In 1950, during a lunch break in Los Alamos, Enrico Fermi He posed a question that remains unanswered to this day: "Where is everyone?" If the universe is teeming with stars and planets, if mathematics tells us we should be surrounded by alien civilizations, why haven't we received a single message? Seventy-five years later, a NASA astrophysicist proposes a solution to the paradox that bears the Italian physicist's name. Robin Corbet works at Goddard Space Flight Center and his hypothesis is as simple as it is destabilizing: Where are the aliens? They exist, but they're stuck at more or less the same technological level as us.No spaceships traveling at the speed of light, no megastructures circling stars. Just civilizations that reached a plateau and then stopped searching.
Where are the aliens? "Radical banality" as a solution
Corbet's paper, published on arXiv in September 2025, is titled “A less terrifying universe?” and introduces the concept of “radical mundanity”, the radical banality. The idea is that the Milky Way contains a modest number of extraterrestrial civilizations, none of which have reached sufficient technological levels to perform large-scale engineering or leave remotely detectable traces.
“It's a bit like having an iPhone 42 instead of an iPhone 17,” Corbet explains to Guardian. “They are more advanced, but not much more advanced. They don't have faster-than-light travel, they don't have machines based on dark energy or black holes. They are not exploiting new laws of physics.”
According to this hypothesis, alien civilizations are following the same evolutionary path we are. They develop increasingly sophisticated technologies, send robotic probes to explore nearby systems, and perhaps receive some interesting data. And then they stop. Not because of catastrophe or self-destruction, but simply because there's a sort of natural limit to technological development. The question "where are the aliens" finds its answer in an energetic and evolutionary plateau that no civilization can overcome..
The Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation
Il Fermi's paradox It arises from a seemingly simple calculation. TheDrake equation, formulated in 1961, estimates the number of communicating civilizations in the Milky Way by multiplying various factors: star formation rate, fraction of stars with planets, number of habitable planets, probability of intelligent life developing, and so on. Even with conservative estimates, the result suggests that there should be hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilizations capable of communicating by radio. Yet the SETI project, active for over sixty years, has never received an unmistakable signal.
Various explanations have been proposed over time. Perhaps we are alone in the universe. Perhaps civilizations self-destruct before achieving interstellar communication. Perhaps we are in a "galactic zoo" and are being observed without being contacted. Perhaps the aliens are so advanced that they have become unrecognizable. But all these hypotheses require extreme circumstances. Corbet instead proposes the most banal solution: where are the aliens? They exist, but they are as technologically limited as we are..
Where are the aliens? Maybe they've lost interest.
The radical banality hypothesis implies that no civilization in the galaxy colonizes a significant fraction of space, not even with robotic probes. None builds high-power radio beacons that last for millennia. After exploring nearby star systems and receiving uninteresting data, these civilizations gradually lose interest in cosmic exploration. As Corbet writes in his paper: “If there are numerous civilizations in the galaxy, Earth appears uninteresting among countless similar worlds.”
The theory has received mixed reactions from the scientific community. Michael Garrett, Director of Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics, appreciated the "fresh perspective" but raised doubts about its underlying assumptions. "It projects a very human apathy onto the rest of the cosmos," he commented. "I have a hard time believing that all intelligent life is so uniformly boring."
But perhaps that's precisely the point. Perhaps the galaxy isn't populated by stellar empires or transcendent civilizations. Perhaps it's filled with societies like our own: curious but limited, interested but cautious, advanced but not enough. As we we were talking about this a few months agoEarth has been unwittingly broadcasting its technological signature through civilian and military radar for over seventy years. If alien civilizations with radio telescopes similar to ours exist within 200 light-years, they may have already detected our signals. And perhaps they've decided we're not interesting enough.
A less terrifying universe
Corbet echoes a famous quote attributed to Arthur C. Clarke: “There are two possibilities: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” The principle of radical banality proposes a third, less frightening way. We are not alone, but we are not destined to encounter superintelligent civilizations or become so ourselves. We live in a universe moderately populated by moderately advanced societies, all stuck at more or less the same technological level.
This perspective rules out apocalyptic scenarios like invasion by a malevolent civilization, but it also rules out the dream of joining a galactic community. We might one day establish contact, Corbet suggests, but only as "interstellar correspondents," not as friends visiting each other. And when that happens, we will follow the detailed protocol developed by the scientific community. But the event, however epochal, "could leave us slightly disappointed."
Maybe the galaxy is more boring than we imagine. Maybe the answer to the question "where are the aliens?" is simply: here, stuck on their planets like us, gazing at the stars without much desire (or strength) to actually go there.
