The Fermi paradox is basically the discrepancy between the number of extraterrestrial civilizations we expect should exist in the universe and even the local region of our galaxy, and the number that are observed, which in mainstream science circles is zero.
A paradox usually means that we have a less than adequate understanding of some portion of the problem and that is certainly true with this particular paradox.
Many people have had encounters but they are dismissed by mainstream science.
Get yourself a set of night vision goggles or camera, go out where it’s dark, and look up at night and you will see objects that don’t behave as airplanes, helicopters, satellites, insects, or birds do, and you will see them in abundance.
The SETI protocol is designed to make detection impossible. If you read the protocol, and realize that for a signal to travel interstellar distance at any reasonably obtainable power level requires high gain on both the receiving and transmitting antennas, and you know that high gain in an antenna involves high directivity, then you know that the only way for a signal to be received across an interstellar distance is for receiving and transmitting antennas to both be precisely aimed at each other. This can very very rarely happen by chance, and probably did with the reception of the WOW signal, but given all the relative motions of the transmitting and receiving bodies, the only way the SETI program can succeed, which calls for the same signal to still be present 24 hours later, is if the transmitting civilization is intentionally beaming a signal towards us and we’re continuing to adjust our antenna to look towards them.
Most people feel that it is unwise to advertise our location by sending out a signal intended to be intercepted by alien civilizations. It’s not just the matter of a potential predatory civilization out there, in general when a much more technology advanced civilization encounters a less advanced one, the encounter is not good for the less advanced. It’s quite possible other intelligent species have figured this out as well and so don’t intentionally transmit towards us. If they have the technology to observe us, they probably have figured out that we’re a very antisocial civilization that is self-destructive and so probably best avoided.
If you look at how our own radio communications are developing, we’re moving from modulated carriers to very broadband spread-spectrum signals that are virtually indistinguishable from noise if you don’t have the right key to decode them. So the period that we’ve been transmitting carrier waves that could be detected by a narrow band receiver like SETI has been very brief. Likely the same is true for other cultures because carriers are simply an inefficient use of transmitter power and bandwidth.
SETI aside, there are so many photos of objects we can’t explain, so many people who have encountered beings, and these objects you can see with night vision equipment, it seems pretty clear to me they are already here and there is no paradox, just a bunch of people in denial.
