For decades, Hollywood has painted our expectations of alien contact with broad, dramatic strokes. We imagine either benevolent visitors like E.T. or hostile invaders from 'Independence Day'. Yet, as 2025 draws to a close—a year the late mystic Baba Vanga allegedly predicted for first contact—the silence from powerful instruments like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope remains deafening. Into this gap between pop-culture fantasy and scientific reality steps a Columbia University astronomer with a sobering, and unsettling, new theory.
The Eschatian Hypothesis: First Contact as a Death Rattle
Astronomer David Kipping proposes what he terms the 'Eschatian hypothesis'. This idea deliberately resists cinematic framing. Kipping does not suggest aliens will invade or send us a message. Instead, he argues that the first extraterrestrial civilization humanity detects will likely be one in the throes of collapse.
"Hollywood has preconditioned us to expect one of two types of alien contact, either a hostile invasion force or a benevolent species bestowing wisdom to humanity," Kipping explained in a video. "But the Eschatian hypothesis is neither. Here, first contact is with a civilization in its death throes, one that is violently flailing before the end."
The Logic of Loudness: Why We See the Dying Stars
The core of Kipping's argument is not based on science fiction but on the established principles of how astronomers discover cosmic phenomena. When we look at the night sky, many of the brightest stars are not stable like our Sun. They are giants in their final stages, swelling and brightening dramatically. Similarly, supernovae—though rare—are observed thousands of times a year because they release unimaginable energy in a brief, brilliant flash.
Kipping applies this logic to technological civilizations. A stable, advanced society would optimize its energy use, leaving a faint signature that is incredibly hard to detect from light-years away. A civilization in extreme crisis, however, would be 'loud'.
"We should expect that the first detection of an alien civilization to be someone who is being unusually loud," Kipping states. "Their behaviour will probably be atypical, but their enormous volume makes them the most likely candidate for discovery."
In this context, "loud" doesn't mean a radio broadcast. It refers to 'extreme disequilibrium'—catastrophic events that dump massive energy into a planet's environment. Kipping points to potential examples like a full-scale nuclear war or runaway climate change, processes that could make a planet briefly blaze across the interstellar void.
To illustrate, he offers a stark example from Earth: "Detonate all the nukes on Earth and we'd light up like a Christmas tree for the whole galaxy to see."
A New Search Strategy: Hunting for Cosmic Anomalies
This framework suggests alien detection would be accidental, not intentional. We wouldn't decode a message meant for us, but rather witness an astrophysical anomaly—a sudden spike or flash against the cosmic background. Kipping even speculates that the famous, unexplained 'Wow! Signal' from 1977 could fit this pattern: not a deliberate communiqué, but a transient burst from another civilization's brief, unstable period.
If the Eschatian hypothesis holds water, it demands a shift in how we search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The focus would expand beyond listening for structured signals from Earth-like planets. Astronomers would also need to vigilantly scan for short-lived, extreme anomalies: unexplained energetic bursts, strange atmospheric changes on exoplanets, or any signature of rapid, unnatural planetary disruption.
Such a discovery would be profound yet tragic. It would confirm that intelligent life is not unique to Earth, but it would tell us nothing of that civilization's culture, intentions, or wisdom. We would learn only that intelligence can arise in the cosmos, and that—like stars—it may be most visible at the moment it begins to go out.
