The great silence: why haven’t we found any aliens yet?

Given the size and age of the universe, it should be full of species with technology far more advanced than our own. So where are they? • The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order During a visit to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1950, Enrico Fermi, one of the architects of the Manhattan Project, was having lunch with other physicists when the conversation turned to flying saucers. At one point during the discussion, Fermi blurted out: “Where is everybo...

By Adam Kirsch