The Fermi Paradox has long puzzled humanity and over the years countless solutions have been proposed, some of them darker than others. Now, yet another paper offers an answer to the question of why haven’t aliens got in touch yet, one that is pretty scathing for us humans: maybe we’re just not smart enough.

Earth is perhaps not technologically advanced enough to be worth aliens’ time, and Earthlings, therefore, are of little interest, the paper, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, proposes. Aliens, if they exist, are likely far more concerned with finding signs of technology than signs of life and so may have been overlooking us all this time.

The Fermi Paradox posits that if space is so vast and therefore the likelihood of alien life existing so high, why haven’t we heard from anyone yet? The answers put forward so far range from the unsettling to the vaguely comforting, with some suggesting we could be waiting 400,000 years before getting so much as a hello.

The new paper, written by astrophysicist Amri Wandel, hypothesizes that life may be more common in our galaxy than we think, which means any potential extraterrestrials are spoiled for choice when choosing who to contact. And unfortunately for us, humans just aren’t making the cut.