We shouldn’t be alone. 

It should have been the case, that when astronomers first pointed their listening devices into the stars, they would have heard sounds, blips, buzzes and screams from all corners of the Universe. An unintelligible cacophony, akin to leaving a tape recorder in a Rainforest. A universe alive with civilisations, some much older than us, more wise, more knowledgeable. 

Instead, we heard nothing. We continue to hear nothing. 

The signals we receive are repetitive, inorganic, mechanical. Products of immense forces, for sure, but not intelligent. No rainforest. More an arctic waste stretching to infinity.

This, I think, is strange. Nobody doubts that intelligent life, capable of communicating across the galaxy, is a rarity. It took billions of years to emerge on our planet, but there are multiple trillions – quintillions – of stars out there, many with their own multi-billion year stories. And all, at least as far as we know, silent.

Maybe we are listening to the wrong frequencies. Maybe our devices are not sensitive enough, or fast enough. Maybe they are using physical phenomena well beyond our reach. Maybe advanced civilisations have no need for broadcast signals. Maybe civilisation is too short lived to get its sounds out there. Maybe learn Maxwell’s Equations, then you learn to split the atom, then you die. 

Or maybe we are just this one time cosmic fluke. A brief flash of awareness, before the cosmic dark once again envelopes the universe. A fortuitous event in one planet, at one time, never to be repeated.

In the absence of knowing for sure, we become immensely significant. We are nothing in this vast amphitheatre of stars, yet what we know, what we represent, is precious beyond all imagination.