There are probably thousands of planets similar to ours, but we have never heard of any life form like human life. And we are not the first generation to question life beyond Earth.
In fact, Enrico Fermi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist for his research into radioactivity and nuclear reactions, also thought the possibility was very likely.
That was why, one day, while sitting in a cafe with friends, he proposed the following question: “Where is everyone?”
In 1950, this question became known as the Fermi Paradox. After all, how can we not have any evidence of alien life when it is very likely that it exists?
Fermi argued that an alien civilization with a solid space program could take just 10 million years to take over our entire galaxy. Considering that the Milky Way has existed for 10 billion years, one would imagine that they had many chances.
The Zoo Hypothesis
One hypothetical answer to the Fermi Paradox is the Zoo Hypothesis, proposed by MIT astronomer John A. Ball in 1973.
It suggests that aliens know we Earthlings are here, but are purposely avoiding contact, choosing to study us from afar.
In other words, it’s as if we were animals, the Earth was a big zoo and the aliens were curious visitors who just looked at us, without touching or feeding these animals.
Ball further suggested that perhaps alien civilizations are advanced enough to know not to influence our primitive society, or not to engage with other intelligent life forms.
In fact, the astronomer presented 10 possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox, with the Zoo Hypothesis covering two of them: the first that aliens are studying us only casually and the second because they find us “interesting” and therefore are paying attention. However, in both scenarios they are avoiding us.
Another of the solutions proposed by Ball, and outside the idea of a zoo, is that aliens know that we exist, but they simply don’t care.
In this scenario, he points out that we pose no threat and have nothing they want.
“This is a likely but very unpopular response, as it seems to degrade the importance of humanity, and we don’t like to feel unimportant,” Ball wrote.
However, the most popular answers to the Fermi Paradox are that alien life is either still very primitive or has already existed and is over.
But these are just hypotheses. Until some contact is actually established, we will never know the answer.
