We Haven't Found Aliens Because We've BARELY Looked

We act like the universe has been proven empty. The truth is, we've barely even glanced at it.

The Milky Way is a hundred thousand light-years across, with hundreds of billions of stars, most of which we've never checked for signals.

Serious searches for alien radio signals only began in 1960, covering a tiny slice of the sky, across a narrow band of frequencies, over decades. Scientists once measured how much searching we've done. Compared to all the places, times, and channels a signal could hide in, our entire effort so far is like scooping a single glass of water from all of Earth's oceans, peering in, and declaring there are no fish in the sea.

On top of that, we mostly listen for radio, the technology we happen to use now. A civilization even a thousand years ahead might not broadcast that way at all. So the great silence may not mean no one is out there. It may just mean we've hardly started listening.

Follow The Cosmic Vault — the universe is stranger than you think.