In the field of extraterrestrial civilizations, the famous Fermi Paradox contains two conflicting arguments:

1. There should be a large number of alien civilizations in the Milky Way;
2. Humans have yet to observe any signs of alien civilizations.

According to the Drake equation, there should be a large number of civilizations in the universe close enough to Earth to be capable of contact. However, scientists have so far failed to find evidence of alien civilizations in the Milky Way.

▲ Alien model device

For years, scientists have proposed countless hypotheses to explain why humanity has failed to find any extraterrestrial civilizations in the vast universe. Recently, American scientists proposed a new hypothesis in a paper to explain the Fermi Paradox: alien life may have stopped trying to contact humans because they think humans are too boring.

Robin Corbet, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and author of the paper, noted that if there were a significant number of alien probes in the galaxy, Earth "might not be an attractive travel destination," and the likelihood of an alien invasion is extremely low.

Corbet stated, "An alien civilization could send high-powered beacons or probes to contact other civilizations, but this would require enormous energy consumption and take millions or even billions of years to receive a response. Aliens may have given up trying to contact us."

Corbet also noted that an alien civilization could send powerful and persistent beacons that could be seen by other civilizations, thereby revealing its presence. However, this has not occurred, suggesting that these civilizations have not yet reached a technological level that allows for detection.

In other words, if alien civilizations exist, their technological level is likely only slightly superior to Earth's. "My guess is that they might be more advanced, but not much more advanced. It's like they already have an iPhone 42 instead of an iPhone 17," Corbet said. "They don't have superluminal speeds, they don't have machines based on dark matter or black holes, and they don't exploit new laws of physics."

Of course, some scientists have different views. Michael Garrett, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester in the UK, stated in his upcoming paper: "I tend to favor a more radical interpretation of the Fermi paradox: that other civilizations are evolving so rapidly that they are beyond our ability to perceive them. I hope I'm right, but I also might not be."