My opinions on the Fermi paradox

 I don't have a degree in physics or biology, but I love Sci Fi, and the question of "are we alone in the universe?" has always been in my mind.

Anyways, here's my opinions.

I don't think the fact we see no evidence of galactic empires or visitation is due to "the vast distances". Because, as professors Matt O'dowd and David Kepping said, nothing is stopping a civilization from limping their way from one star system to the next.

A civilization that's 1 million years ahead of us, but that can only travel at 10% the speed of light (something human scientists say they think is within human capabilities in the not too distant future) will have had more than enough time to colonize the galaxy multiple times over.

As for space travel being too dangerous, difficult or long, why not use robots or probes?

I don't think it's because of the "dark forest hypothesis", because as David Kepping and Neil Degrass Tyson have said, we will know if a planet has life, and if the planet has a civilization from the chemical composition in it's atmosphere. 

A planet with a high level of oxygen must have had life produce that oxygen. High levels of CFCs and NF3 must come from an industrial civilization. We can study a planet's atmosphere even if the planet is far away.

I don't think it's because of the "Great Filter Theory", because sure, some civilizations might get wiped out from nuclear war or an asteroid strike, but it happening to every single one of them.

Same like if some civilizations follow a prime directive of non-interference, would every advanced civilization do the same?

I think it's more to do with what Micho kaku said, which is considering the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, 1 million years is a small amount of time in the cosmic timescale, therefore, civilizations that are more advanced than us should be millions or billions or years ahead of us. Micho Kaku said he believes Sci Fi has it all wrong when it shows aliens being only a few hundred or a few thousand years ahead of us.

Kaku said if aliens are millions of years ahead of us, we'd be like ants to them. Do we try to communicate with ants?

If humans went back in time only a few thousand years, we'd look like gods to people back then, if we showed them jet planes and the internet.

So I personally believe in the "we have been left behind" hypothesis. Which is civilizations that are millions and billions of years older than us left this galaxy, and perhaps even the universe entirely, for greener pastures.

Maybe civilizations millions of years older than us have created their own universes which they are like Gods in those universes and experience neverending joy and pleasure and have no reason to return to this universe, let alone Earth, and listen to us humans moan and bitch about everything and hearing about our boring 9-5 routines.

It's possible they have found a way to exist in higher dimensions that we don't know about yet or understand. A civilization millions of years older than us might exist as energy or in ways we can't comprehend, in which they become part of the fabric of the universe or multiple universes, and they can exist in multiple points in time and space at once.

Going back to simple explanations, maybe the pink elephant in the room is that human scientists still aren't sure how life got kick started and have never been able to create life in very controlled environments, yet we're hoping the conditions that create life occurs by chance on other planets.

 So this could mean life in general is extremely rare (rare earth hypothesis) and the reason we don't see evidence of alien civilizations is they have never existed.

Update: Scientists are now confident they've found evidence of life on Mars, but we won't know for sure until the samples are studied.

If it turns out there was/is life on Mars, and life has occurred twice in a solar system, it means an educated guess is life is constant throughout our universe, which has countless planets.

We also may need to redefine what we call 'aliens', because there is suggestions life didn't originate on Earth and was brought here by rocks from space (panspermia) or was blasted here on rocks from Mars after a meteor crashed into Mars. We've found rocks from Mars here on Earth!

 So we might be the aliens!