The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox: Are we alone?

Ever since humanity has gazed into the abyss of the cosmos we have wondered if there is life beyond this small world in which we find ourselves. It is a common interest all humans share, one that is ingrained deep within our psyche, an urge for discovery, a call to the cold void.

One such example is the Italian scientist Giovanni Schiaparelli. When  he peered through his telescope at the planet Mars in 1877, he noticed something strange. It seemed as though the Red planet had what seemed like large channels on the surface, channels that could possibly carry water, and thus harbor life. Schiaparelli jumped to conclusions, and called these channels Canals, and as this discovery spread throughout the scientific community, astronomers began to speculate that these Canals were made artificially by a Martian civilization.

Of course, with the advancement of technology, better telescopes were developed, and with this scientists discovered that the "canals" on Mars were nothing more than an illusion caused by the poor optics of the time, where scientists were once optimistic about the possibility of a neighboring civilization, they now found themselves at a loss. When Mars was viewed with more powerful tools, it was revealed that Mars was nothing more than a desolate wasteland, a giant ball of dust surrounded by an equally lifeless dark sky.

Scientists continued to search for life within our Solar System for decades, but as astronomical tools improved even more, and rovers plopped down on the surface of distant worlds it became all too clear that there was no apparent signs of life, but there were a lot of rocks.

From here scientists turned their attention outside of our cosmic neighborhood, some opting to use large radio telescopes to comb the skies for unusual radio activity. If they found a strong radio signal, and the data appeared artificial enough, they would try and pinpoint where it came from and continue to monitor that area of the sky for more activity, if these signals repeated, then they would have a candidate for a possible alien civilization. In 1977 they got an answer.

While going through recorded data, Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman, expecting to see the usual cosmic background noise that he usually records, noticed something incredible. A strong signal, incredibly strong in fact, coming from the constellation Sagittarius. He was so impressed with the data that he wrote "Wow!" in red pen right next to the readings, as it looked very possible that they had hit the jackpot, a signal from an alien civilization.

So they pointed their radio arrays towards the signal source and found... nothing. The signal never repeated, and to this day, this radio burst remains a mystery.
After more than 30 years of monitoring the Stars, we have never heard another signal like this. So the question remains, where are all the aliens?