Why Aren't The Aliens Here Already? (from NPR)

[cbdo2007]

Why Aren't The Aliens Here Already?

May 27, 2015 8:33 AM ET

The story begins like this: In 1950, a group of high-powered physicists were lunching together near the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Among those in attendance were Edward Teller (father of the nuclear bomb) and the Nobel Prize-winning Enrico Fermi. The discussion turned to a spate of recent UFO sightings and, then, on to the possibility of seeing an object (made by aliens) move faster than light. The conversation eventually turned to other topics when, out the blue, Fermi suddenly asked: "Where is everybody?"

While he'd startled his colleagues, they all quickly understood what he was referring to: Where are all the aliens?

What Fermi realized in his burst of insight was simple: If the universe was teeming with intelligent technological civilizations, why hadn't they already made it to Earth? Indeed, why hadn't they made it everywhere?

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/05/27/409670639/why-arent-the-aliens-here-already

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Interesting discussion in the comments. I think the easy answer is that they just aren't interested in Earth for any reason. The idea of aliens locating Earth from wherever they are, traveling to Earth, and wanting to interact with it's inhabitants and plunder it's resources, is comparable to me walking to Africa to find an anthill and wanting to interact with it's inhabitants and plunder it's resources.

If they are advanced enough to travel here, they would be advanced enough to be able to easily scan our available resources for anything that might be useful to a society millions of years ahead of ours, and would probably find millions of other planets with more useful resources for what they use them for. Gold may be a useful resource here on Earth to our society, but I'm sure there is a lot cooler and more useful resources out there to someone a million years ahead of us.

[Orrex]

1. Why haven't we contacted that one ant hill in the Amazon?

[cbdo2007]

19. No, and they've been trying to contact us for years, sending us ant signals and stuff.

But unfortunately we are too advanced to be able to even recognize their communication efforts.

[Orrex]

20. Those slackers really need to step up their game.

[onehandle]

2. It's always the resource question that is the answer.

If they could come here, they certainly don't need us.

[jberryhill]

3. Simple

They don't have the proper clothing:

[TexasProgresive]

4. Maybe the answer is

intersellar distances are too far to cross at sub light speed. Perhaps that is a physical limit that cannot be crossed. It might happen but I doubt in the few years I have left.

[rock]

39. I like your answer

The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light-years wide. Pick a star at random for the origin of an alien race. It's on average about 50,000 light-years from us. To visit us at near light speed would take 50,000 years. I'm not ready to buy in to FTL (faster than light) travel. And why us? One out of 100 billion stars. These figures come from reliable "Monty Python Galaxy Song" lyrics. How would they ever find us? How have we done in finding them? It's a big place outside my house.

[closeupready]

5. Actually, insight into why 'nobody has shown up' may help explain

how quantum physics is not as limitless as it seems, at first glance.

[cilla4progress]

6. They are!

Read Dolores Cannon!

[fadedrose]

7. I think they are here

and have been, and were here before us. Lots of places to hide in the mountains, the sea, Area 51, and of course, the dark side of the moon.

There are links for this stuff, and I used to know them. But if I looked them up and told you where they were, you wouldn't believe me anyhow.

You can learn all about them on Channel History and History2 in their ancient alien series. They wouldn't lie in a channel called "history," would they? Nothing is sacred

Don't know how much I believe, but just by coincidence, last week they said on History or History2 that they had a special program coming up on Friday night that will PROVE TO EVERYONE that aliens are real. I think it's at 9 or 10 pm, Thurs. or Fri., not sure.

[arcane1]

8. The easiest easy answer is that they aren't there to begin with.

Or if there are spacefaring civilizations out there, they are bound by the same limitations as we are, and there is simply too much space for them to possibly visit every planet.

If a nearby galaxy has a civilization in it, we will never see them except in radio wave form.

[cbdo2007]

22. I don't think that is the easiest answer....

It's much harder for me to believe they aren't out there at all, than to believe that they are out there and can't get here due to distance issues. That, to me, is the easiest of the easy answers, lol.

[arcane1]

25. I'm willing to revisit my estimate if/when we discover FTL travel :)

[AuntPatsy]

9. Makes sense

[Archae]

10. The aliens saw our 50's and 60's TV broadcasts and decided we were a hopeless case.

Not that TV is much better nowadays, but there is more of it...

[Warpy]

11. If they're advanced enough to get here, likely we're worthy of study

the way we study our own "primitive" cultures to get a better idea of our own past as a species. Or Douglas Adams was right and they're just kids, hot rodding through the atmosphere of a planet that's too primitive for words, just to scare the monkeys for a cheap laugh.

Or maybe the universe isn't old enough for any species to have cracked the speed of light barrier and it's all weather balloons.

[progressoid]

45. This wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes

[JHB]

12. There's always the "Rendezvous with Rama" answer...

They're just not that into us, and have more interesting things to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama

[hunter]

13. What, huh? They're all over the place!

Don't you hear them?

[JHB]

14. Here's another disturbing thought...

Someone has to be the first. What if it turns out to be us?

[cbdo2007]

21. Or, what if we are the last?

[Scurrilous]

15. I think the ants are the aliens.

[treestar]

16. If they are that much more advanced that they could get here

they might want to help us. Interesting we think automatically they are like us, that is, would only come for resources.

But agreed it is possible it is just not worth it to them to contact us in any way. Still, if they are human, they'd have to be curious. Imagine a known planet out there to us - would we just leave them alone?

Or maybe there are so many inhabited planets and others closer.

[Stargazer99]

17. It seems to me any life with a rational mind

would have nothing to do with earthlings....they kill each other, steal from, cheat...highly dangerous crowd
In other words they are smart enough to stay the hell away from humans

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Too smart? Too dumb? Or, just not interested?

I think we try too hard to anthropomorphise aliens. We want to make them "like" us with the same ways of seeing the universe. What if they're more like goldfish, or clouds, rocks? Would they be in the least interested in us and our mighty egos that tell us that we're special?

[MineralMan]

23. I think distances are the biggest thing that prevents

such contacts. I have no belief that FTL travel will ever be possible, and without it, interstellar travel or even communications becomes a moot point.

I suspect that isolation is one of the givens in the universe for technological beings. If you can't go somewhere, there's not much point in bothering with contact at all, it seems to me.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

33. The sci fi authors were all over this decades ago.

Back in the 40s and 50s. I don't remember which books it was referenced in, though I suspect Heinlein or Niven, but there were various calculations that suggested it was bloody unlikely that we'd ever meet another intelligent race until we'd been out colonizing other planets for a loooooong time.

[Avalux]

24. Here's the problem with all these suppositions - we are basing them on our laws of physics.

Where are they? (the physicist asks).

Aliens may be here among us, but we are unable to perceive them because they exist outside of the confines of time and space, in another dimension. Our 3D world is something we cannot escape, thus we frame observations and theories from that perspective. Even physicists can be narrow-minded as Fermi demonstrated.

There may be intelligent energy forms without a physical presence (invisible to us), not bound by time, space, location, etc., and without a need for limited resources. Preconceived notions that alien visitors intend to harm us and destroy the planet are nothing but a construct of sci-fi fantasy, courtesy of the human mind.

[inanna]

26. Now that is one hell of a good post!

+ a gazillion....

[Avalux]

28. Thank you!

I'm intensely interested in quantum physics right now....makes sense to me that aliens may not be at all what we think they are.

[inanna]

30. Right. (If) they're out there

I'm not going to automatically assume they mean us harm.

[LongTomH]

27. There have been whole books written on answers to The Fermi Paradox

Not to mention tons of articles. Most of the answers tend to be variants on:

1. The 'Zoo Hypothesis' or it's nicer cousin: 'The Prime Directive' (Star Trek reference),
   
2. The 'Rare Earths Hypothesis' and/or 'The Great Filter' (meaning there is something limiting either the emergence or long-term survival of intelligent species.).
   
3. Civilizations are too far apart and interstellar travel is too hard.

The latter assumption is being challenged more and more; check out the Icarus Interstellar, the Tau Zero Foundation, and 100 year Starship Project webpages.

As for the other explanations, I don't think there is enough evidence to make a final conclusion. I would like all aspects of Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to continue.

[JI7]

29. Maybe they came when the dinosaurs were here

[TampaAnimusVortex]

31. Possibly because a planetary simulation is more probably than a galactic or universal?

Statistically, one should expect many more planetary sims than galactic or universal. Google up Nick Bostrum and he has many good articles about it.

If sims ever exist, then its pretty unlikely that were in the "root" universe.

[Oneironaut]

32. Or, not enough time / space is too big

Humanity is biased - in terms of the universe, earth might not be so special. We expect alien life to come here and see us, or even care about us - why?

It could also be that intelligent life that can manipulate the environment like we can is rare. I would bet that, more often than not, life on planets is cellular or more simple creatures (like the dinosaurs, for example).

Also, recorded history is such a small slice of the earths history. If we do find alien life, it would be very lucky.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. I'm In Total Agreement

Why would a culture with interstellar capability care about us? We're still just barely walking upright compared to them

[Rex]

36. I think care is the wrong word, more like the way we observe animals in a zoo.

IMO.

[Rex]

35. Looking for aliens that are supposedly way beyond our intelligence and perhaps reasoning?

I think people forget that unlike looking for Waldo, looking out into space is also looking back in time. So not only do you have to 'catch' sight of something billions of lightyears away, but also at the exact time it existed! I would think that adds an extra dimension to the difficulty involved.

Also, they don't WANT us to know about them. It might cause BILLIONS of people to freak out and cause untold damage to the human psyche and the world would fall into chaos. Perhaps when we don't all seem to be insane; running around killing each other then pretending life is sacred.

Seriously, if I was an alien I would visit Earth as a form of understanding primitive civilizations. However, under NO circumstances would I violate the Prime Directive.

I leave that for the Capt. to do about every third episode.

[lumberjack_jeff]

37. Because we're alone. Every other explanation is wishful thinking.

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_ward_on_mass_extinctions?language=en

[AngryAmish]

38. I miss Art Bell.

[Orsino]

40. Oh, they're here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hodgman_s_brief_digression

[glinda]

41. They are. They are us and particularly the Conservatives and gas, oil, coal people.

Maybe they see a world where their bodies swim in blackened muck.

[bvar22]

42. Why would any sentient being come to this polluted, crowded, war-loving World...

...when they have the Universe at their feet.

"They" have probably been here, and said, "No Thanks."

[Jamastiene]

46. That is the short and to the point version of what I think.

The human species are not the special snowflakes we seem to think we are. Intelligent life would know to steer clear of fuck-ups like us.

[KamaAina]

43. Who says they're not?

[Krytan11c]

44. There's a real good wait but why article

About the Fermi paradox and the so called "great filter". http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html Worth the long read if you're interested in such things.

[zappaman]

47. You just pissed off the wrong guy!

[fadedrose]

49. "The Ultiimate Evidence"

at 9 pm tonight History Channel presents The Ultimate Evidence, in the Ancient Aliens series, and it's about Tesla. It's a new program.

Georgio Tsuloulos promised me last week that it's a good program, and Georgio never lies.

And even if he is, I love these Friday nights on History Channel, now especially since David is gone, and MSNBC takes me to prison, and Bourdain's probably eating on CNN.

[snooper2]

50. Because they already died when their sun turned into a white dwarf

[valerief]

51. Are you saying most of our SCOTUS and Congress are made up of ***humans***? nt

[Scootaloo]

52. First, we make one reasonable assumption: that there are other sentient beings out there.

we know there are no shortage of "earthlike" worlds - we've found a handfull. And the neat thing about the universe is, it's so vast that if you find two of something, then you're pretty much guaranteed a nearly infinite amount of those things, all told. So, it's pretty much certain there are other inhabited worlds out there, and at least some of them will have developed technological species.

Now we have a few hurdle.

First, space is gigantic. Incomprehensibly large and, for the most part completely empty (well, dark matter, but that doesn't count!) There are tracts of the universe where you have billions and billions of miles between two patches of hydrogen dense enough to be noticed, much less rocky worlds orbiting warm suns.

First-point-five... we have a very limited view of the universe. Essentially we perceive our world as the center of the universe - it's not conceit, it's just how it works out, if our perceptions form a sphere, our planet is the absolute center of that sphere. of course, Earth isn't the center of the universe, physically - which means there are big stretches of the universe that we simply cannot perceive. beyond the limits of our perceptions are yet more worlds which, due to their own spheres of perception, would be totally unaware of us even if they had the means.

Next, our search depends on the notion that these other beings are also searching. This is actually a big problem, because, well... Such searching isn't cheap - ask SETI about funding. We can't just imagine that other species in the universe are quicker to spend their resources on a fruitless scanning of the cosmos than we are. Maybe they never started. Maybe they started and gave up. Maybe they're even doing it with some methods and resources that we just didn't think of (radio is almost certainly not a universal medium.)

Or maybe they're not that advanced. Imagine a historical trajectory of earth without fossil fuels. Or that had it, but humans either never discovered them or decided to not exploit them. We'd still be an intelligent world-altering species... but we certainly wouldn't be leaving orbit on wood-burning rockets!

Or maybe they're just not interested. We're talking about aliens, after all, we can't just assume they share our curiosity about life among the stars. Maybe they're so intent on their own world that they just don't bother thinking bout us or whoever else is out there. Or maybe htye just don't care at all.