Scientists involved in programs for the search and communication with extraterrestrial civilizations (EC), once again tried to answer the question of why none of the scientific groups have so far been able to receive intelligent signals from space. After all, if we are not alone in the Universe and technical progress itself is not an achievement of only one earthly civilization, then space should already be filled with signals from other intelligent beings.
At least some part of the VC should be at a higher stage of development in comparison with earthlings and send into space much more powerful signals than those that modern earth technologies are capable of, and these signals should travel very long distances and be captured by means already in service with modern researchers.
Attempts to resolve this paradox (Fermi Paradox, named after the American physicist of Italian origin Enrico Fermi (1901-54)) have already been made more than once, for example, it has been suggested that the emergence of reason (or, more precisely, such civilizations that are developing along the path of mastering scientific knowledge and technical means) - the event is actually very rare, and we simply are not able to "shout" to each other, overcoming the immense space separating us.
Another option is that life and even mind in the Universe are quite common, however, some regularities in the development of civilizations lead to the fact that the stage at which a "typical" computer center has the technical means to send signals into space, by cosmic standards lasts a very short time (and then either a nuclear or an ecological catastrophe inevitably follows - and if after that intelligent life on the planet continues, then no one will think about sending signals into space - the prospect, of course, is sad).
For communication between extraterrestrial civilizations, some special technical solutions can also be used, to which earthly science has not yet matured, and the "backward" Earth could be declared a kind of "space reserve": everyone else is simply prohibited from interfering in our affairs on pain of exclusion from the Galactic Commonwealth … Well, in the end, another mind may be so alien to us that their signals simply cannot be deciphered …
There are many possible explanations, and generating new, most exotic ideas in this direction is, rather, the prerogative of science fiction writers, and not scientists, but now perhaps the simplest option has been proposed: other civilizations can simply do the same as we do: listen, but transmit almost nothing.
In the article "Making a Case for METI", signed by the famous Russian specialist in communications with extraterrestrial civilizations, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexander Zaitsev, as well as Charles M. Chafer and Richard Braastad and published on the SETI website League (translated as "League SETI", Searching for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), the authors remind that at the present time not only cautious politicians, but also many leaders of the modern SETI community oppose the deliberate transmission of messages from Earth to nearby stars in an attempt to communicate with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI). The source of fears, of course, is not only the sad experience of "contacts between representatives of different civilizations" on Earth,but also the fantasies that spill out on us every day from all kinds of television "horror films".
Instead of active action (Active SETI), they now prefer a passive approach: a leisurely scan of various wavelengths - both in the optical domain and radio waves - in search of messages sent by ETI. It is especially significant that only a few decades ago, projects like SETI were viewed as necessarily a two-way communication process. In fact, the original acronym for such communities sounded like CETI (Communication with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), that is, "Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence."
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As a result, over several decades, only a few attempts were made to truly contact the CC: the first message to space (consisting of only three words "Peace, Lenin, USSR") was sent on November 19, 1962 from the Center for Long-Range Space Communication of the USSR to Evpatoria during the Venus radar experiment, then there was the famous coded message from Arecibo on November 16, 1974 (Arecibo Message), tablets sent on the de facto interstellar American spacecraft of the Pioneer Plaque and Voyager Record series,
"Space calls" from the radio observatory in Evpatoria (Ukraine, 1999, 2001, 2003) and, possibly, such an attempt to "contact" aliens can be considered the website of Dr. Allen Tough from the University of Toronto, posted on the Internet, in which he, on behalf of the largest ETI specialists from around the world, suggested by this very "this" to get in touch with him using modern terrestrial technologies - for example, by sending a newsletter by e-mail (it is assumed that technically advanced aliens can easily get access to our World Wide Web). This latest rather desperate project is called "Invitation to ETI" and, presumably, has long been choking on spam …
The process of actually transmitting our messages to the EC is designated as METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), the authors of the aforementioned article quite reasonably note that if the tendency of "silent" behavior of our own civilization continues and the "almost Hamlet's" question "to emit or not to emit?" will be decided in favor of the latter option, then we have no right to expect that other civilizations will be disposed differently and show themselves to be great altruists. The developing terrestrial science forces us to consistently abandon any "geocentric" point of view: the Earth itself is by no means in the center of the Solar system, the Sun is an ordinary star on the periphery of the Galaxy,our galaxy, the Milky Way, is by no means the largest and most prominent in the Local Group of galaxies (the center of the cluster is located closer to one and a half times the massive Andromeda nebula), etc. Thus, in accordance with this logic, the behavior of humanity, which prefers to “sit quietly like a mouse” and “not shine”, can be considered quite typical and characteristic of other ETIs, listening to space, but most of the time “wisely” keeping silent.
In connection with all of the above, Alexander Zaitsev suggested introducing into the "classical" Drake formula (in other words, the Drake Equation), which was proposed on November 2, 1961 at a conference in Green Bank by American radio astronomer Frank Donald Drake (p. 1930) to estimate the probable number of extraterrestrial civilizations ready to come into contact with us) a new factor-factor.
The formula should now look like this:
N = R * x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x fm x L, where N is the number of potentially detectable civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy;
R * is an estimate of the rate of formation of new stars in the Universe;
fp is the fraction of stars with planetary systems; ne is the probability that among these planets there is a planet of the terrestrial type, on which the origin of life is possible; fl is the fraction of planets on which this life actually appeared;
fi is the probability that among all these life forms at least one form of mind will arise;
fc is the likelihood that intelligent life has followed a man-made path of development and developed appropriate means of communication (communications based on electromagnetic technology);
fm - the share among all such VCs of civilizations, sociable, with a clear and non-paranoid planetary consciousness (that is, those that actually participate in deliberate interstellar communication);
L is the period during which such civilizations transmit detectable signals to the surrounding space.
An attempt to estimate the new factor fm (the index m is from "METI") leads to an extremely small value - 0.01. This is a simple consequence of the fact that among earthlings (so far the only civilization known to us) for 100 search programs there is only 1 program dedicated to the program - METI. Everything goes to the fact that there will be even fewer of them further. If the isolationist tendency prevails in the entire Universe, then programs like SETI also make no sense.
There is no point in listening to the silence if no one wants to transmit anything. And, on the contrary, if transmissions from the Earth still continue, then there will be a chance that in other worlds, in the end, they will come to the “correct decision”. Alexander Zaitsev formulated this provision in the form of the so-called "SETI paradox": "We and THEY must either carry out both SETI and METI, or do nothing."