Where are they?

Ever since Man has had eyes with which to look, he has gazed at the stars and wondered about their nature. Where we once wondered how someone could have possibly managed to get up quite so high to light all those campfires, we now wonder how someone could possibly not be there. Even disregarding the numerous UFO sightings by people on Earth, there have been many curious phenomena that may very well point to the presence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But this raises an important question: where is everyone? Surely, if there are indeed other civilizations out there, even if they were only as technologically advanced as us, we would have seen a more definitive sign by now... right? Many theories have been proposed to answer this question, with some being a bit more sci-fi than others, but I would like to propose an additional option. In order to properly introduce the Human Phase Hypothesis, we must first briefly explore some existing proposals.

The Usual Suspects

If you have ever approached this topic before, you have likely familiarized yourself with the Fermi Paradox. In a nutshell, it asks the following: "Since there are billions of sun-like stars in our galaxy, with a sizable percentage of them likely playing host to Earth-like planets, then wouldn't life have sprung up on a few of those planets at least a couple of times?" Effectively, it is an expanded version of the question posed in the introductory paragraph. Despite being a relatively simple question, it hardly has a simple answer.

In an attempt to set the basis for the Human Phase Hypothesis, we will briefly cover two possible explanations to the Fermi Paradox. (If you feel as though you are already familiar enough with them, feel free to skip to the next section.) The first explanation is the Rare Earth Hypothesis. The originators of the hypothesis, Peter Ward and Donald E. Brownlee, assert that there are essential criteria for life. Some of these criteria include a terrestrial planet with plate tectonics and oxygen, a large moon, a magnetic field, a Jupiter-like gas giant in order to divert potential astronomical threats, and a stable orbit in the habitable zone of the right kind of star. (The book goes into much further detail and is well worth the read.) At its core, the Rare Earth Hypothesis claims that life is scant throughout the universe simply due to the h...

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