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{{trope}}
{{quote box|[[File:xkcd_638_xkcd 638 -_the_search_7059 the search 7059.png|link=Xkcd (Webcomic)|right]]}}
{{quote|''Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.''|'''Calvin''', ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''}}
 
The [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox:Fermi paradox|Fermi paradox]], in brief, raises the question of why we have yet to observe evidence of extraterrestrial life. The simplest explanation would of course be that such life is extremely rare compared to just how [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|mind-rendingly, jaw-droppingly, eye-wateringly, tooth-shatteringly huge the universe is]], how hard it is to generate signals detectable across light-years of space, and what a small part of its lifespan we've been witness to, but many creators prefer to introduce a more interesting reason into their universes.
 
This can serve two functions. On the one hand, it can provide the author with some excuse for referencing alien cultures, providing alien archaeological sites, and similar without actually introducing a viable alien culture. On the other, it can allow for the creation of interstellar societies that would otherwise appear [[Plausible Deniability|implausible]], especially when they've been so active in our own backyard lately that we would presumably have noticed them in reality.
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# Disappearing or becoming difficult to observe (at least at interstellar distances) is a natural outgrowth of technological development.
# There's a race of aliens, generally of the [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|Sufficiently Advanced]] variety, who are somehow ensuring that civilizations don't see each other.
# All the spacefaring aliens are involved in a cosmic conspiracy to [[Masquerade|remain hidden]] from Earth, possibly because [[The World Is Not Ready|we aren't judged to be advanced enough to know about them]], or because [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|we absolutely scare the crap out of them for some reason]].
# The [[Weirdness Censor]] strikes again. The reason we haven't seen any explanation of aliens is that we're overlooking the obvious in our quest to exaggerate our own importance and significance.
# All the other aliens are on a pre-technological (or even pre-sentient) state of development. [[Captain Obvious|No technology = No Radio Transmissions.]]
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Contrast [[Absent Aliens]], in which the simple explanation is taken as correct.
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
 
▲{{examples|Examples:}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* The [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|Data Integration Entities]] from ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' are, according to Nagato, undetectable through our normal means. Given that they ''lack physical form altogether'', and seem to exist only as patterns of information, this is perfectly plausible.
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== [[Film]] -- Live Action ==
* In the ''[[Men in Black (Filmfilm)|Men in Black]]'' [[Men in Black (Comic Bookcomics)|comics]] and [[Men in Black (Animationanimation)|their adaptations]] (and in the [[The Men in Black]] urban myth that inspired them), the title organization is expressly dedicated to making sure Earth civilians stay unaware of aliens.
* The ''[[Alien (Filmfranchise)|Alien]]'' films have alien monsters in spades, but asides from the lone, dead Space Jockey and occasional Arcturian reference,<ref>And who says that the Arcturians are aliens, anyway?</ref> humanity does not seem to have made contact with any intelligent races. If you don't count the [[Predator|Predators]]s in the [[Alien vs. Predator|alternate continuity]].
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[Marooned inAcross Realtime (Literature)|Marooned in Realtime]]'' by [[Vernor Vinge]], when species attain [[The Singularity]], they uniformly vanish from the universe, at least from the perspective of everyone else.
* In ''Accelerando'' by [[Charles Stross]], species all seem to build [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain:Matrioshka brain|Matrioshka brains]], to which they upload their personalities. The uploaded people aren't interested in interstellar travel because there's no way for them to get enough bandwidth. Everyone else is in hiding from the uploads and therefore not likely to meet each other. (It turns out that {{spoiler|something entirely different is happening in the next galaxy over, explaining some cosmological quirks that [[Real Life]] science has noticed}}.)
* In [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''[[Revelation Space]]'' universe, there's {{spoiler|[[Neglectful Precursors|a race of ancient aliens]] dubbed The Inhibitors ([[In -Series Nickname|aka the "wolves"]]) who have for billions of years devoted their existence [[Absolute Xenophobe|to exterminating any intelligent life]] that leaves its planetary system and tries founding interstellar colonies. They have a [[Freudian Excuse|meaningful reason for it]], even if it is [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|very morally questionable]].}} As a result, all the other aliens in the galaxy seem to be either extinct or in very clever hiding.
* In ''[[Spin]]'' by [[Robert Charles Wilson]], planets with intelligent inhabitants get enclosed by [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] in "Spin membranes", which substantially slow down time on those planets to the point where their inhabitants have no good way to make detailed off-planet observations.
* In one of the stories in ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] in Orbit'', {{spoiler|reviving Holmes after he went over the Reichenbach Falls put Earth out of quantum synch with the rest of the universe.}}
* In ''The Engines of God'' and later books by Jack McDevitt, the galaxy seems to naturally produce things called "omega clouds" every 8000 years or so, strange clouds that are sent out in a wave from the galactic center and can look for and track excessive, clearly artificial regularity on planets -- inplanets—in other words, square and rectangular buildings and constructions of other shapes that are too regular and precise to appear in nature -- andnature—and crash into them, sometimes catastrophically, to eliminate societies that have advanced much beyond the Stone Age. Some characters theorize that an omega cloud may have inspired the legends of Sodom and Gomorrah when it destroyed an early Earth civilization, since the relative timing fits with when the clouds should have last been through.
* "[[TheyreThey're Made Out of Meat (Literature)|Theyre Made Out of Meat]]" by Terry Bisson suggests another possible reason: the aliens found us and were too weirded out to establish contact. Can be read [https://web.archive.org/web/20100213080204/http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html here].
* The ''[[Berserker (Literature)|Berserker]]'' series by [[Fred Saberhagen]] has organic life threatened by the eponymous [[Killer Robot|Killer Robots]]s, who were the [[Forgotten Superweapon|Doomsday Device]] released by the losing side of an intergalactic war. Only a few scrappy (not [[The Scrappy]]) species manage to survive, including Earth-Descended, or E.D., life.
* The ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' novels state that humanity has, in the two millennia they have been tooling around the galaxy, encountered approximately twelve alien races. However, though there is at least one extinct race that achieved inter-stellar flight, the technology level of the other species is never mentioned. Alien races show up only as flavoring (the Sphinxian treecat, shown in almost every story) and a minor background element in two stories. For all practical intents and purposes, it is an all-human galaxy.
* In ''[[The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect]]'' by Roger Williams, there were hundreds of alien worlds containing intelligent life at the time of [[The Singularity|The Change]], but when the title AI became [[Deus Est Machina|omnipotent]], its interpretation of the [["Three Laws "-Compliant|first law]] led it to freeze them in stasis so that they would never become technologically advanced enough to pose a threat to humanity.
* Addressed in ''[[More Information Than You Require]]'', as seen in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W51H1croBw this excerpt]. Hodgman's theory is that Enrico Fermi himself was an alien trying to deflect suspicion. Why else would he demand his only reward be [[Noodle Implements|two healthy sperm whales]]?
* In "[http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/08/the-fermi-paradox-is-our-business-model The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model]" by Charlie Jane Anders, all intelligent life-forms that evolve in the galaxy inevitably destroy themselves. {{spoiler|They were all [[Panspermia|seeded]] by a race of traders who swoop in and pick up all the technology they have lying around after they go extinct.}}
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', the [[Alien Non -Interference Clause|Prime Directive]] prohibits the Federation from interfering with aliens until they've discovered interstellar travel; according to ''Star Trek: First Contact'', the Vulcans had a similar rule before the Federation was founded, which presumably "explains" why we haven't seen any Vulcans yet in real life.
* In ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', the Shadow Proclamation, basically a galactic police force, has rules about how alien life forms are not allowed to make contact or interfere with worlds without a minimum amount of technology- not that most the aliens seem to care about that, as they really like trying to take over/destroy/control Earth for some reason. It was this rule and groups like UNIT and Torchwood which kept the public learning about alien existence until around 2008 when {{spoiler|the Daleks invaded and physically teleported the Earth.}}
 
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* Journalists of more sensationalist outlets know the public's interest in the possibility of alien life. They take unpretending basic research and turn it into gonzo stories about the imminent discovery of sapient, technological extraterrestrials. We've discovered more planets (or more earthlike planets) around other stars, therefore E.T.! We've found microbes growing in the most hostile conditions ever, therefore E.T.! We've found new deposits of water or basic organic chemicals in space, therefore E.T.! New theories say there are even more stars in the universe than we thought, therefore E.T.! Our biological research suggests it's easy for life to begin, therefore E.T.! This leads to laymen becoming increasingly disillusioned: We seem to get ever closer to confirming the existence of alien life, yet we never actually get there.▼
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Last Res 0 rtRes0rt]]'' has a few planets with civilizations they're waiting to see "grow up" before they walk in and help them the rest of the way; it's implied that Earth was let in only a couple millenia ago, and Adharia's planet, Sevru, is still a few centuries off.
** However it's also implied that the Talmi were only recognized as a sapient species a few centuries ago. Also, most of them are [[Space Jews|Jewish]].
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' Earth is located ''in'' the Nemesite Empire, but the Nemesites have designated our world as a nature preserve and have tried to leave us fairly undisturbed, just like animals in a national park. It's recently been revealed that another reason is that {{spoiler|the Nemesites had a very, very [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100518.html messy] [[First Contact]] with Earth's [[Ultraterrestrials|pre-human]] [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons|dragon]] civilization, and so they're practicing a loose [[Alien Non-Interference Clause]] approach with us.}}
* Sam Starfall (a highly ''visible'' alien), in ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'', has an [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fc01349.htm interesting explanation]:
{{quote| "There is no Fermi Paradox! Every time space faring aliens make it to Earth, the cows get them!"}}
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* An episode of ''[[South Park]]'' explained that we don't see aliens because all life on Earth was put there by them as part of one really long-running alien reality TV show called -- youcalled—you guessed it -- "Earth".
* Oddly enough, the Mysterons of ''[[Captain Scarlet]]'' are ''not'' [[Invisible Aliens]]; they're just aliens that happen to be invisible.
 
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Journalists of more sensationalist outlets know the public's interest in the possibility of alien life. They take unpretending basic research and turn it into gonzo stories about the imminent discovery of sapient, technological extraterrestrials. We've discovered more planets (or more earthlike planets) around other stars, therefore E.T.! We've found microbes growing in the most hostile conditions ever, therefore E.T.! We've found new deposits of water or basic organic chemicals in space, therefore E.T.! New theories say there are even more stars in the universe than we thought, therefore E.T.! Our biological research suggests it's easy for life to begin, therefore E.T.! This leads to laymen becoming increasingly disillusioned: We seem to get ever closer to confirming the existence of alien life, yet we never actually get there.
 
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Invisibility Index]]
[[Category:Invisible Aliens]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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