How is it possible that we have not encountered aliens yet? This seemingly asinine question was first asked in the previous century by an Italian physicists Enrico Fermi. However, Fermi’s question is completely justifiable. There are billions of galaxies in the universe, each of them hiding billions of stars, and each star can be orbited by up to several planets. Statistically, the Milky Way should therefore be inhabited by hundreds, if not thousands of civilisations much more advanced than we are. For many years, scientists have been listening to signals from space, observing all possible proofs of the existence of alien civilisations. So far without any success. The universe is unnervingly calm. Where are all the aliens?
Today, the question Fermi asked is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of astronomy and has earned the nickname the Fermi paradox. After all those years, the question has passed through many curious brains, and many reasonable as well as crazy hypotheses have been created. Let us now explore some of them.
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER ONE
We are alone. Perhaps we are the product of a unique product of tremendous coincidences that has not occurred anywhere else in the whole gigantic universe. Do you remember the first living organism on Earth from the previous chapter? Maybe the birth of such an organism is so incredibly unlikely that it just did not happen anywhere else.
Or perhaps the universe is filled with unicellular organisms but only here on Earth did these organisms feel the need to create something more complicated. That would not be very surprising – after all, even our own prokaryotic cells took two billion years before they finally had the courage to a more complex eukaryotic cell, which is crucial for the development of intelligent life.
But maybe there are plenty of complex animals on the surface of other planets, but none of them are intelligent enough to communicate with us – perhaps the development of a highly intelligent species similar to Homo sapiens is unique, and other space objects are inhabited with animals that lack considerable intellect, just like here on Earth 65 million years ago.
However there are some grimmer possibilities as well. What if there were many intelligent species on various planets but every time a catastrophe occurred that destroyed them? There are many possible catastrophes, but one of them stands out amongst the others – self-destruction. Perhaps all civilisations in the universe unintentionally destroy themselves long before they are able to explore the surrounding space. A nuclear war or an irreversible change in a planet’s climate would safely cause such a destruction. After all, both of the scenarios threaten today’s humanity as well. Who knows, perhaps we will join these hypothetical unsuccessful civilizations that simply destroyed themselves.
Whatever the case, if this hypothesis were true, we would be completely alone in the entire universe. No exciting encounters with other thinking beings would ever happen.
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER TWO
There are intelligent civilizations in the cosmos but there are so few of them that we do not have the slightest chance of encountering them. If the closest advanced civilization inhabited one of the surrounding galaxies, we would most likely never be able to communicate with it in any way.
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER THREE
The universe swarms with civilizations, but aliens do not want to communicate with us. This hypothesis is the most disturbing. Why do they refrain from communication?
They might have a good reason. Perhaps our galaxy is ruled by an immensely advanced alien civilization, whose technological advancement we cannot even imagine. It might not be very wise to let such a civilization know that we exist by sending out radio signals in all directions. Maybe an intelligent rival like us is the last thing these superintelligent aliens would want. They might be determined to wipe out all potential threats in the form of smart organisms before they are able to advance enough. That would explain the absence of radio signals from alien civilizations – they might be all around us but are much more vigilant than us.
Even a famous physicist Stephen Hawking expressed his worries about perpetually sending various messages into the cosmos. He proclaimed that our potential encounter with a vastly advanced alien civilization might end up like the meeting of the civilizations of Europe and America in the late 15th century. We might become the modern Indians.
Silence and watchful observation may therefore be the wisest things to do today. We do not have any clue as to how it works in our corner of the galaxy, and it would be sad to be unpleasantly surprised as a result of our frivolity.
But perhaps aliens do not communicate with us for a completely different reason. What if they simply are not interested, since we are simply too stupid? When we go visit a zoo, we do not burn with desire to talk to a bear – even thinking about it seems a bit amusing. Not only is a bear unable to understand the theory of relativity, evolution, or gravity. It can also never understand even the simplest concepts that we find completely normal – going to school, driving by car or even brushing one’s teeth.
Maybe the intellectual level of aliens is so incomparable to ours that our primitive brains would never be able to understand anything about their lives – even their alien babies might be a thousand times smarter than the smartest people of the planet, and quantum mechanics might be just as easy for them as the equation 1 + 1 = 2. Aliens might perceive us as endearing ant-like creatures that are not even worth their attention.
Keishinrei 