to communicate to one another.

So I'm really interested to see what they have to say tonight.

As night descended, there was little sign that anything was stirring.

But as the last gasps of sunlight faded over the horizon, fireflies began emerging and lighting up the prairie.

So, our patience paid off.

For a while, I wasn't sure if we were going to see any because we weren't seeing much.

But then slowly, one or two lit up, and th after that, the entire field lit up.

It was like a symphony of fireflies.

To witness fireflies is to watch a beautifully coordinated dance.

By using carefully controlled chemical reactions inside their bodies, they can attract one another in the hopes of mating.

The cadence and location of each of their flashes communicates their potential interest.

Using flashes of visible light to reach out and find one another in an otherwise vast and camouflaged terrain has turned out to be an ingenious adaptation.

It's also a communication technique that may prove to be universal.

For decades, researchers have been searching the radio spectrum for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system.

But researchers have also been looking out into the cosmos for flashes of visible light that could only be produced by technologically advanced life.

If we ever detect a civilization beyond Earth, we may one day use the same strategy as fireflies to communicate across the cosmos.

Getting to see all of them communicating with one another and just actually getting to be out here and witness that is really special.

And so I think at this point, if they're communicating anything, they're probably telling us to shut off the light.