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Microlensing is proving to be one of the best techniques to detect distant,low-mass planets around the most common stars in the Galaxy. In principle,Earth's microlensing signal could offer the chance for other technologicalcivilisations to find the Earth across Galactic distances. We consider thephotometric microlensing signal of Earth to other potential technologicalcivilisations and dub the regions of our Galaxy from which Earth's photometricmicrolensing signal is most readily observable as the "Earth Microlensing Zone"(EMZ). The EMZ can be thought of as the microlensing analogue of the EarthTransit Zone (ETZ) from where observers see Earth transit the Sun. Just as forthe ETZ, the EMZ could represent a game-theoretic Schelling point for targetedsearches for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). To compute the EMZ, we usethe Gaia DR2 catalogue with magnitude G<20 to generate Earth microlensingprobability and detection rate maps to other observers. Whilst our Solar systemis a multi-planet system, we show that Earth's photometric microlensingsignature is almost always well approximated by a binary lens assumption. Wethen show that the Earth is in fact well-hidden to observers with technologycomparable to our own. Specifically, even if observers are located around everyGaia DR2 star with G<20, we expect photometric microlensing signatures from theEarth to be observable on average only tens per year by any of them. Inaddition, the EMZs overlap with the ETZ near the Galactic centre which could bethe main areas for future SETI searches.

Earth through the looking glass: how frequently are we detected by other civilisations through photometric microlensing?