Hollywood makes initiating alien contact seem much easier than it has proven to be. In E.T. the Extraterrestrial , E.T. got stranded on earth when his alien compadres abandoned their botany mission. In Project Hail Mary , Ryland Grace happened upon an alien —Rocky—while he was on his mission to save Earth. In the Alien franchise, an alien race called The Engineers flat out started humanity. But as far as real-life Earthlings finding other intelligent beings in the universe ? No dice.

The great physicist Enrico Fermi first posed the challenging question over half a century ago, wondering why we appear to be alone in the universe . As Fermi’s argument goes, there’s nothing special about us. So there must be multitudes of lifeforms and intelligent civilizations across every galaxy throughout the universe. And given that the universe has been around for nearly 14 billion years, there has been more than enough time for life to arise, civilizations to develop, and for those aliens to develop the technology needed to completely colonize an entire galaxy. Even if all those civilizations last for only a relatively fleeting amount of time (say, a million years or so), then at least their technological remnants and ruins should be littered anywhere. And yet, we don’t see anybody. However, some scientists believe that there are some good reasons why we haven’t made contact with aliens yet—and it’s not because they don’t exist.

Aliens Communicate With Mind-Bending Tech

As our technology has evolved, we have shifted from radio to other modes of communication, such as fiber optics, internet, and cables buried deep beneath the ocean. This shift also means that radio signals from our telescopes may take a backseat to these newer types of signals. However, if intelligent aliens are looking for other life in the universe, it’s possible that none of these signals may resonate with an advanced civilization, which could be millions—or possibly billions of years—older than ours; its members could be communicating in ways only science fiction could fathom.

In a 2024 study published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics , the authors explore the possibility that alien communications technologies are so advanced, they may be talking to each other using gravitational waves. These are ripples in spacetime, and physicists don’t yet fully understand them. The problem is that—unlike narrowband radio waves—our science cannot distinguish between gravitational waves that are natural and those that may be artificial.

And even if we did understand these gravitational waves (or any other advanced communication technology that aliens might be using, for that matter) scientists aren’t sure that we would even be able to decode the intercepted messages—although, even indecipherable messages could still lend to some kind of learning.

Alien Civilizations Are Too Young, Too Old—or Extinct

In a 2021 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Galaxies, researchers used a galactic simulation model to estimate the possibility of extra terrestrial intelligence throughout time (including the present) in the Milky Way. The researchers wanted to add nuance to the search discussion by increasing the depth of their analysis, and they wanted to gauge how relatively “old” any alien civilizations are likely to be. This is a critical factor in whether or not a civilization can even travel in space or put out intergalactic feelers, because they can only do that from a key “sweet spot.”

Too young, and, like us before very recently, they simply won’t have the means yet. Too old, and they could be stripped of technology in a post-apocalyptic burnout. They could even be extinct. In fact, the research includes parameters for extinction and the idea of “self annihilation,” a probability that could be extraordinarily high.

What’s the point of research like this? It’s fair to ask, the same way it’s fair to ask questions about projects like SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, in the first place. But these researchers have a clear goal, which is to place a touchstone for others who want to continue to explore the Fermi paradox. They explain:

“The exact number of the intelligent life estimated here is not the focus of our work;” the authors write in the paper. “[R]ather, it is instead the development of a statistical, comprehensive galactic picture tracing the potential growth propensity of intelligent life over a course of ~20 billion years.”

In other words, this is our best guess at what—or who—might be lying around the extraterrestrial corner.

Alien Tech Isn’t Advanced Enough

In the same vein, Robin Corbet, PhD—a senior research scientist at University of Maryland Baltimore County—claims in a 2025 preprint paper that extraterrestrial technology might not be as advanced as we think. Now, Corbet isn’t insinuating that alien life is merely a cluster of microbes on a primordial planet. Instead, his “mundane approach” suggests that there are other extraterrestrial civilizations out there, perhaps even more advanced than own. The only caveat? Their technology isn’t nearly “super-science” enough to be noticeable from galaxies away.

More simply put, Hollywood imagines aliens as having flying saucers capable of beaming humans (and sometimes cows) into the sky. Now, we don’t have technology even close to the UFOs terrorizing characters in blockbuster movies, so by Corbet’s logic, extraterrestrial civilizations—should they be somewhere among the cosmos—wouldn’t either.

Regardless of which theory might champion Fermi’s paradox, the simple fact is that there are plenty more places to look among the cosmos. The universe has vast gulfs in space, gargantuan numbers of stars, and lastly, immense expanses of time. Our universe has been around for nearly 14 billion years, and the Milky Way galaxy formed at least 9 billion years ago. Civilizations that rise and spread and thrive for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, live for just a blink of an eye when counted in cosmic time. Humanity founded its first cities only a few thousand years ago; alien intelligences that last for orders of magnitude more time still aren’t even worth mentioning on the great cosmic calendar of our universe.

With this cosmic isolation comes bad news and good news. The bad news is that we’ll likely never encounter another intelligent species, except perhaps for a rare and fleeting glimpse at a stray radio transmission someday in the far future. The good news is that every star we see in the sky is unclaimed, empty, and waiting for us to reach out and explore it.

Editor’s note: Caroline Delbert, Emma Frederickson, Elizabeth Rayne, and Paul M. Sutter contributed reporting to this story.

February / March 2026

T his issue is optimized for mobile/tablet viewing. It's also available on Apple News+ .

➡ Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing a Silver Amulet. The Discovery Is Rewriting the History of Christianity.

➡ The Stray Dogs of Chernobyl Are Rapidly Mutating. Scientists Are Still Trying to Figure Out What It Means.

➡ New Evidence Could Upend What We Know About the Charles Lindbergh Baby Murder

➡ Police Found Mysterious Notes in a Dead Man's Pocket. They Turned Out to Be Codes That Not Even the FBI Can Break.

December 2025 / January 2026

➡ An Angel of Death Preyed on Hospital Patients for Years.

➡ How America's Most Advanced Lab Brought the Killer to Justice.

➡ A 3,000-Ton Locomotive Was Loose, Unstoppable, and Filled With Toxic Cargo

➡ An Underwater Cave Promised Adventure and Glory. No One Expected It to Become a Tomb.

➡ Your Consciousness Can Predict the Future, Some Scientists Say

October / November 2025

➡ Inside the Secret Island Where Death Is Optional

➡ A Legendary Ship Sank Without Warning. Fifty Years Later, Science Could Finally Solve the Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

➡ This Tech Rebel Threw Away $900 Million in a Municipal Dump. Can Robots Find His Lost Fortune?

➡ Sex Workers, LSD, and Mind Control: What Happened in the CIA's Lab of Nightmares at 225 Chestnut Street

August / September 2025

➡ The Worst Air Disaster in American History Happened in Broad Daylight. Will More Mistakes Keep Happening?

➡ NASA Has a Plan to Save Earth from Planet-Destroying Asteroids. It Sounds Even Wilder than Science Fiction.

➡ A Naval Officer Says Underwater UFOs Are Legitimate Threats. The Evidence Is Hard to Ignore.

➡ When You Die, a Psychedelic Molecule Shapes Your Final Moments of Consciousness, a New Theory Reveals.

➡ This Undersea Explorer Found America's Greatest Sunken Treasure. Then Things Got Really Weird.

➡ Is Bigfoot Hiding in the Swamps of Florida? This Group Says It Has Proof.

➡ Scientists May Have Gotten the Global-Warming Timeline Seriously Wrong.

➡ A Third State Now Exists Between Life and Death, Some Scientists Now Believe

➡ Scientists Successfully Revive a Dead Brain, Redefining the Boundary Between Life and Death

➡ Fingerprints Keep Leading to Wrongful Convictions. Why Do Courts Still Rely on Them?

➡ For 80 Years, the North Sea Held a Deadly Killer. Now Scientists Are Racing to Defuse the Threat.

➡ They Built the Quietest Room in the World. Why Is Everyone So Afraid to Step Inside It?

➡ This Guy Says He Knows the Truth About UFOs. Should We Believe Him?

➡ Scientists Are Now One Step Away From Solving Nuclear Fusion—And Unlocking Unlimited Energy.

➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case

➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready

December/January 2025

T his issue is optimized for mobile/tablet viewing.

It's also available on Apple News+ .

➡ A Clue Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Map Might Have Just Solved One of America's Greatest Mysteries

➡ Inside the Deranged Plot to Smuggle Cocaine With an Armed Soviet-Era Submarine

➡ This Brilliant Engineer Helped Build the B2 Bomber—Then He Sold America's Stealth Secrets to China

➡ Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe

October/November 2024

➡Untold Secrets Reveal How the Castle Bravo Test Became America’s Worst Nuclear Disaster

➡ This Body Was Found Preserved on a Block of Ice in a Colorado Shed. It Had Been There for 30 Years.

➡ It Was Supposed to Be America's Greatest Victory in Space—Then It Became NASA’s Worst Nightmare

➡ The Sidewinder Missile Ruled the Air—Then the Soviets Stole the Design

August/September 2024

➡This Man Knows the Truth About Amelia Earhart. Why Doesn't Anyone Believe Him?

➡ The Army's Machine Gun Is No Match for Cheap Chinese Body Armor. So It's Making a New One.

➡ Russia Built a Stunning Rival to the Supersonic Concorde—and Then It Fell From the Sky

➡ A Navy Admiral Says Underwater UFOs Are a Threat—and the Pentagon is Withholding Secrets

➡4 Black Eggs Have Surfaced From the Depths of the Ocean— and the Mysterious Creatures Inside Are Baffling Science

➡ A $2 Million Treasure Appeared in a Kentucky Cornfield. No One Knows Where It Came From.

➡The Man Who Knows Too Much About Area 51

➡ How the FBI Took Down the Internet's Most Dangerous Website

➡ A Staggering New Clue Emerges in the D.B. Cooper Hijacking Mystery

➡ The Wildest Prison Break in U.S. History

➡ The Secret to a Perfect Lawn Lies in One of These 10 Electric Lawnmowers

February / March 2024

➡The Incredible Mystery of NASA’s Missing Moondust

➡ Inside the Final Fiery Minutes of the East Palestine Train Wreck

➡ Scientists Believe They’ve Unlocked Consciousness—and It Connects to the Entire Universe

➡ Why This Unstoppable Stealth Bomber Will Rule the Skies

➡ America Is Developing a New Nuclear Bomb—But Can’t Test Whether It Works

➡ The 8 Best, Expert-Recommended Solar-Powered Generators

Special Issue: Nukes

➡ How Deadly Nuclear Waste Is Menacing This St. Louis Neighborhood

➡ The Terrifying History of Russia's Nuclear Submarine Graveyard

➡ Strange Mutations in Stray Dogs Near Chernobyl Suggest They Are Rapidly Evolving

➡ America Dumped 56 Million Gallons of Radioactive Material Along the Columbia River—Then It Started to Leak

December 2023 / January 2024

➡ A New Clue In Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Emerges From the Ocean

➡ How an Alleged Water Bandit Stole $25 Million in Water from Thirsty California Farms

➡ A Coal Mine Exploded and 300 Miners Died. What Went Wrong?

➡ China Just Built a Terrifying New Aircraft Carrier and May Soon Dominate the Seas

October / November 2023

➡ How Rats Took Over Our Cities—And Why We Can't Stop Them

➡ This Language Is on the Verge of Extinction. Can It Be Saved?

➡ America's Deadliest Warplane Returns in a New Doomsday Role

➡ This Amateur Diving Group Kept Solving Cold Cases. Then Its Own Skeletons Surfaced.

➡ The Scientific Breakthrough That Could Put an End to Gray Hair.

August/September 2023

➡ Immortality Is in Reach. But It’s Not What We Imagined.

➡ Your Next iPhone (and Nuclear Subs) Will Be Powered By Space Metal

➡Scientists Now Think We Can Build a Warp Drive

➡ China and Russia Have Cracked the Stealth Code. Can the U.S. Regain Air Dominance?

➡ The CIA’s Secret Plan to Build a Laser Beam Powered by the Human Mind

➡ The 747 Ruled the Skies—Then One Slammed Into a Mountain

➡The Race to Contain AI Before Singularity

➡ These Florida Homes Aren’t Just Hurricane-Proof—They’re Blueprints for the Future

This issue is optimized for mobile/tablet viewing. It's also available on Apple News+ .

➡ AI Is on the Cusp of Taking Control—This Is How It May All Go Wrong

➡ There’s No Weapon Russia Fears More Than the HIMARS Rocket Launcher

➡The Nuclear-Submarine Arms Race Is Getting Intense, and the U.S. Just Took a Massive Leap Forward

➡ Iran Is Becoming a Drone Superpower—By Stealing American Technology

➡ The Greatest Treasure Hunt in American History Ended—and Then Things Got Weird

➡ These Are the High-Powered Weapons Ukraine Needs to Send Russia Running

➡ The Secret War to Take Out Iran’s Fleet of F-14 Jets

➡ Russia Is Trying to Intimidate the U.S. with Hypersonic Missiles and Big, Scary Nukes—And It's More Than a Threat

December 2022/January 2023

This issue is optimized for mobile/tablet viewing. It's also available on Apple News+.

➡ China and Russia Are Dominating the Hypersonic Arms Race—And It’s Not Even Close

➡ When the South Fork Dam Broke, a Pennsylvania City Washed Away. Which Town Is Next?

➡ The Navy ’s New $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Is Already Obsolete. This Weapon Can Save It.

October/November 2022

➡ Can America's M1 Abrams Still Compete With China's and Russia's Latest Battle Tanks?

➡ Inside the Final Minutes of the Concorde Disaster—and How It Doomed Supersonic Travel for Decades

➡ How the Massive Cargo Ship Felicity Ace Sank, Taking $400 Million Worth of Exotic Supercars With It

➡ I Turned My Old Gas-Guzzler Into a Zippy EV for $15,000

August/September 2022

➡ Cosmic Secrets of the 17 Most Powerful Mega-Telescopes on Earth—and Beyond

➡ Can the Air Force's Secret, Hypersonic Jet Reclaim the Skies From Russia and China?

➡ For 50 Years, the Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher Stumped the FBI—Then Three Amateurs Cracked the Code

➡ America's Most Fearsome Howitzer Has Entered the War in Ukraine

➡ Every Single Drone Fighting in the Skies Over Ukraine

➡ How to Buy a New Car in 2022 Without Getting Fleeced

➡ This Megastructure Could Keep Us Alive Forever

➡ The Race to Revolutionize EV Batteries

Is the ‘Betz Mystery Sphere’ Really Alien Tech?

Stuck Stem Cells Culprit for Gray Hair

Chernobyl Stewards May Pass Mutations to Children

The Truth Behind Japan’s “Atlantis”

Earth’s Hidden Eighth Continent Is No Longer Lost

We May Have Botched Our Global Warming Timeline

An Ancient Bridge Lost to History Has Reemerged

A New Formula for Pi Is Here

The Universe May Hold Many Forms of Consciousness

New Medicine May Help New Teeth Grow

Why Did a 4,500-Year-Old City Need Secret Tunnels?

‘Rebooting’ Your Eye Could Cure Vision Loss