What if we one day realise that our planet was a part of a galactic civilisation all along, without us having the faintest of clue? This sounds like a plot for a science fiction movie but isn't it possible? I certainly think so.
I was recently looking for any new developments in our search for extraterrestrial life and unsurprisingly there wasn't a lot of new stuff. Some exoplanets were found that were quite similar to our planet, one of Saturn's moon is now thought to have nutrient rich oceans, we're making strides to go to Moon and the Mars but nothing 'out of the ordinary'.
Scientists do say, however, that we could find some form of extraterrestrial life within this century. It could be a single celled organism or a more complex one. Whether or not we find an intelligent ET species, is another matter entirely, because they would be adept at hiding themselves if they so wanted.
Based on this, a question popped up in my head. What if we were already a part of a galactic civilisation led by one or multiple intelligent alien species and we have no idea at all?
The Bigger Picture
So, the idea here is that there could be a single race or a council of multiple races in our galaxy that are so advanced that we can't even detect their presence. On the Kardashev Scale, they would probably be a Type III civilisation or higher.
They could have already colonised the entire galaxy, with or without warfare, as that would be a natural thing to do for a Type III civilisation and we could just be a part of a small 'county' or something.
As for making contact with us, they would be so advanced than us that we would probably appear to them as a non-intelligent species, pretty much how we view gorillas on our planet. They could think that we have a long way to go as far as evolution and intelligence is concerned, before we are even worth making a contact with.
Our current research shows that the probability of such a galactic civilisation existing is close to, if not, zero. A recent article I read mentioned that scientists had scanned over a hundred thousand galaxies and there was no sign of any such civilisation.
That is of course not conclusive by any measure, for obvious reasons. I mean, we didn't even know that something like a black hole exists merely a century ago, so how can we be sure that no advanced civilisations exist in our local universe given that we wouldn't have even a clue to detecting their highly advanced technology!
Anyways, I thought that this was really something to think about. Of course, it would be no consequence to us even if it were true but it is interesting to talk about regardless. What do you think?