# Why doesn't ET call us? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634 "2008-11-14T00:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/41 "2008-11-14T15:37:59Z")
Or, perhaps like in Highlander, There Can Be Only ONE! Myself I think that the distances are just too great and the possible routes technology could take too divergent to make communication probable. Also, the time windows we are talking about could be pretty narrow…after all, if aliens were transmitting to Earth 200 years ago we’d have never heard it. -XT ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/42 "2008-11-14T15:38:09Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > 1. There hasn’t been enough time to develop the technology > Given another 1,000,000,000 years and the exponential rate of technological development (and the assumption the physical limits as we now understand them can be overcome), surely humans would develop a way to reach out into the universe in a significant way. Since no other life forms have come to us, and assuming they _have_ had a 1,000,000,000 year head start on us, **Why** is it reasonable to assume that they’re had such a headstart on us? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/43 "2008-11-14T15:47:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why? If **we** had mastered interstellar space travel, **we** would want to contact any sentient species that might be out there, simply out of curiosity. > > Or perhaps the “hubris” in the above is projecting our curiosity on other hypothetical sentient species, i.e., simply assuming it to be a concomitant of sentience. But isn’t that projecting human characteristics onto a non-human species? Edit: oh yeah, you already mentioned that! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/44 "2008-11-14T15:52:20Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] Why is it reasonable to assume that they’re had such a headstart on us? [/QUOTE] Several possible reasons. One is that our solar system is pretty young. Another is that our part of the galaxy formed more recently than other parts of the galaxy…so if life—\>civilization took a similar route then they would be millions or even billions of years ahead of us (in theory). Another is that other galaxies formed before ours…so, there is the potential for more head starts in some of those as well. -XT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/45 "2008-11-14T15:53:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > One possibility is that we’re unknowingly living in a preserve. [Or worse . . .](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancelled_(South_Park)) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/46 "2008-11-14T15:59:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 4: Other intelligent species are out there and can reach us, but for reasons of their own choose not to. Some variant of the Prime Directive, perhaps? But while the Prime Directive makes for good stories, I’m not sure there’s any reason to expect that it’d be actually implemented. The most convincing rationale I’ve seen for this is that, once you have the capability to live in space indefinitely (a prerequisite for interstellar travel, unless there’s some loophole in physics that permits FTL after all), there’s just no good reason to bother with planets (except for exploration, in which case you want to avoid interfering with the things you’re trying to study). Everything you need for resupply can be found in convenient small packages in planetoids/comets, and hauling it out of a planetary gravity well and atmosphere is an unnecessary nuisance (for one thing, it requires much higher accelerations than maneuvering around in open space does). If so, then any past or present alien visitation to the Solar System is more likely to be found in the asteroid belt (or in the Kupier Belt) than on Earth itself. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/47 "2008-11-14T16:01:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > One possibility is that we’re unknowingly living in a preserve. What flavour? And wouldn’t that make orbiting a bit sticky? ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/48 "2008-11-14T16:03:02Z")
> [@](#): > > 5: They’ve been trying to call us for years, but we haven’t invented the spacephone yet, so we haven’t received their calls. Maybe. But this feels like option 2 above. > [@](#): > > 6: Communication across vast distances is flat out impossible at any level of technology. This is no different than my option 3 above. > [@](#): > > 7: cultural differences and language barriers make communication impossible. Option 3. In 1,000,000,000 years I imagine we’ll be able to interpret much of what happens with lower life forms on our planet. Granted, communication with a life from an entirely different environment will be vastly more difficult, but there are some basics of physics that should be able to be used. > [@](#): > > 8: We aren’t interesting enough to be worth talking to. There is likely many different life forms out there. All of them find us completely uninteresting? > [@](#): > > 9: They don’t know where we are. Option 2. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/49 "2008-11-14T16:14:55Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > 5: They’ve been trying to call us for years, but we haven’t invented the spacephone yet, so we haven’t received their calls. Or maybe someone ran up a huge interstellar phone bill calling Orion slave girls for phone sex. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/50 "2008-11-14T16:31:42Z")
The image that keeps coming to my mind is of the entire galaxy, viewed from above, slowly spinning. Tiny flashes of light continuously flicker all across the galaxy. The little flickers represent the period of time that other intelligences are capable of communications with us. They are short lived either because they are destroyed, lose interest in communication, or evolve past the point where meaningful communications with them is possible. We are but one of those tiny flickers. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/51 "2008-11-14T16:40:06Z")
Considering the history of civilization clash on this planet, the superior one usually triumphs over the inferior one. If that is a universal truth, and we are ever visited by ETs, they are probably more advanced than us. So the only prudent thing to do would be: kill them and eat them before they get established. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/52 "2008-11-14T16:41:42Z")
> [@](#): > > 80 to 95% of all life is not ‘all’ life. Had one of those rocks been a little bigger, and wiped out the entire ecosystem, it could have set us back a billion years. Had it been big enough, it coudl have ended Earth’s ability to harbor life permanently. No, but you said “ecosystem-destroying”, not “biosphere-destroying”. It doesn’t take much to destroy an ecosystem, and it happens all the time. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/53 "2008-11-14T17:05:43Z")
I believe that they exist and have been contacting us since humans have existed. The thousands of people who have been abducted and the hundreds of thousands who’ve had sightings (including myself) are not all liars, nor are we all mistaken as to what we saw or experienced. Maybe aliens _ARE_ time travelers and their craft is just a time machine? How do we know? Why is it so hard to believe that there may be civilizations out there that are _millions or even billions_ of years more advanced than we are? As I have said before, I think aliens are just some other planet’s NASA. I mean, if we could go to difference galaxies, I have no doubt we would. There are so many ideas that are plausible that it just boggles the mind. Maybe we are their ant farm? Maybe they ARE using us to reproduce? Who knows. I DO know that it would be more weird if we were the only species out of all the space in the universe to exist, that’s more weird than hearing of someone being abducted to me. Maybe not to others, but everyone has a right to their own beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/54 "2008-11-14T17:07:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 1: We’re alone in our galaxy. This pretty much requires stretching every term of the Drake equation to the limits of plausibility.. I don’t buy that the Drake variables have to be stretched to the limits of plausibility. We haven’t really got any educated idea as to what the values for those variables are, so in fact they may be incredibly low. We don’t know what the likelihood of abiogenesis is. We don’t know the likelihood of civilized life arising on a world with life is. We don’t even know how many life-supporting planets there are. It’s quite possible the Earth is a one-in-a-quadrillion shot. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/55 "2008-11-14T17:31:50Z")
[QUOTE=Isamu] They seeded the planet with us, a more primative version of themselves, as an organism which functions as a territorial marker, much in the same way that a dog pisses on a tree to mark it’s territory. They designed us not to be durable enough to escape the solar system, so they know we aren’t going anywhere. Why would they bother to contact us? Must go, it’s time for my pills now. [/QUOTE] I find this pretty amusing, but with a kernal of possibility to it. Given what we know of abiogenesis, this seems unlikely to me but I guess it is possible we are the seeds of an alien race and they are just waiting for us to develop. [QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Or maybe someone ran up a huge interstellar phone bill calling Orion slave girls for phone sex. [/QUOTE] This cracked me up. [QUOTE=diggleblop] I believe that they exist and have been contacting us since humans have existed. The thousands of people who have been abducted and the hundreds of thousands who’ve had sightings (including myself) are not all liars, nor are we all mistaken as to what we saw or experienced. Maybe aliens ARE time travelers and their craft is just a time machine? How do we know? Why is it so hard to believe that there may be civilizations out there that are millions or even billions of years more advanced than we are? [/QUOTE] I happen to agree that it seems likely there is a civilization out there billions of years ahead of ours, which is why I don’t think we’d see them if they didn’t want to be seen. It seems to me that if they could travel the IMMENSE dimensions of space and find this one little spec of a planet that just happens to have life on it, they could avoid detection. [QUOTE=RickJay] It’s quite possible the Earth is a one-in-a-quadrillion shot. [/QUOTE] Quite possible, yes. But there are [70 sextillion](http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/star_count_030722.html) stars (70_10^22) in the visible universe. So if Earth is one in a quadrillion (10^15), that means there are 70_10^7 (700 million!) others just like us. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/56 "2008-11-14T17:33:35Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Several possible reasons. One is that our solar system is pretty young. Another is that our part of the galaxy formed more recently than other parts of the galaxy…so if life—\>civilization took a similar route then they would be millions or even billions of years ahead of us (in theory). Another is that other galaxies formed before ours…so, there is the potential for more head starts in some of those as well. > > -XT I was surprised when I figured out the earth is closer to the nearest galaxy than it is to the center of our own galaxy. I don’t know the ages of our nearest galaxies, but we could have gotten seeded from more than just life in our own galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/57 "2008-11-14T17:34:07Z")
Any extraterrestrial civilization that’s calling **us** , specifically (as opposed to sending out signals to whoever might happen to be listening) would have to be within ~57 light years for us to have already gotten the message. First, they’d have to know we’re here, which would involve the inadvertent reception of our radio signals. We’ve only been sending out wireless communications since the end of the 19th century. Anyone ‘out there’ who heard Marconi’s first outdoor wireless transmissions from 1895, realized they constituted intelligent communication, and beamed something back towards us in time for us to receive the message by 2008, would have to be within (2008 - 1895)/2 = 56.5 light years. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/58 "2008-11-14T17:50:00Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Considering the history of civilization clash on this planet, the superior one usually triumphs over the inferior one. If that is a universal truth It’s certainly uncomfortably close to one. Newly contacted tribes don’t do so well even today, when we’re (for the most part) not actively trying to dominate them or wipe them out. We might not have disease to contend with with extraterrestrials, though, and that’s something that can’t be ignored in tribal contact scenarios, from 1492 to the present. Barring something like some ancient super-race seeding intelligent life in multiple star systems, we’d probably be different enough physically from the aliens that it would be more likely for you to get Dutch elm disease than to catch anything from them. I suppose Fred Hoyle’s panspermia theory (that at least some viruses come from outside the Earth, probably via comets) is a possibility. Comets don’t travel between stars, so common diseases via that route are unlikely even if comets do carry germs. We could get unlucky and some common disease of the aliens could be deadly to us, but that would be getting _really_ unlucky. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/59 "2008-11-14T17:55:17Z")
Regarding the question of aliens colonizing the galaxy: Perhaps there was a lack of volunteers? I know, I know, history is filled with examples of people willing to leave home behind to explore a brave new world. But perhaps as technological increases continue to improve the quality of human life and human interconnectedness, the thought of leaving it all behind becomes less and less appealing. **Which one of _you_ wants to be the first to leave Earth forever?** I sure as hell don’t. Of course, this is assuming we don’t eventually wreck the planet to the point that people are lining up to leave – or that by the time we do, it’s too late. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/60 "2008-11-14T18:17:48Z")
> [@diggleblop](#): > > I believe that they exist and have been contacting us since humans have existed. The thousands of people who have been abducted and the hundreds of thousands who’ve had sightings (including myself) are not all liars, nor are we all mistaken as to what we saw or experienced. I agree they could be here. Earth’s atmosphere has shown the tell-tale signs of life for what, a few billion years? I don’t know about the abduction part though. I can’t imagine they’d let themselves be seen unless it’s part of their plan, gradually letting us get used to the idea. > [@tim314](#): > > Regarding the question of aliens colonizing the galaxy: Perhaps there was a lack of volunteers? > > I know, I know, history is filled with examples of people willing to leave home behind to explore a brave new world. But perhaps as technological increases continue to improve the quality of human life and human interconnectedness, the thought of leaving it all behind becomes less and less appealing. > > **Which one of _you_ wants to be the first to leave Earth forever?** I sure as hell don’t. > > Of course, this is assuming we don’t eventually wreck the planet to the point that people are lining up to leave – or that by the time we do, it’s too late. What if you could take your entire civilization with you in a virtual “matrix?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634.md?page=4)