Why haven't we made contacts with extraterrestrials?

Question

Why haven't we made contacts with extraterrestrials?

Answer 1

Either:

They don't exist.

They are not intelligent like us

They are far superior and living on an alternate plain

We have not yet travelled far enough and into the right place to find life with which to communicate.

Answer 2

1) Why do you assume that we haven't?  Because YOU haven't heard about it?

2) Why do you assume that there are extraterrestrials to contact?

3) Since contact involves two parties, why would you assume that any existing ET's would want to be contacted by us?

4) Don't be eager for contact with ET's.  The first native Americans were "eager" to have contact with the Europeans.

5) Even if, in the entire universe, there were, right now, a billion civilizations as advanced as ours, there would still only be one per hundred or more galaxies.  That would leave perhaps tens of millions of light years between civilizations and trillions of planet bearing stars to search.  That's a lot of territory to cover for even an enthusiatic and far advanced society.  For another civilization to be aware of us, they'd either have to be within 100 light years of us and listening for our very early (and faint) radio signals, OR they'd have to be here already, watching us, and choosing THEIR time to contact us, or not.

My bet is that we're going to be "alone" for a very long time into the future.

Answer 3

Because SETI hasn't picked up any radio signals.  Listening is much cheaper than sending signals. Unfortunately it costs a great deal and you have no idea what stars to send signals to. Every culture would be faced with this problem.  Everybody might be listening.  

Aliens might not exist.  The drake equation has a serious error.  It makes the assumption that once life develops, civilizations will follow.  That is completely unsupportable. If there are no aliens, there can be no communication.

Aliens might exist but may not have radio technology.  Without that there cannot be contact.  Aliens may exist, but might possess faster than light communications.  If they do, the use of slow radio waves for communication would be pointless.  We wouldn't be able to pick them up.

Civilizations who have developed radio have probably developed public health and medicine.  Such worlds would probably undergo rapid population growth and resource depletion.  This could lead to nuclear war or environmental collapse and the destruction of their civilization if not their existence.  If this happens in a brief period of time, the chances of them existing during our period of civilization is too low to calculate.

There are all manner of scenarios.  

All we know is that the skies are silent and that no aliens have visited us.  Choose a theory.

Answer 4

are believe if there is life out there theres lots of different type of life whether it would be ET or little bugs bacteria etc or maybe even a planet just like us that looks the same and the aliens on the planet look like us some are most likely not advanced to make contact some might be too advanced or they could be avoiding us and some just might not be able to communicate period little bugs probably wont talk or build ships but you never know

Answer 5

They don't exist.

Think interdimensional beings or fallen ones:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ee3bld4lTG0

Answer 6

They are afraid of us. After all, Klaatu was shot the minute he landed here?

Answer 7

Even though we have powerful radio telescopes that can detect signals from very far away, we've only had them the last 50 years or so.

Perhaps there have been many alien civilizations that have already perished before we became able to detect them.  Perhaps there is one a hundred light years away that 99 years ago just started using radio.  We won't detect it for another year.

Maybe several alien civilizations never developed radio technology, or have already surpassed it and no longer use it.

Or perhaps there just aren't any out there.  Maybe extraterrestrials, if they exist, are just primitive life, like bacteria or mold.

Answer 8

Because the ETs don't think we are intelligent or advanced enough to be contacted.

Mankind is still too primitive and violent to be given any secrets of the universe.

There is also a little thing called "The Prime Directive", which in short, prohibits any interference with primitive cultures.

Answer 9

Perhaps they are avoiding us.

Perhaps they are too far away to contact us.

Perhaps our methods of contact are too primitive, or too sophisticated.

There is no way to tell.