The Infinite ArchiveTHE INFINITE ARCHIVEHISTORY · SCIENCE · MYSTERY
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, West Virginia, used by Breakthrough Listen to search for technosignatures
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, West Virginia, used by Breakthrough Listen to search for technosignatures. Photo: NRAO/AUI/NSF · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Science & space · Los Alamos, New Mexico · 1950 – today

The Fermi Paradox: Where Is Everybody?

Unresolved1950 CE – 2025 CELos Alamos, New Mexico, USA

The galaxy is old and full of stars like the Sun. If intelligent life is common, why have we found no sign of it?

In 1950, at lunch at Los Alamos with Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York, the physicist Enrico Fermi asked a simple question that became famous: 'Where is everybody?' If civilizations arise easily, some should be far older than ours and should have spread or left detectable signals. Yet we see none.

Loading the full dossier…

Connected dossiers

The Wow! SignalSame open question · The Wow! signal is the most famous unexplained SETI candidate.Tabby's Star: The Flickering PuzzleSame open question · Tabby's Star was briefly examined as a possible technosignature.ʻOumuamua: The First Interstellar ObjectSame open question · Some proposed 'Oumuamua was artificial.3I/ATLAS: The Third Interstellar VisitorSame open question · Breakthrough Listen searched 3I/ATLAS for signals in 2025.The Origin of Life: How Did Chemistry Become Biology?Same open question · How often life begins shapes the paradox.

See The Fermi Paradox in the discovery universe →

Ask the archive

Have a question about this dossier, or think a claim needs a better source? Send it to the editors.

Questions go to the editors and are not published automatically. Please do not include personal information.

How to read the labels

EstablishedSupported by strong, converging evidence.
ContestedEvidence exists but qualified scholars disagree.
UnresolvedThe question is open; evidence does not settle it.
LegendComes from myth, literature or tradition, not physical evidence.
SpeculativeA hypothesis with little direct evidence so far.

Hero image: The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, West Virginia, used by Breakthrough Listen to search for technosignatures. Photo: NRAO/AUI/NSF · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.