The Berserker hypothesis, also known as the deadly probes scenario, is the idea that humans have not yet detected intelligent alien life in the universe because it has been systematically destroyed by a series of lethal

Von Neumann probes The concept of self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists and has been discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-replicating probes are som ...

. The hypothesis is named after the ''Berserker'' series of novels (1963–2005) written by

Fred Saberhagen Fred Thomas Saberhagen (May 18, 1930 – June 29, 2007) was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Berserker'' series of science fiction short stories and novels. Saberhagen also wrote a series of vampire novels in ...

. The hypothesis has no single known proposer, and instead is thought to have emerged over time in response to the Hart–Tipler conjecture, the idea that an absence of detectable Von Neumann probes is contrapositive evidence that no intelligent life exists outside of the Sun's

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. According to the Berserker hypothesis, an absence of such probes is not evidence of life's absence, since interstellar probes could "go berserk" and destroy other civilizations, before self-destructing. In his 1983 paper "The Great Silence", astronomer

David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo,

summarized the implications of the Berserker hypothesis: it is entirely compatible with all the facts and logic of the

Fermi paradox The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. Those affirming the paradox generally conclude that if the conditions required ...

, but would mean that there exists no intelligent life left to be discovered. In the worst-case scenario, humanity has already alerted others to its existence, and is next in line to be destroyed.

Background

There is no reliable or reproducible evidence that

aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, a lifeform with ext ...

have visited

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. No transmissions or evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life have been observed anywhere other than

in the

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

. This runs counter to the knowledge that the Universe is filled with a very large number of planets, some of which likely hold the conditions hospitable for life. Life typically expands until it fills all available niches."Are We All Alone, or could They be in the Asteroid Belt" by Michael D. Papagiannis, ''Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society'', Vol. 19, p.277
/ref> These contradictory facts form the basis for the

, of which the Berserker hypothesis is one proposed solution.

Responses

A key component of the hypothesis is that Earth's solar system has not yet been visited by a Berserker probe. In a 2013 analysis by

Anders Sandberg Anders Sandberg (born 11 July 1972) is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is a former senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the Un ...

and Stuart Armstrong at the

Future of Humanity Institute The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and t ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, they predicted that even a slowly replicated set of Berserker probes, if it were able to destroy civilizations elsewhere, would also very likely have already encountered (and destroyed) humanity.

Relationship to other proposed Fermi paradox solutions

The Berserker hypothesis is distinct from the

dark forest hypothesis The dark forest hypothesis is the conjecture that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but they are both silent and hostile, maintaining their undetectability for fear of being destroyed by another hostile and undetected civi ...

in that under the latter, many alien civilizations could still exist provided they keep silent. The dark forest hypothesis can be viewed as a special case of the Berserker hypothesis, if the 'deadly Berserker probes' are (e.g. due to resource scarcity) only sent to star systems that show signs of intelligent life. The

Great Filter The Great Filter is an idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial lif ...

hypothesis is a more general counterpart to the Berserker hypothesis, which posits that a great event or barrier prevents early-stage extraterrestrial life from developing into intelligent space-faring civilizations. In the Berserker hypothesis framing, the filter would exist between the

industrial age The Industrial Age is a period of history that encompasses the changes in economic and social organization that began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-d ...

and widespread

space colonization Space colonization (or extraterrestrial colonization) is the human settlement, settlement or colonization of outer space and astronomical bodies. The concept in its broad sense has been applied to any permanent human presence in space, such ...

References

{{Extraterrestrial life, state=expanded Astrobiology Hypotheses Astronomical hypotheses Astronomical controversies Search for extraterrestrial intelligence Fermi paradox