In 1950, Enrico Fermi, the man who built the first nuclear reactor, was having lunch with some other scientists when the discussion turned to aliens – and he first articulated what’s become known as “the Fermi paradox” by asking: “Where is everybody?”
In other words: the universe has been around for some time, and is a very big place. Human life has only existed for a fraction of that time, and only on one planet. Given the vastness of time and space, then, it seems more than likely that we’re not the only intelligent beings in the universe. So why haven’t we found any evidence of others? This question has led some to conclude that extra-terrestrial intelligent life doesn’t exist, and others to speculate — as in the long-running sci-fi show The X Files — that aliens do exist, but that their existence is covered up by mysterious government agencies.
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