Steve Watson

The Glass Forest

The Dark Forest hypothesis is that any rational alien civilisation would conceal itself from observers because it would fear attack by other stronger rational alien civilisations. This is proposed as a solution to the Fermi Paradox: we don’t see the abundant alien civilisations about us because although they exist, they are all in hiding. In fact, the universe does not favour concealment for advanced civilisations, their simple existence sends a signal by their use of energy, stray communications, large-scale structures, environmental signatures, etc. The forest cannot realistically be thought of as dark; in fact, the universe is rather a Glass Forest where no advanced civilisation can remain undetected while in proximity to any other advanced civilisation.