The Universe is huge, there are unimaginably many galaxies, even more stars and planets in it. At least on some of them, according to the theory of probability, intelligent life should have arisen and developed. But why have we not yet met the aliens themselves, or at least traces of their existence? Here are at least 10 good reasons why we are still alone in the universe.
They simply do not exist
Perhaps the simplest explanation you can think of. There are separate detailed theories on the theme that our intelligent life (and indeed all life) on Earth was formed, well, if not as a result of an error, then at least as a result of an absolute accident. Too many factors had to come together to allow us to evolve from some obscure biological cell. Nevertheless, accidents do happen sometimes (sorry for the tautology). Thus, there may well be no other intelligent life in the universe that we are so desperate to find.
They are at the same level of technical development as we are
The universe developed sequentially: at some, strictly defined moment, new elements appeared from a combination of already existing atoms, which became the "building blocks" of galaxies, stars and planets. And in the same way, at some particular moment, life appeared in the universe. And since it took us about 4 billion years to evolve to the current state, then most likely that other life at the completely opposite end of the universe developed according to exactly the same scenario. Yes, maybe there were some other features, but the total development time remained the same. So it turns out that all other aliens in the universe are at the same level of technical development with us, and that is why we cannot establish contact with them.
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They are not interested in us
How often do you come in contact with the ants and beetles that you pass every day? Or let's dig even deeper: how often have you made some kind of connection with bacteria and microorganisms living in your house, in your water, food, bed? But these are whole huge worlds that we simply do not notice. And mostly not because we cannot see them (we can see ants perfectly), but simply because we are not interested in them. There is a theory according to which this is precisely why we have not yet met any aliens, because they are incommensurably more perfect than us and they simply do not care about us.
Earth is a scientific reserve
Today, in the age of atomic weapons, unprecedented technical development and space exploration, several isolated tribes remain on Earth, living in conditions of a primitive communal system. all these tens, hundreds of thousands of years of human history literally passed them by. As they hunted with spears and stone knives, they continue to do so in the 21st century. Scientists know about them, observe them, but do not interfere in their lives, because any contact from the outside can become fatal for them. Guess what this is about? It may well be that we, too, are some kind of isolated territory, where representatives of the higher races have created a "reserve of humanity" and simply observe our primitive life.
We cannot "hear" their signals
A simple example: imagine you are alone on a desert island and you need to signal the rescuers to find you. But you only have sticks, matches and a signal whistle at your disposal. You light a huge fire and whistle desperately, hoping to be noticed or heard. And the problem is that the rescuers only listen to the radio and wait for you to get in touch with them on a walkie-talkie or using a satellite phone. On the scale of the universe, we are the very unfortunate who ended up on a desert island. We are trying to find aliens using a radio signal, but in fact, they may not have been using this technology for millions of years and communicate using completely different means.
They may be very different from us
Another problem with all searches for extraterrestrial life is that we are looking for something similar to ourselves. We are convinced that life requires a certain minimum set of conditions: water, oxygen, a certain temperature and pressure. Simply because in our understanding, no other life can exist. But why suddenly extraterrestrial life should correspond to terrestrial parameters? Maybe somewhere there are living organisms that, for example, consist of minerals, not cells, or consume hydrogen sulfide instead of air, and the place of water is ammonia.
We are very far away
The universe is not just big, it is unimaginably huge. And if scientists say that they have discovered a certain star located at a distance of two million light years from us, it means that they saw the light of this star, which left it two million years ago. What was on Earth two million years ago? The first monkeys began to turn not even into humans, but simply into humanoid apes. And our entire history with wars, empires, civilizations can even take 5-10 thousand years. The bottom line is that a signal sent by any extraterrestrial civilization can go up to us for thousands, millions of years. it is quite possible that the aliens themselves who sent him have long been gone, and we still have not waited for the moment when this signal reaches us.
Uncontrollably spreading life forms kill themselves
The main essence of this theory is that every life has a certain limit of development, after which nature (or the universe, if you will), starts the mechanism of compulsory limitation. A number of scientists argue that this has happened more than once on our planet, when some kind of plant, for example, spread so strongly that it sucked out all the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then another ice age began to rid the planet of this "parasite". It is assumed that when a certain form of life at a certain moment reaches such a development when it begins to threaten the planet or even the entire star system, then it is simply destroyed. That is why we cannot in any way meet other, more developed beings.
We are all someone's computer game
Have you ever thought that you might just be a character in some kind of computer simulation like The Sims? Of course, it sounds cruel: such a person lives, with his thoughts, problems, dreams, but in fact he is just a set of zeros and ones. But again: on our planet, at the present level of technical development, computer technologies are a collection of various combinations of zeros and ones. It is possible that in some more advanced civilization, these technologies have become much more perfect, which allowed them to create such games or programs in which we live.
We stretch out in time
And again a theory that stems from the fact that we (humans) are a very young species. We "listen" to space for only a century and a half, and we look into it attentively from the strength of five centuries. On the scale of the universe (and even on the scale of the history of our planet) these are negligible time intervals. Perhaps there is some kind of super-intelligent extraterrestrial civilization that periodically looks at the Earth just to see how things are going. But their observation period can take thousands, tens of thousands of years. Imagine that they have already flown here when mammoths roamed the Earth, and next time they will arrive in another 2-3 thousand years, when there may be no more people left.