Aliens haven't bothered with Earth as there is no signs of intelligence, says scientist

A scientist has come up with a rather embarrassing reason for why Earth hasn't been contacted by aliens yet - we're sadly just not intelligent enough for them.

A new paper published by Cornell University titled 'The Fermi Paradox revisited: Technosignatures and the Contact Era' proposes that aliens are more interested in finding signs of highly advanced technology rather than new signs of life.

Therefore if that is true, aliens would have probably looked out our technology here on Earth and not thought much of it and instead turned their attention elsewhere.

The paper, written by astrophysicist Amri Wandel also suggests that life might not be as uncommon in the known universe as we perceive but that our own technosignatures, such as radio broadcasts, haven't reached alien civilizations yet.

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Wandel writes: "If biotic planets are so abundant that habitability and life alone do not provide a sufficient motivation for alien interstellar exploration, planets with technosignatures may attract alien civilizations to send probes."

As Earth only sent its first radio broadcasts to space less than 100 years ago only a civilization that is 50 light-years away could have detected them. Although this covers 15,000 stars it is still a miniscule amount given the number of stars that exist in the galaxy.

Wandel adds: "The probability that a civilization is located close enough to Earth, to detect our radiosphere and send a space probe that would reach the Solar System at present is found to be very small, unless civilizations are extremely abundant."

So although we might think that Earth has impressive technology down her and it does, the signs of it just haven't reached a distant civilization just let but it could just be a matter of time. Wandel writes: "As it expands, the probability that Earth’s radiosphere will engulf an alien civilization increases with time."

However, don't get too excited as Wandel speculates that it could take hundreds of thousands of years to happen.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.