A New Twist on 'Little Green Men'

Do Aliens Go Invisible by 'Going Green'?

The Fermi Paradox simply asks the question "where are they?" Our Milky Way galaxy is so big and so old -- and we are estimated to be accompanied by at least 100 billion planets -- that aliens should have visited us by now...

Canadian science fiction writer Karl Schroeder has come upon a novel solution to the failure of astronomical observations to solve the Fermi Paradox. He proposes: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature." (This is a takeoff on Arthur C. Clarke's posit: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")

In other words, smart aliens have "gone green" and generate no waste products that we could detect. They therefore blend into the galaxy. Therefore, "artificial and natural systems are indistinguishable,” writes Schroeder.

However Freeman Dyson, the great thinker and physicist has already come up with another thought.  Civilizations inexorably  demand more energy, to the point that a sufficiently advanced civilization will require the entire output of their home star, thus shielding the star and their own civilization from view except as excess heat.  Hence, the Dyson sphere. This might also help solve the mystery of the universe missing mass.  Fermilab has identified 17 possible such signatures.