Space

The Zoo Hypothesis: Are Aliens Watching Us from a Distance?

What if aliens are all around us, but we just don’t see them? What if they’re hidden, passively watching until the day we enter the galactic community, perhaps after we hit some kind of technological benchmark?

This idea is called the zoo hypothesis, first proposed by John A. Ball in 1973. It suggests that extraterrestrial intelligence, if it does exist, may be taking a hands-off approach to humanity, at least for the time being. That’s why we lack any evidence of their existence.

It’s essentially the Prime Directive from Star Trek.

Don’t Feed the Humans

A more literal interpretation of the zoo hypothesis is that we’re just an exhibit in a cosmic zoo, maybe even a science project to be studied (via UFOs, of course). But if that were the case, wouldn’t we see aliens as they pass by on the tour? Why aren’t they throwing us bits of food to see how we’d react?

The answer is another version of the Prime Directive: if they revealed their existence, they’d no longer be able to see us in our natural habitat, acting as we normally would. The illusion would be broken, the zoo would be ruined, and who knows what aliens do with defunct exhibits.

On the other hand, perhaps the aliens just don’t see the point. As Ball says in his paper “Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Where Is Everybody?”:

“The idea that we shall be welcomed as new members into the galactic community is as unlikely as the idea that oysters will be welcomed as new members into the human community. We’re probably not even edible.”

Returning to the zoo analogy, we may not even be on the same level as gorillas or bears or other “aware” animals. To the aliens, we might be seen as nothing more than an ant farm. This, as Ball states, isn’t the zoo hypothesis but rather something called the ants-in-the-jungle hypothesis:

“The so-called ants-in-the-jungle hypothesis would have us unaware of ETI [Extraterrestrial Intelligence] for the same reason that ants in a jungle may be unaware of people – no person has ever just happened by. People are beyond their sensory horizon…ETI may be beyond our intellectual horizon; some of the phenomena that we already see may be associated with ETI, but we don’t understand.”

Well, that’s a happy thought, isn’t it? Fish in a fishbowl, looking outside of our own little bubble but not even comprehending what we’re seeing.

But it’s just a hypothesis, one of many possible explanations for the Fermi paradox. What do you think? Are intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms out there? And if so, why are they so elusive?

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Rob Schwarz

Writer, blogger, and part-time peddler of mysterious tales. Editor-in-chief of Stranger Dimensions.