The Silurian Hypothesis Suggests An Advanced Civilization Lived On Earth Before Humans
18th January 2025
n Doctor Who, an alien species called the Silurians exists – technologically-advanced humanoid reptiles who lived long before humans, going into hiding and being basically undiscovered again until everyone’s favorite time-traveling alien came along in his phone box. So far, so not science. However, in 2018 two University of Cambridge scientists named their paper The Silurian hypothesis: would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?, after the fictional species.
Published in the Journal of Astrobiology, the paper does not argue that there was a technologically advanced species long before humanity, but proposes the interesting hypothetical question of whether it would be possible to find “geological fingerprints” of a bygone civilization that expired millions of years ago.
“One of the key questions in assessing the likelihood of finding such a civilization is an understanding of how often, given that life has arisen and that some species are intelligent, does an industrial civilization develop?” they write in the paper.
As you can see, the headline is a total lie — they explicitly did NOT claim that such a species existed, but rather asked: If it had, how would we know?
But that’s the world in which we live today; It’s All About The Clicks.