This Is What Extraterrestrial Life Would Look Like

4. In A Virtual Reality - The Matrioshka Brain

Another idea for how aliens could be living, is in something called a Matrioshka Brain (although it's highly unlikely that that's what the aliens call it). This theory is particularly interesting because it goes some way to explaining why we haven't been contacted by any little green men yet. A Matrioshka Brain is essentially an enormous computer with immense processing capacity. It is similar to the Dyson Sphere in the sense that it would require the energy of an entire star to power it, but it would also have the consciousnesses of an entire alien race uploaded to it. This would enable them to live in a perfect virtual reality as part of the computer programme. There are even some, in the slightly nuttier parts of the internet, who think that this could already be the case for us. Although, don't know about you, but if this was a giant computer simulation, whoever programmed it had a pretty dark sense of humour.