Enrico Fermi, one of the most famous physicists of the 20th century, was a very interesting person. This man was one of the few physicists who achieved success in both theoretical and practical fields. Moreover, “few” is said very softly; people who have achieved similar successes in these practically incompatible concepts can be counted among the entire scientific world on the fingers of one hand. Chain reaction, beta decay, the world's first nuclear reactor - this is not a complete list of cases that were not only justified by him, but also implemented.
In addition, Fermi was interesting in that he constantly generated new ideas in a wide variety of areas, often very far from his element - nuclear physics. Once, talking with his colleague, Edward Teller, Fermi drew his attention to the fact that there are many circumstantial evidence and arguments for the existence of extraterrestrial civilization, however, there is not a single slightest reliable trace of their presence.
Actually, this was later called the "Fermi paradox". At the time of its formulation (1950), it was just a witty physical pun - humanity did not yet have sufficiently perfect means of exploring the Universe, and it seemed that over time, this paradox would be resolved either in favor of the version that aliens do exist, or vice versa, that we, intelligent beings, are one of a kind, a creation of nature.
However, the development of human means of cognition, on the contrary, further deepened and aggravated the conditions of the paradox. It turned out that the potential for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations is not just a lot, but infinitely many. For example, the Kepler telescope, exploring only a quarter of a percent of the area of the celestial sphere, found more than 1,000 planets near the nearest stars and about 4,000 planetary candidates. Even if we assume that one planet out of 1000 is inhabited, then the number of intelligent civilizations in the Galaxy is estimated at tens of thousands! However, we still do not have any direct evidence of the existence of aliens, or any trace of them.
But that's not all. The most surprising thing in the history of Kepler is that its practical results, obtained no more than 10 years ago, were theoretically predicted by the American astronomer Drake in the middle of the last century. This is a unique case in the history of astrophysics, when a theory built on pure probability theory with many assumptions was almost completely confirmed.
What is the end result? On the one hand, we have more and more evidence that other civilizations should exist, but on the other hand, no matter how hard we try to find concrete evidence of their existence, the arguments against it are more and more categorical. It is somewhat reminiscent of a gamble, when the rates grow more and more, but none of the players can win in any way.
Many even have the impression that someone is preventing the earthlings from seeing their "brothers in mind." And, I must say, this impression has a certain basis. The fact is that modern science, as soon as it encounters some new phenomenon, is often very skeptical about any alternative interpretations of this very phenomenon. And in this, in fact, there is nothing wrong, since the scientific method is based on critical thinking and a fairly large amount of skepticism. However, when it comes to space exploration and extraterrestrial life, this approach is quite extreme.
Consider modern physics. In the latest trend of the last century - string theory, as many as 5 hypotheses are considered, completely contradicting each other, but their positions are hotly discussed and, what is especially important, these studies are sponsored. Or, for example, computer science: billions of grants are spent on the study of hypothetical quantum computers (for which the mathematical apparatus has not yet been made), although it is not just far from the results, but it is generally unknown whether they will be … And so on. There are many scientific directions in which a lot of research is carried out, even though they are futile. And only in matters of finding contacts with other intelligent beings, all initiatives, as they say, are cut at the root.
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One can, of course, object that programs have been created to search for extraterrestrial civilizations SETI and the like, that observations are being made, and so on. But, after all, these are all means of passive observation, and in order to be noticed, we must somehow be active … Humanity is further than a dozen "messages to aliens" with the help of radio telescopes, and two "Voyagers" launched outside the solar system, while still not themselves not "designated".
In general, in the serious scientific world, very many scientists regard people searching for extraterrestrial civilizations as fools inventing a perpetual motion machine. Well, or to those who think the Earth is flat. That against the background of tens of thousands of possible inhabited systems, the probability of the existence of which is very high, to put it mildly, strange.
There is another interesting trend. As soon as more or less "sharp" information about some supernatural phenomena appears somewhere, representatives of the authorities immediately appear there and close access to all public information about these phenomena. There are a lot of such cases: from the disappearance or death of all kinds of tourists, such as the Dyatlov group, to the censoring of video recordings of the Apollo flight to the moon.
A separate category is represented by technical means, information about which is kept in the strictest confidence. For example, quite by accident in 2008 it became known about two American spy satellites, built on the principle of the Hubble orbiting telescope, however, having much higher characteristics. The Ministry of Defense immediately announced that these are satellites that monitor all kinds of suspicious activities of various terrorist groups. However, this explanation seems unlikely, since it is inconvenient, to put it mildly, to carry out observations from a telescope of this design behind the Earth's surface.
And so on and so forth. All advanced states have a lot of mysterious technology that has an alleged "military" purpose and therefore classified. But even an analysis of the minimal facts, widely publicized, says that the purpose of these objects is not at all military, but their supposed "secrecy" is just a way to distract attention and discourage the curious from asking too many questions.
If we consider the chronology of the emergence of such prohibitions and strange circumstances, then the picture turns out to be quite amusing: almost all such restrictions were introduced relatively recently, no more than 15 years ago. In 2006, the data on Hubble flights were partially classified, in 2008 - data on all "strange" phenomena recorded by American pilots in the atmosphere, in 2007 - on the results of almost all flights of the Apollo missions.
By the way, about Apollo. In 2006, NASA reported the loss of 700 (seven hundred!) Boxes with video and photographic material filmed by astronauts near the Moon and directly on its surface. Moreover, NASA could not answer any convincing arguments why the records, which were definitely the property of all mankind, disappeared, saying only that “it was not we who kept it, but the center of Gotthard - so ask from them”.
What happened in the world? Why are scientists, politicians and government officials so concerned about issues that, by and large, no one really cared about before?
Here's what happened. In 2002, Bruce Campbell and Steve Young obtained evidence for the existence of planets outside the solar system for the first time in human history. Then, within literally four years, the facts of the existence of almost three dozen such planets were confirmed. And then “Kepler” appeared, finally proving Drake's correctness about the number of planets in star systems.
And more recently, in April 2017, the former head of NASA, Charles Bolden, spoke about the fact that the governments of many countries have long known about the existence of aliens. And all the efforts aimed at classifying "inconvenient" information is just an attempt to keep this fact a secret for as long as possible, since the realization that we are not alone in the Universe can have a very negative effect on our future …
Considering all of the above, we can safely say that the Fermi paradox, once jokingly expressed by him, has been resolved in favor of supporters of extraterrestrial life. While there is still no direct evidence, too many coincidences indicate that we are not alone. Very soon, perhaps in the next century, we will be able, if not to come into contact with other forms of life, then at least we will reliably make sure that they exist.