Dr. Robin Corbet, a NASA scientist, has come up with an interesting new idea: aliens may have ceased trying to talk to people because they got tired or lost interest.
In his article “A Less Terrifying Universe?” In “Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox,” Dr. Corbet looks into the idea of “radical mundanity,” which means that aliens might not be as advanced as we think they are.
He says that alien societies might simply have technology that is a little better than ours, like having a “iPhone 42 instead of an iPhone 17.” He contends that this viewpoint is more plausible than the assumption that extraterrestrials possess extraordinary capabilities, such as faster-than-light travel or machinery powered by dark energy.
Dr. Corbet wrote, “With this principle, the idea that the Galaxy has a small number of civilizations is preferred, where none have reached the level of technology needed for large-scale astro-engineering or don’t want to.”
Dr. Corbet works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He thinks that even if aliens could send powerful beacons or probes, it would take a lot of energy and time—maybe millions or billions of years—for a reply. He thinks that after such long periods of time, they may have just lost interest.
“They don’t have machines that can travel faster than light or that use dark energy or dark matter.” He told The Guardian that they are not using new rules of physics.
This idea is related to the Fermi Paradox, which wonders why we haven’t found any signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life yet, even though the universe is so big and there is a good chance that life exists elsewhere.
Dr. Corbet’s explanation makes the universe seem “less scary” and maybe more normal. In this reality, alien civilizations exist but don’t want to contact us, so we are left waiting in silence.
More than 5,500 exoplanets have been found so far, and many of them are in the habitable zones of their stars, where life may possibly flourish. Scientists are still looking for biosignatures and other signs that could one day prove that we are not alone.