Scientists Claim Aliens Might Be Talking, but We Are Not Able to Hear Them

For a long time, humanity has advanced in various aspects. Experts have always glimmered with the hope of the existence of aliens, as we can not be the only ones in this humongous universe. Yet, despite all our efforts, the cosmos remains weirdly silent. This absence of contact has long puzzled scientists and is labeled as the Fermi Paradox, after physicist Enrico Fermi, who famously asked in 1950, Where are all the aliens. Now, a stunning new idea is challenging the very assumptions experts started their search with. What if the aliens are talking, but human ears are not quantum enough to hear them, as per Popular Mechanics.

That is the suggestion coming from a pair of theoretical physicists at the University of Edinburgh, Arjun Berera and Latham Boyle. Their research, based on cutting-edge physics, suggests that extraterrestrial civilizations might be using quantum communication. It is a super advanced method that uses photon qubits instead of classical radio waves. Boyle remarked, “It’s interesting that our galaxy (and the sea of cosmic background radiation in which it’s embedded) ‘does’ permit interstellar quantum communication in certain frequency bands,” as per Phys.Org. This form of communication could travel across vast distances while preserving what physicists call coherence, especially the quantum integrity of a message. But the important point is that we have no solid way to detect it.

Boyle’s recent paper, titled “On Interstellar Quantum Communication and the Fermi Paradox,” explores whether projects like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) could ever hope to detect these vivid signals. Technically, the answer is yes. Practically? It’s a big no-no. To eavesdrop on a potential quantum conversation from even our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, we’d need a telescope 100 kilometers wide. That is larger than the whole city of London. Boyle remarked, “We have seen that the sender must place nearly all of their photons into our receiving telescope, which implies that the signal must be so highly directed that only the intended receiving telescope can hope to detect any sign of the communication… This is in sharp contrast to classical communication, where one can broadcast photons indiscriminately into space, and an observer in any direction who detects a small fraction of those photons can still receive the message,” as per Popular Mechanics.

In layman's terms, quantum messages would be more like a laser pointer aimed at one single point, not a radio broadcast that anyone with an antenna could pick up. This means that civilizations more advanced than us are not ignoring Earth; they just feel we are not technologically mature enough to hear their signals. Representatives of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) remarked, "Fermi grasped that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire galaxy..." according to the SETI Institute.

And this is not just about technology. If quantum communication is the norm across advanced technologies, then it reframes the Fermi Paradox. Thanks to theories like Boyle’s and Berera’s, we have a new possibility to consider.