Subscribe to ListverseYour View: Do Aliens Exist?
- Published February 25, 2008 - 471 Comments
This is a topic that we have long wondered about – do aliens exist and if so have they communicated with us or attempted to? Everyone has a strong opinion on this topic so I expect you will all be very vocal. It would be great if you can give examples from your own life about the moment you started to believe, or stopped believing.
When answering this question, be sure to give us your reasons for your answer – it gives us a chance to debate!
Do aliens exist and have they visited earth?
My answer is no – I think that if aliens existed and had the knowledge to travel to earth in UFO’s – they would not be trying to hide from us – they would communicate. Also, if logic says they must exist, surely logic would then also say that there must be somewhere a race so advanced that they could communicate and would have. Having said that – I think it would be very cool if they did exist!
February 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Mathmatically, they must, and for the same reason, they haven’t been here…yet. THe place is just too big!
February 25th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Ditto. Although I find it rather self-centred and hard to believe they resemble us in any way.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:56 am
no.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am
If aliens do exist, I personally think we’re screwed. It won’t be a matter of them being hostile or peaceful, but look at what happen to America’s Natives when everyone was colonizing the new world. Two civilizations that had not had contact for thousands of years come together and one is ravaged by disease from the other.
It will be like war of the worlds for either us or them and one civilization will probably be wiped out by a disease that comes from our world or theirs.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I don’t think aliens have visited our planet nor do i support the idea that they sowed the seeds of life on earth, but they are certainly out there somewhere in this vast universe, may be we can find(contact) them in the fairly distant future.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I think it is a bit egotistical to think we are the one and only lifeform in the entire universe. Alien lifeforms do not have to have the same intelligence we do. They might be little wormy type things building their own form of colonies. Or maybe the aliens are so egotisitcal they don’t believe any other lifeform could exist and aren’t looking for any. And who is to say they have to be more technologically advanced than us and are able to get to Earth from wherever they are. There is much to be said about observation without detection too.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I think they probably do.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Lol.I guess I mean 6th!
February 25th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I think aliens do exist. Just they are not here. They have not traveled the spans of space to pick on us and probe us and put tracking/mind control chips in us and all that crap.
Some where out there, there is another planet(s) which supports life. It may not have the exact same qualities of Earth. But just like us, the “people” who live on that planet have a complex system that makes their existance on their planet possible.
The thought that in the infinate span of the universe, we are the only planet that supports life…..
That just doesn’t make sense to me.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:05 am
With the inpractical limits of the universe, they must exist. But with our limited technology, there is a incredibly tiny possibility of finding them. Thus, for all practical purposes, they do not exist.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I am sure they exist…I mean all those stars and all those planets up there…how can there NOT be some other life form, as for them having visited earth well lets just say I highly doubt it.
I wonder if there will be any listversers that turn out to be UFO nuts? lol
February 25th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Oh and by the way….
Purdnasty: You read too much Steven King.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Allthough if they did exist are they more advanced then us or not? Maybe were the only ones lucky enough to have advanced so much…or maybe they exist on a different plane of existance all together…
February 25th, 2008 at 8:10 am
haha not I sound like a nut
I’m not! Honest!
February 25th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Aleins do exist. The if the universe is infinite then it must be a mathematical impossibility for there NOT to be another planet in the universe that holds another form of life. Just because another planet isn’t like Earth, in terms of temperature and chemical make up doesn’t mean there is not life on those planets, just different from what we have come to expect on Earth. Imagine, for example, a silicon based lifeform living on a planet similar to Mercury in our solar system. Just because we haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
‘Absense of proof does not mean proof of absense.’
February 25th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I’m inclined to agree with JF, but at the same time perhaps they follow a perverse “Prime Directive”. Under no circumstances shall any “primitive” civilizations be disturbed. But at the same time we think they’re out there. Which lends credence to the law that states, “By observing an object you change it.” From a religious stand point, I don’t think they exist. From a personal standpoint, it’d be wicked awesome if they did. Until I get to a logical standpoint, They’re more than likely, hostile, poisonous, or otherwise damaging to us. So all in all, I hope and pray that they don’t. But it’s a nice thing to think about.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:15 am
They do.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I don’t know if they exist. Perhaps they are mere bacteria at this point awaiting evolution. Maybe they mirror our evolution and like us, wondering if we exist. All I can say is that if they do exist, I hope that they are nothing like us due to the members of our society who feel the need to destroy each other, be it from simple murder, to full scale warfare. I think that for that reason there, it is better to not find them at all. We are just too evil.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Maybe the better question to ask in this would be ‘do intelligent aliens (with the ability to explore the galaxy(?))exist?’
February 25th, 2008 at 8:22 am
somebody who is pro-alien and anti-God chime in and let me know how you can dismiss the latter for “lack of evidence” and champion the former when less evidence exists.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:31 am
MiamiCane are you a politician?
February 25th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Of Course they do! I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. Nor would you! Always have been, and always will! Alien Civilizations Exist! Try UFO Files on History.com, or UFO Association.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:49 am
If aliens exist, why are they bent on abducting Joe Schmoe from the middle of Nowhere? Why would they take them aboard the ship, experiment, and go through the trouble of covering their tracks while giving the victims life-long problems? They could just as easily break into one of the millions of libraries/bookstores throughout the world and take a books of anatomy. Or physiology. Or psychology. Anything! After all, we’ve been studying ourselves from day one. Who knows more about the workings of the human body and mind than us humans.
Personlly, the thought of aliens has always been ridiculous. They seem to use methods that are not on par with their supposed advancement.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:54 am
And if they really are abducting people, why are the taking semi to very credible people who will come back and tell the world? Why wouldn’t they take a bum or difter whom no one will miss? They wouldn’t even have to bring them back! I know that sounds terrible (which it is) but it would be much more practical.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Have aliens visited Earth? Very likely not. Do aliens exist? Without a doubt. Why haven’t they tried to contact us? Maybe they have, and we just don’t have the technology to receive their messages. Remember, a signal sent across space needs sending technology and reciprocal receiving technology. Maybe they’ve been trying to contact us for thousands of years, and we just can’t hear them. In any case, there is undoubtedly other life in the universe. There is also undoubtedly at least one other planet in the universe with intelligent life on it, and perhaps many others. Hopefully the human race will survive itself long enough to find out.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:03 am
With apologies to Dennis Miller:
If any of you aliens out there are reading this, first of all, thanks for visiting the List Universe. Now I want you to listen up, Keldar from Ramula 5. If you do come here and land in a rural area, please stay out of our asses. There’s nothing in our ass that will help you save your dying planet. Life is tough enough out in grow country without you proctonauts dowing a case of Zima and getting your moonrocks off by checking Jethro’s oil.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am
That depends on how you see the universe. If the universe (or Cosmos if you prefer) is infinite in space and time, then sooner or later there will be life on another planet. Although thats not to say that there is life somewhere else right now. Life may exist on a planet billions of years before or after the earth exists.
Now if you believe that the universe is NOT infinite (at least in regards to time) then I’d say the odds against life existing in the first place are so astronomical that there is no way life could exist somewhere else.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I agree with jf they most certainly do not exist.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Again, Dennis Miller:
Some say an alien craft crash landed outside of Roswell New Mexico. Yeah, because they can travel millions of light years dodging comets and asteroids but those New Mexico telephone wires are a real bitch!
February 25th, 2008 at 9:22 am
bucslim: heh nice point
February 25th, 2008 at 9:22 am
nope
February 25th, 2008 at 9:28 am
they most likely exists but we wouldn’t know about it because they would have to be able to travel at light speed, or they would have a telescope that is way stronger then ours on earth, or they are just not as smart as us yet. ethier way, earthlings will never know unless they want us too or we find them first.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:29 am
There are life on other planets, thats a fact, though its only bacteria that have been found (please note that, DiscHuker, thats already more evidence than there ever was for god). If by aliens you mean life more intelligent than ourselves, that’s a different story, even though it might be possible. I think we could be the most advanced civilization and there are others out there who are developing.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:31 am
i think people look at this wrong. i do not believe aliens have ever visited earth….or if they have, it happened in the 99.9% of earth’s history in which humans werent running the show.
but somewhere in the seemingly infinite amount of stars in the universe (i once heard that there could be about a billion stars per every grain of sand on earth) there is most likely a good number of planets in which life exists.
even if you did all the math to find out just how unlikely life forming on earth was, lets say it was 1 in 100 trillion, well, theres probably more stars than that, and odds are, more than a few happen to have an earthlike planet around them.
so to reiterate, i do not believe intelligent life has ever visited earth while humans have been in charge, but somewhere out there, even if its a few colonies of bacteria under some rocks, there is life.
to try and deny that, as hank hill would say, “is completely asinine.”
February 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I agree that mathematically speaking there has to be other life out there in the universe. To apply similar logic, they’re probably just as far a long as we are technologically.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
to ginger lee:
or further. think about the advances weve made in just teh past decade. now imagine a planet that follows a similar path to earth but developed 1000 years sooner….or a million. what could humanity do with another million years of advancement? (assuming we don’t destroy ourselves along the way)
February 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am
yes, in order to transcend into the heavens, we must leave worldly posessions behind,… long ago, this was recorded by man, still believed by some, and gives some hope for the future to escape this hell
February 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
we are aliens
February 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Just wanted to point out the universe is not infinite.
Scientists have discovered that the universe has a distinct “soccer ball” type shape as a boundary and this boundary is expanding.
Another way to prove space is not infinite is the amount of stars in the sky. If the universe was infinite then the amount of stars would be infinite and the entire night sky would be lit up. Think about a forest that has an infinite number of trees. You could not pick a point and see empty space or see through the forest, you would just see trees. Similarly, if the universe was infinite, you couldn’t see “empty” space or blackness, you would just see stars.
Oh, and aliens do exist.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:40 am
SlickWilly:
What about the Wow! signal? It was mentioned on a list on here recently…
February 25th, 2008 at 9:41 am
since i tried starting this debate a few times, i am on the side that aliens do excist
whether they have been here or have the ability to get here i not know nor care :p
February 25th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I find it very hard to believe that we are the only intelligent species located in the Universe. And who knows if they have visited because if they can make it to earth they sure as hell can keep hidden away from us
February 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Also, if aliens have visited Earth, why hasn’t a government come forth and said so? There are conspiracies that the U.S. government is concealing the truth about extra-terrestrials and UFO’s but our government is just one among hundreds. Surely if the aliens have made contact, they have done so outside the borders of America too. I would imagine at least one government would come forward and say they definitively acknowledge that aliens have been to Earth. It’s tough to think that all the governments in the world are concealing the truth.
I think aliens exist but just haven’t gotten to us yet.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I believe that Earth cannot be the only planet in the Universe able to sustane life. There simply must be other forms of life in the universe, remember that the universe is a VERY big place. The chances are that we are far appart and if there is inteligent life like us, who is to say that they are more or less technologicaly advanced than us, or that they care about other life. Another possibility is that there is life, but it could well just be small strands of bacteria, or insects, or mabe even complex organisms like dogs and cats.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am
fishing4monkeys: It is much more logical and simple to understand that the Wow signal is most likely not of extraterrestrial origin. There are other theories that have been put forth that explain with a greater degree of efficiency the nature of the Wow signal, other than those that believe it is a legitimate extraterrestrial signal. As for me, I’m a skeptic. Why haven’t we picked this signal up again, in almost 30 years since it was registered? I believe it’s more likely the signal was mistaken identity of a terrestrial-based signal. BUT, I am not an expert on the Wow signal, or the technology associated with the field, so I won’t say there is *no* possibility that it is an extraterrestrial signal, just that it is more likely that it is not.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Tommo: I agree with you. Just because there is life does not nescessarily mean that they have to come to earth. If they are inteligent and could travel to earth, in all honesty, what would there realy be to gain for them? If they have the technology to get here then that means that they are more advanced than us anyway, and there are probably other planets for them to go if they need resources that are not populated by inteligent life.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am
i hate the stereotype that all aliens are really advanced and fly around in spaceships.for all we know we could be developing faster then other races out there and then we could be the ones coming into contact with them and sharing our technologies
February 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Who are any of us to say? I think all supposed alien encounters we hear about on tv are hoaxes for sure though. I think saying “oh yes aliens definitely exist” or “no way I know for a fact they don’t” is pretty silly. Until someone gives me some extremeley competent proof I’m not going to believe either side of the fence.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Mathematically yes, some sort of life other than ours has to exist, but that does not necessarily mean it’s what we might deem ‘intelligent’, if it was we’d have had so-called contact.
And yes, I agree with the disease theory. All biologically rather risky. In short, yes, but not the kind of alien life most people think of I would say. I’m thinking single celled organisms or some sort of un-intellectual life somewhere… but personally chances of that I think are slim… but the idea is cool.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Its obvious that aliens exist.. mathematically.
But i read that the chances that two life forms from different planets ever meet in their lifetime is extreemly thin… practically impossible.
Humanity has never and will never meet a life form from another planet.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Yes they exist and no they haven’t visited because they don’t care. Waste of time.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am
This is straight from a Calvin and Hobbes strip. There are two possibilities: either aliens don’t exist and therefore we have made no contact, or aliens do exist, and because they are intelligent and have advanced technology, they know not to interact with humans.
Another thought- if aliens do exist, why exactly do they have to have flying saucers and more advanced technology than ours? What if one day humans have the technologies that we believe aliens to have and we in fact become the “little green man” to a species on another planet?
I believe aliens exist, but also that we will most probably not come into contact with them, at least not in the lifetime of anyone posting on this board. But the existence of aliens would be awesome!
February 25th, 2008 at 10:31 am
P.S.: Jfrater, I love the way you poke at Scientology. Especially on the boards where you come out and say that Scientology is a blatant lie. It’s always funny, but also very informative. Thanks for keeping this site great!
February 25th, 2008 at 10:34 am
yes!
February 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am
tommo – even if there was an infinite number of stars the light of most would not reach us because they are too far away.
all you math nerds – explain how aliens exist mathmatically???
seriously, just because the there is only a one in a trillion chance….hello! earth = one. we win. we are it.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I think it is highly likely that aliens exist. I also think (hope) theyre smart enough to stay the hell away (someone here already mentioned how disease destroyed a civilization, but think of what one of us (probably “we”) would do on purpose!).
Should we have a UFO cult (read: “Scientology”)? No. And we shouldn’t go looking for them, either. The consequences are such that we cannot afford.
Either they’re malevolent, or we’re going to do something stupid.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:41 am
if there are aliens out there, they are probable in some other galaxy and we will never know. so its a moot point to argue this stupid question. Please, new list jfrater, something we can logical debate and back our arguments with real evidence.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I think they really could exist, though why would they be smater, for all means isn’t an alien not just a living organism on an other planet. who says there even big enough to see with our eyes, or that they have a somewhat same social structure.
in they question would there be aliens just like in movies and such no, but otherwise, I do think there other living organisms on other planets adapted to that special environment.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I was pretty excited to write a response to this…and then I read the first few and realized that someone wrote down exactly what I was thinking, especially the egotistical bit (except it was worded much better!)
I agree with you whole-heartedly JwJw!!
February 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I have no doubts aliens exist. Whether or not there are aliens that can reach, or are capable of reaching, us yet is another matter.
The universe is (for the sake of this argument) almost infinite. I refuse to believe that there aren’t planet with the right conditions for life.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Come on… I live in the Los Angeles area and they are all over the place and on top of that most of them are illegal.
Seriously, the mathematics woks both ways as far as with the vastness of space they must exist but with all those chances of existing for millions of years before & after us we haven’t had one proven communications with anything or anyone outside of earthlings. Don’t radio waves travel the speed of light travel for ever into space? (I’m not sure about the last statement but that’s what somebody told me that heard it from somebody’s cousin’s uncle that is supposedly really smart
Seriously again … Unless you want to call bacteria aliens I will say no.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
look at it this way which is the most scaryist possobilities.
1. there are aliens exist on some planet in the entire universe who are more advance or not …..or
2. we are the one who are supposed to populate the universe.
personaly ……. I think # 2 is
February 25th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Well, there is proof of bacteria on other planets, call them aliens if you want.
But there’s more than likely other beings like us out there. Is man so self-absorbed to think he is the only intelligent being in the universe?
Some distant planets have been found to harbor climates like our own, so it’s totally possible.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Who else put this chip in my head man? Aliens arent cool
February 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
The universe is vast. There are countless galaxies, stars, solar system, and doubtless, planets. At least some of those planets must possess life of some sort. Maybe those aliens have yet to develop the technology to travel in space or between stars. Personally, I believe they exist and have visited Earth. Why not more communication? Maybe they’re waiting for us to catch up to their technology.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
moonbeam: I know, right? And what’s with the anal-probe fetish these guys seem to have? Lay off our asses, you damned aliens!
February 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Universe = Infinite?
Chances of Lifeforms existing on other planets = Infinite?
Mathematically it must be true to say alien lifeforms exist, I am very intruiged as to why we have not had contact from alien lifeforms, particualrly as there are much older solar systems surrounding ours, with much larger stars and planets which surely must have been, or are able to sustain life.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’m going to reveal another tiny detail about myself—I am, in fact, an astronomer… though it isn’t what I’m doing to make a living (though I do currently work, after hours, at a planetarium and observatory in a volunteer capacity)…. so I have some semi-profession interest in this question. (I also have some biology under my belt–and no, that’s not a double entendre).
Oddly enough, I also have a cousin who is an investigator for a UFO agency… I believe MUFON. But we haven’t talked about the subject in some months.
Now… are aliens really out there? Of course they are. We live in a galaxy of approximately 100 billion stars. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. The odds of humanity being alone are therefore ridiculously low.
The question is, though… is there INTELLIGENT life out there? Harder to answer, but again, it seems extremely likely that there is intelligent life out there *somewhere* in all that vastness. They may be very, very, VERY far away, however. We simply don’t yet know for sure how difficult it is for nature to evolve intelligent life. Given what we know of life on earth, however, it seems very difficult. There was life in some form or other on the earth for billions of years. But intelligence did not evolve until only about 100,000 years ago or so (depending on how you define our species). Clearly this is a tiny, tiny fraction of the entire existence of life on earth. And in fact, complex organisms (i.e., more complex than a bacteria) did not evolve on the earth, to our knowledge, until some 500 million years ago. If that suggests anything to us, it suggests that the universe might be teeming with microbial life, but that complex organisms might be rare–and intelligence rarer still. We may even have the entire Milky Way galaxy to ourselves, except for a lot of microbes and a few larger critters.
But if we take the optimistic view, we can believe, with fairly good reason, that statistically we’re not alone in this galaxy. And statistically speaking, it would mean that they (the aliens) are probably far more advanced than us (because we’re so young, as a species—an intelligent alien race couldn’t be too far behind us before they couldn’t be considered “intelligent” anymore, if we use our own evolution as a standard to go by).
Then, however, comes the other question: are they visiting us?
And the answer, I believe, is No.
Space is vast. Incredibly vast. Currently we know of no way to circumvent the laws of physics in order to travel faster than the speed of light. There are ideas (space warps, wormholes, etc.) but there is little hard science to back them up. Travel at speeds lower than light or even very near the speed of light would be prohibitively slow for a species like ours (or, because of time dilation at near-light speeds, the journey would be one-way). We can perhaps imagine very long-lived species, but even if I lived to be a thousand years, I’m not sure I’d want to spend most of that life confined in a space ship.
But just for argument’s sake, let’s say there’s an intelligent species only, oh… say, 1000 light years away from us. And let’s say they HAVE developed some means of traveling faster-than-light. Still—why would they come here? We would be ONE planet within a VAST bubble surrounding their home star. To them all star systems around them would be equally attractive prospects for exploration. They’d have no way of knowing that there is intelligent life on our world. Oh, using spectrographic techniques, they could tell that there is *life* here from a distance—if their definition of “life” is similar to ours—but intelligent life would be harder to determine. They may not recognize the pollution in our atmosphere as having been created by an intelligence—they might view it as a natural occurrence on our world. Our radio/TV signals haven’t had time to go even 100 light years, let alone 1000—so they wouldn’t know us by that means—and even if a species lived closer, it isn’t as simple as just tuning in to “I Love Lucy” as it goes passing by at the speed of light—by the time the signals travel just a little ways beyond the atmosphere, they degrade and thin out to the point where it would require immensely powerful and sensitive detection equipment to find them.
And statistically they might be so far ahead of us that they might not even recognize us (or even our signals) as intelligent. By their definition, we might not be.
We MAY, as yet, find their signals—if they have made it easy enough for us—but this is by no means guaranteed. And they may not use radio anymore as a means of communication. They may have evolved beyond it, using some method which we can’t even imagine. (Though one would think that an intelligent species must have used radio at SOME point in its development, meaning SOME kind of signal might be out there to find).
No… if there is ANY truth to the sightings of UFOs made over the years—then rest assured those craft are based *right here* on earth—and almost certainly the possessions of the US government. And I don’t mean alien spaceships, but rather secret aircraft, the purposes and capabilities of which are still undisclosed.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
romerozombie:
Sorry, but you’re incorrect—there is no proof, as yet, of ANY kind of life off the earth. Not even microbial. There is the *possibility* of fossilized microbes discovered in a meteor that was believed to have come from Mars—but this remains unproven and the evidence is not yet generally accepted.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
of course we exist.
we are amazed by the diversity of life on this planet.
some of our travelers have gotten sloppy in the past, which you have evidenced by sighting us in the sky. and some of our travelers have broken our law of not interacting. trust me, when they return to our planet, they are punished.
our intent is to observe. we believe that you are on the right path to develop interstellar travel, maybe within the next 1000 of your star-cycles.
we are not alarmed by your territorial struggles. in our travels, we have noticed that most inhabited planets have similar disputes over land, water, air and other natural resources, whether they are intelligent thinkers or mud-dwelling fighters.
we wish you luck in your advancements. we understand the difficulty, as we have been there before. do not give up.
we will be watching and hoping.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
aliens…not real
angels and demons….very real
February 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
bradley:
I’m sorry, I think I spotted a typo in your post. I think you meant:
angels and demons…not real
aliens…very real
Glad we could clear that up.
(j/k)
February 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
YES. ALIENS DO EXIST. THEY DO NOT COME FROM OUTER SPACE. THEY COME FROM UNDERNEATH THE EARTH’S CRUST. GOOGLE THE HOLLOW EARTH THEORY FOR MORE INFO.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Just wanted to point out the universe is not infinite.
Scientists have discovered that the universe has a distinct “soccer ball” type shape as a boundary and this boundary is expanding.
Another way to prove space is not infinite is the amount of stars in the sky. If the universe was infinite then the amount of stars would be infinite and the entire night sky would be lit up. Think about a forest that has an infinite number of trees. You could not pick a point and see empty space or see through the forest, you would just see trees. Similarly, if the universe was infinite, you couldn’t see “empty” space or blackness, you would just see stars.
And to answer longballs question:
If space was infinite then time is technically infinite and therefore the stars have an infinite amount of time for their light to reach across the universe.
Since the universe is over 13 billion years old, this can’t be.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
anliens do exist ,,but why would they come here we are so violent they would stay away
February 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Last time I checked, we existed. So make that a yes vote.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I believe that “aliens” exist in some way, shape, or form. I’m not so self-centered and naive to think they’d look anything like us, nor to I want to believe they look like what you’d see on the Sci-Fi channel. It’s really narrow-minded to think, that with the vastness of the Universe, the thousands of galaxies and the stars and planets that reside in them, that we are the only ones. I just can’t even wrap my mind around that. It just makes sense to assume that there is at least one other “intelligent” species that exists other than humans.
Do I think they’ve been here? I really don’t know. I’m not so sure I believe in the classic UFO sightings and abductions, it just seems odd that a group of supposedly superior intelligent beings would resort to such primitive means of gathering information. Perhaps they know we exist, and they think we’re not advanced enough to receive them properly. Or they could even have found ways to hide themselves, whether through advanced stealth technologies or by “disguising” themselves as humans. I’m not really sure exactly what I believe, and surely these scenarios are unlikely (maybe I watched too much Star Trek as a kid), but I believe it to certainly be within the realm of possibility, even if I wouldn’t bet on it actually happen!
I believe they exist, whoever they are, wherever they are, but I really can’t bring myself to believe for sure that they are either here now or have been here in the past.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
#77 – well said.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Read most of the comments, but I haven’t heard anyone mention this; in the 50’s and 60’s there was a real UFO-boom, practically everyone had seen a UFO, or flying saucer as they were called then :p I don’t know exactly when the Roswell incident happened, but it was in the 50’s (corect me if I’m wrong). Probably the same time that Area 51 was operational? Don’t forget there was a huge threat from the Sovjets at that time and the Cold War was getting under way, if it wasn’t already… Together with the space race (I’m not trying to start a new topic on whether man has or hasn’t landed on the moon) but I believe that all the sightings in that time, and perhaps later as well, are all U.S. prototypes. Or how do you explain that UFO boom only happening in the US? These “20″ years of sightings have fueled a real UFO-religion…
Since I was a kid I was interested in the phenomenon, probably started with seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. :p
One fact stands out, the DO exist… Have they visited earth? Not likely… Nevertheless, in the past some strange things have occured on our blue pearl…………..
February 25th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Randall: “I also have some biology under my belt–and no, that’s not a double entendre.”
Hi-yo! Ba-zing.
(Sorry. Thought that was great.)
February 25th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Speaking of double entendres…reminds me of the night I was working in this bar. A gorgeous blonde walked up to the bar, and said “I’d like a double entendre please”
…so I gave her one !
February 25th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Space Cowboy – how is the existence of aliens based on unsubstantiaed sightings a fact?
February 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
kiwiboi: Great joke. Might have been more effective if you changed the punchline to “….so I gave it to her.”
February 25th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
First of all…if they do exist (which I am 99.99% positive they do) there is little chance they could reach earth. The closest star to the sun would take us 250,000 years to reach with our most advaced tech. They (aliens) would need to have technologies that could exceed the speed light or cheat the laws of physics (worm wholes). However, there are equations that predict about 1 million advanced civilizations in the milky wy alone. There are billions of galaxies out there, many of which dwarf ours in comparison. earth cannot be the only place with intelligent life.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
slick – mebbes. My terminology is more typical British slang
February 25th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
also…tomo is an severely misinformed…the only stars we see are in our galaxy and we only see one of its arms. the universe is not ball shaped either, and scientists do not know if it is infinite…they can only see about 14 billion years (when they think the big bang occured) but space itself could very well be infinite.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Space_Cowboy:
Sorry, but there are a number of factual errors in your posting… just thought I’d provide you with the straight info.
1) The UFO “boom” began in 1947 with the sighting, by Kenneth Arnold, of nine unusually-shaped aircraft flying, Arnold said, like a saucer skipped on the water. He also estimated these craft to be flying at what was then an impossible speed (for even the fastest aircraft of the day). There have since been UFO “flaps” in certain years, right up to today—which are years/periods of unusually high numbers of sightings and activity—in between the “flaps” the activity dies down a bit and the sightings lessen. But the boom was not confined to the 50s and 60s.
2) Even so, it isn’t true to say that “practically everyone” had seen a UFO. The number of sightings is still relatively small as a percentage of the overall population. We cannot fudge this number, either, by allowing in all sightings of a questionable nature–there have been many mistaken sightings over the years–people really mistaking weather balloons and conventional aircraft for UFOs.
3) The Roswell incident occurred in June, 1947. (Shortly after the Arnold sighting). The base you and many other people refer to as “Area 51″ was in fact not put into operation until 1955. “Area 51″ is not its true designation—it’s known by various names, though “Groom Lake facility” is probably its most common moniker used by those in the know. “Area 51″ was simply a geographic box within which the facility resides.
4) The UFO “boom” has NOT been confined to the US by *any* means. There have been countless sightings particularly in the UK, France, Belgium (and to a lesser extent in the rest of Europe) South America and the USSR/Russia.
5) While I in fact agree with you that many of the remaining “unsolved” UFO sighting stories (the ones with some merit, that is) are probably to be explained by experimental/secret aircraft, this theory by no means answers all the questions. For instance–what were the things being seen in the late 40s? Are we to believe that the government had radically high-tech aircraft so soon after WWII? What were the things that Arnold saw? If he was correct about their speed and other flight characteristics, then these things were remarkably advanced for the day. (It’s almost easier to assume that Arnold got his speed estimates wrong). It seems more likely to assume that “advanced” experimental/secret aircraft begin to explain some of the UFO sightings by the late 50s and on…. but what of the sightings before that? And why, if these craft are secret and sensitive, are they so often flown in plain view of people, very close to the ground?
February 25th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
When thinking about the word “aliens” I do believe that there is “alien” life forms out there. I believe that out of an entire universe, most of which is unexplored, there has to be something else that is living out there amongst the stars.
I cannot attempt to say exactly what these “things” or “beings”, if you will, might in fact be. These living organisms might be anything from the large eyed grays that everyone associates with aliens or they could be something as simple as a plant or a microorganism.
Overall, I believe that there is most likely life somewhere else in the universe, but as far as flying saucers and close encounters with humanoid creatures and abductions and crop circles and whatnot I cannot say yes or no definitivly, but I lean towards no. A lot of things are most likely the result of an over-active imagination.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I think it’s ignorant to think that we are all there is for life out there. It doesn’t make sense that were the only ones. However, I think that science fiction has glorified the idea, and that “aliens” are not what the genre makes them out to be. In reality, I think life on other planets would be somewhat like us, self sufficient and not able to travel that far.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
“The UFO “boom” has NOT been confined to the US by *any* means.”
I grew up in New Zealand, where the authorities are open about such matters. There was a famous sighting in the late ’70s when the NZ Airforce was scrambled and continual updates about the “search/chase” were even given on tv.
Here’s some detail :
http://ufos.about.com/od/visualproofphotosvideo/a/kaikoura.htm
February 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
chadster: you should really look through a telescope someday.
The stars we see in other galaxies (ie Andromeda galaxy, Triangulum galaxy, etc.) are, by definition, in other galaxies. completely separate ’spirals’ of stars, separate from the Milky Way.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Chadster:
Sorry, but Tommo got it mostly right. I wouldn’t call him/her “severely misinformed.” You’re correct to point out that the stars we DO see are all within our own galaxy (we don’t even see ALL of one of its arms—just a portion) but the idea of space being “infinite” has been pretty well put to bed by now. Space is what it is–the volume of the universe. This is expanding, but it IS itself a finite quantity, not infinite. Space is definitely not infinite.
As for the SHAPE of the universe—you’re both wrong. This is not yet determined—we don’t know the shape of the universe because we don’t yet fully understand gravity and whether there is enough so-called “dark matter” in the universe to close it. The universe may be “ball shaped” or “saddle shaped”–we don’t know yet.
Finally, you’re incorrect in saying that we can “see” 14 billion years. (This should say we can only see 14 billion LIGHT years–but it would still be wrong). We believe, on our best estimates, that the universe is about 13 – 14 billion years old (closer to 13 actually) but we can by no means SEE that far back yet. The most distant objects sighted (quasars and a few of the very oldest galaxies) get close to it (just recently the most distant object sighted, a galaxy, was named, and believed to be about 750 million years younger than the universe itself). We have not yet “seen” back to the Big Bang.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
copperdragon:
Good point, but I think Tommo and Chadster were talking about stars we can see with the naked eye.
In a SENSE you could say we DO see stars outside our galaxy—because the Andromeda Galaxy IS visible to the naked eye—but as a blob of light—we can not distinguish individual stars within it (with the naked eye).
February 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
There has been a suggestion in an earlier post that the universe/space is finite (or at least not infinite). What will I find if I’m driving around in my spaceship at the limits of the universe? A wall? A sign saying “Universe ends 10kms”? And if it does end with a wall, or a sign … what’s over the other side of the wall? Or past the sign?
February 25th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I hope if aliens do exist and we ever make contact that they are far more technologically advanced than we are. If not, we’d end up doing something stupid like invade them or a mass genocide. Look at how we can’t even live amongst people of our own race without wars and so on. We’re not ready to come in contact with a whole other race until we can sort out the mess we have here on earth.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Another Kiwi:
This is a good question, because we *want* to think of the universe expanding INTO something. But you see.. you must visualize the question thusly: as though we are living ON a balloon that is being blown up (and is thus expanding). Imagine, then, flying around in your spaceship on the surface of that balloon. You would never find the end, nor a “wall.” You *might,* perhaps, find your way back to your starting point. This is the idea of a closed, but expanding universe.
WHAT the universe is “expanding into” is sort of a meaningless question, therefore, in the sense that we understand space. BEYOND the universe may be other dimensions–in a sense what we are “expanding into.” But we are confined to THIS universe–i.e., to the surface of the balloon–no matter how big it gets.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Im sure that they do exist… maybe they arent advanced enough to comunicate with us yet, maybe they cant do inter galactic space travel yet. THen again, maybe they are far more advanced then us and see no reason to tal to such a primative species.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
kiwiboi:
That one’s been well-challenged by skeptics…. various theories have said that what they were seeing were the lights of Christchurch and/or Japanese squid boats.
Also, the camera operator was clearly shaking and moving the camera a great deal, and changing the focus—explaining many of the odd “flight characteristics” of the UFO.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
There are millions and billions of stars in space, many of them that have planets orbiting them. It’s insane to think that out of those billions of planets, our own Earth is the only one suitable to sustain life.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Randall – I don’t disagree; I was merely adding to your comment that “The UFO “boom” has NOT been confined to the US by *any* means.”
Personally, I don’t believe that UFO=alien, but that for every sighting there is a rational explanation – even if we haven’t worked it out yet.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
kiwiboi:
Ah, I see… sorry then. But yes, clearly you’re right—as we’ve both pointed out, the UFO “boom” has hardly been a strictly American phenomenon.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Randall: Superb. Thanks.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The Mars expeditions have proved that aliens do exist. That is if you consider microbes to be aliens.
It’s possible, but not likely that aliens have visted Earth, unless they hitched a ride on a falling star. The post Big Bang universe isn’t so old that a species would have time to evolve to the degree necessary for travel between solar systems.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I’m sure some of this has been said since I haven’t the time to thoroughly read all of the comments. But, yes, there definitely has to be some kind of intelligent life out there. The earth has been around for less than half of the age of the universe and look where we’re at.
And whether or not they’ve visited us, I’m not sure. But if they have, then we can look at the evidence that we have the way that animals we have studied probably look at us. Anal probes and tracking devices? There’s quite a few animals out there have radio collars thanks to us. The aliens probably realize that we would notice a collar around our neck when we woke up the next morning. And the aliens visiting without making contact? Human Naturalists normally have a “no interference” policy as well. But as do humans, the aliens would likely have a few mess-ups as well. Poor inside-out cows…
February 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Yogi Barrister:
“The Mars expeditions have proved that aliens do exist. That is if you consider microbes to be aliens.”
Sorry, but this is incorrect. No microbes have as yet been found on Mars. NO LIFE has been found or proven to exist ANYWHERE outside the earth, as yet.
I don’t know how this idea got started–this error has been repeated by at least two other people here–but folks, let’s get it straight—BELIEVE ME, I *know*—let’s just say I have a PERSONAL connection to some of the research being done on Mars—NO PROOF of life on Mars now or in the past has AS YET been found.
Also, Yogi—your statement about the universe not being old enough for a species to have evolved space travel is silly—the universe is over 13 billion years old. Plenty of time.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I think that somewhere out there, other life does exist. It would be arrogant of us to think that we are the only life that exists anywhere.
What form that life is in or how advance they are is something that we may never know. I don’t think that aliens have visited the Earth.
People always talk about a superior life force out there, who’s to say that we are not the superior life force. A bit scary that is but its not something that we have proof of, we may never have any PROOF, but I think that if someone were to come all this way to *visit* us they would make themselves more known.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Of course they exist. Every religious text and mythology in the history of mankind has alluded to them.
Christianity/judaism have the elohim coming down from the heavens and giving us technologies and magic.
The ancient greeks and romans had their gods who spawned the titans and giants, just like the nephilim in the bible.
The babylonians believed that fish people who flew around in shiny silver eggs gave them technoloy.
The sumerians had many a god that came down from the heavens.
There are cave paintings of beings in space suits that are 10s of thousands of years old.
there are heiroglyphs in Egypts showing space craft and bulbious head et looking creatures.
The dogon tribe in Africa had knowledge of astrology unknown until this century that they said was brought to them by gods from outer space.
In 1947 the AIR FORCE BASE in roswell released a PRESS REPORT stating that they had recovered a flying saucer with alien bodies inside. DOZENS OF WITNESSES ALL SAW THE BODIES. Then the air force recanted their story .
Now they say that it was a weather balloon. And that the aliens were just mannequins or monkeys in space suits.
When the coverup sounds more like BS than the actualy story, you know something is up.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
My only point was that if space was infinite, then we can assume there is an infinite amount of stars and therefore light from those stars. Since space is technically finite then this is not the case (just dispelling all those above who said space was infinite).
The stars we see at night are only part of the Orion spiral arm which we are a part of. You can see the Andromeda galaxy on a clear night if you’re lucky and various other nebulas and galaxies. And astronomers believe the Milky Way is a barred spiral; their best guess at least at this point.
And to call me “severely misinformed”? My years as a planetarium operator were wasted…
February 25th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Randall: With the Mars thing.
Isn’t whats going on right now is that they have found the possibility that there was once water on Mars. And that leads to a *possibility* there might have once been life on Mars?
That is the last thing that I heard about the possibility of life on Mars, nothing conclusive just speculation due to the information found so far.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Tommo:
“My years as a planetarium operator were wasted…”
You and I have something in common. (Planetarium operation).
(note that I defended some of what you had to say, by the way…. )
February 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
stormy617:
Exactly. There is a *possibility* of water in liquid form on Mars, in the past. In fact, in the past it’s almost certain. (But not yet proven). This opens up a POSSIBILITY of life having once existed—but again, by no means proven–and as yet there is NO evidence for life.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
This really is amazing so many different points of view, and so many I have not even thought about… It’s great
February 25th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
i used to be scared of aliens, thinking they were going to abduct me and other such nonsense, so i told myself they do not exist so i could sleep.
i know they do exist, because i have seen that one documentary with will smith.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I think I should point out that there *was* indeed a gov’t coverup in Roswell, NM in 1947. It’s just not the coverup most people think it is. The UFO that crashed at Roswell was a highly classified, high-altitude spy balloon that was being devloped to spy on the Russians. There were no alien bodies, a theory that has been taken at face value and convoluted by many into some sort of “truth” about Roswell, and those “witnesses” that claim to have seen said bodies are most likely either pretentious blowhards or people seeking attention. Nowadays Roswell depends on this mythical alien spaceship crash for tourism to support itself, so you won’t hear them admit the truth anytime soon.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Randall: Have you heard about any of this new evidence that suggest that water could still flow periodically on the surface of Mars? I’m skeptical myself, but I recently came across a study that says scientists have discovered new trenches on the surface that appear to have been carved relatively recently, that “weren’t there” the last time they looked. I would chalk this up to observer error, but I was wondering what you thought, considering your personal connection to astronomy and non-terrestrial phenomena.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
isnt it interesting how much bad press scientology gets for its core beliefs, and yet here many people are holding onto the same basic premise of that religion: Aliens!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I believe aliens exist, but hey arent as advanced as we think. think its illogical that we ar the only life in ths vast universe, some where out there there are aliens, probably no more advanced than us.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
PookyB: The difference is that we are not praying to aliens or worshiping them.
We are talking about the *possibility* of their existence, we are not giving up our money to a bunch of fanatics or talking all that crazy shit that scientologists believe.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
SlickWilly:
While I am *by no means* a Roswell believer, I feel I need to point out that there are still holes even in the Mogul balloon explanation for the Roswell incident. Not big holes–tiny ones–and even in aggregate they amount to little. In fact I agree with what you said… the whole thing is probably just an example of modern mythmaking….
Except for one hole, one point, that has always bothered me.
The story is that Mac Brazel, the rancher who found the debris originally, was held for two days by the military… and threatened/cajoled into silence. When he was released he would only repeat the military line that what he found in the desert was balloon wreckage.
Now…. IF this story is true–if Brazel WAS held for any length of time—then there is a problem. A logical problem that creates a hole in the story.
This was 1947. Less than two years after the end of WWII. The American public was still used to accepting everything the military said, at that time, without question. Now… Brazel finds some junk in the desert. He doesn’t seem to know what it is, so he reports it. And let’s say that it WAS simply Mogul balloon material. The Mogul balloon trains were simply that–a train of weather balloons with attached acoustic devices and radar targets.
All an intelligence officer had to do to contain this incident was to look at Brazel and say, “what you’ve got there, Mr. Brazel, is the remains of a weather balloon train. Here, see? This is balloon material. That’s a radar reflector. That’s all.”
Done. Story ended. Breach contained. It is 1947. Brazel (and anyone else) would simply believe what he was told by the military–and he’d had no reason to question it anyway—because a balloon is a balloon. The MISSION of Mogul may have been different—but in all respects it LOOKED like a weather balloon. Why would Brazel think otherwise once it was pointed out to him?
But instead of handling it thusly… the story is that Brazel was taken back and grilled, held, cajoled, even threatened.
EVEN if he was merely held—the question is, *why?* What were they saying to him during that time? Why not just TELL him it was a weather balloon? He would have bought it.
But instead it suggests that Brazel saw *something else* that he wasn’t supposed to see—and as a result, they had to hold him long enough to work him over and get him to deny it, and parrot the “weather balloon” story.
This is all IF Brazel was held–the question is, was he? If he was–it’s a serious problem.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Slickwilly:
In regards to the channels on Mars–no, it’s not observer error. I’ve seen pictures of the channels myself, changing from one season to another. There’s no question that it’s happened. This was discovered over a year ago, actually.
But as yet no one can prove how it’s happened. The theory is that water is somehow doing it (just under the surface—it’s impossible to see how liquid water could exist long enough to *flow* in such a thin, low-pressure atmosphere—it would immediately boil and/or evaporate away) but other theories say it’s some kind of landslide action. But terrestrial landslides don’t leave the kind of morphology we see in the martian channels.
It’s a mystery, but yes, it’s a real one. Not a mistake.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
They have to exist. Think of this example, if you will.
Look at the desk on which your computer currently sits. The desk represents the universe. Now, take a pencil, touch its tip to the desk, and twist it a bit…just enough to leave a mark. Now look at that tiny little point, if you can, and imagine that in one very very tiny little portion of that little dot, is Earth.
There is no way that this tiny little speck is the only instance of life that exists in the universe. And the argument of why havent they contacted us yet? Well, lemme flip that around and throw that at everyone: why havent WE contacted THEM yet?
February 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Thank you Randall, That was the last thing that I had heard about the progress on Mars. I wasn’t sure if there was more info out there that I hadn’t heard yet.
I am so glad I was right when I posted that. I didn’t want to get blasted by you LOL.
You scare me a little, you are so smart, beware anyone on here that is totally wrong with their information. You will soon learn different. LOL
Well it will be interesting to see this list when I get home in the morning. I have to get my butt to bed for a nap as I have to work midnights tonight and tomorrow night. UGH!
I hate having such a changing schedule, I am very rarely on this site when everyone else is, as I am usually working or sleeping and I don’t have access to the web at my job.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
My husband and I discussed this the other day. My personal opinion is I DO think there is other life forms out there. We can’t be the only ones in a universe this big! Now have they been here….I cannot say. The whole Area 51 thing has me thinking they have been. I just feel that the goverment wouldn’t take that much effort to cover something that wasn’t real. If there are no Aliens or Alien space craft in Area 51..show the world. Open the doors let people in. If it is just a secret goverment facility then so be it. Thats how I feel anyway.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Randall: Based on what I know about the Roswell incident, Brazel was spreading around that he has previously found the remenants of weather balloons twice before on his ranch, and the wreckage he found was definately not a weather balloon. I believe he actually even went on the air at the local radio station to tell his story. Perhaps he was picked up and threatened because his story about the wreckage not being a weather balloon was first-person evidence conflicting what the gov’t said, and because it *was* 1947, the gov’t was trying to keep a lid on any dissenting outside opinion about their conclusions to the American public. Maybe they held him for as long as they did and kept saying, as you said, “Hey Mac, this is a weather balloon” and he kept saying, “No way, bub. I seen a weather balloon and that ain’t it.” Just a thought.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Phillies: Preach brothah, preach. best thing theory on aliens EVER.
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I wonder why so many of you think that they must exist for some reason. Is it because the universe is so large that it is unfathomable that we are the only ones around to appreciate? There is no mathematical reason why they should. Anyone that can give you the mathematical odds for life rising spontaneously out of nothing is lying. I wonder if any of you have heard of the Drake equation? The equation that will find the odds of us finding intelligent life?
it is = R* fp ne fl fi fc L where each variable is:
R* = the number of stars in the universe (or galaxy)
fp = the fraction of the stars with planets
ne = the number of planets with suitable environments for life
fl = the fraction of those planets that have life
fi = the fraction of that life that is intelligent
fc = the fraction that would have a wish to communicate with us
and L = the length of a civilization – how long till that race destroys itself?
Just an interesting thing for those of you who want to quantify it. Take note that we only barely have an idea of the first two numbers, and no idea whatsoever of the other ones.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Man always put himself in the middle of everything, may be we are not……
February 25th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Bloomfever: The gov’t did try to cover-up Area 51….because it was the test site of the newest, most top secret aviation technology that had been developed at the time. There are most likely no aliens or alien spacecraft at Area 51, but given that it a test site for *highly classified* new technology, I doubt they’ll open their doors to the public any time soon. It should be mentioned that both the Stealth Bomber (with it’s distinctly UFO-like triangular shape) and the Blackbird (with its innovative, unique foreswept wing design and other-worldly fuselage) were both tested extensively at Area 51, which might account for the plethora of “UFO activity” over the Groom Dry Lake Bed.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Theories are like fate, don’t you think?
February 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Slick:
But WHY would Brazel say it wasn’t a weather balloon? For what purpose?
If you say it was to get attention, to start a hoax of some kind–it just makes no sense. All anyone had to do was look at the wreckage, if it was in fact merely a balloon.
And then one wonders why the Roswell base would support this by releasing the statement that it was a crashed “disc.” Which they did on their own.
No… the story makes no sense.
See, I’m not saying I think it was an alien craft. For all I know it WAS just Mogul, and the story about the military confining Brazel is simply BS. But why the “disc” story? And why confine Brazel (if in fact they did?) In that sense… I think it was something else. Not alien–but perhaps some kind of early military experiment that went awry. Something that Brazel could look at and think, “that’s no balloon.” And the military would feel would have to be covered up with a double bluff story of the kind they came out with—”it’s a disc.. oh, no it’s not, it’s a weather balloon.”
February 25th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Bloomfever/Slick:
In addition to what Slick said (all of which is correct) there are stories about gross environmental damage being done at Groom Lake and disregard of law in regards to worker safety. All possible because the facility is protected by the “national security” umbrella.
No… we’re not gettin’ into Groom Lake any time soon. You can rest assured on that.
(And the story is that the super-secret stuff isn’t being done there anymore anyway, because the facility has too much attention being paid to it… it’s moved to a site, I believe, in Colorado, so the story goes).
February 25th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Canuck:
I am quite well acquainted with the Drake equation. You might say I’m acquainted with Drake… but not WELL-acquainted.
There is in fact every reason to believe that life exists in the universe, and indeed in the galaxy. You’re misreading or misinterpreting the purpose of the equation I think (or not understanding on some other level).
To begin with, we in fact DO have a very good idea of the first two numbers: We know that there are roughly 100 billion stars in our galaxy. (Let’s keep the equation Milky Way-bound, just for argument’s sake). Further, in studying nearby stars, we have now discovered well over 100 (or is it now closer to 200? I can’t recall) extra-solar planets. And the technology is still almost in its infancy. Statistically it is therefore very safe to assume that a great number of stars have planets—you might say a half, or even two-thirds. That’s a LOT of planets.
You’re okay with the equation until fc “the fraction that have a wish to communicate with us”—there is no such part of the equation. Indeed, it makes no sense. How are we to know such a thing? fc is in fact the fraction of planets where intelligent life develops technology capable of communicating/and or making their presence known.
Finally, “L” really has nothing to do with civilizations destroying themselves, though Carl Sagan once put it that way (he was trying to make a point about *us* at the time). It simply postulates the amount of time that intelligent life on a planet in question CAN actually communicate—i.e., the previous quantity narrows down the number of planets with intelligent life where such life develops communication technology… and then “L” describes how long said species HAS that technology. (for instance—earth clearly has an intelligent species which has developed communication technology. But that isn’t the end of it–we then need to answer HOW LONG we’ve had that technology. Answer? Currently about 80 years, give or take a few).
Now… aside from that, I wonder why you even brought up the equation, seeing as you seem to want to use it to support your idea that there is no “mathematical reason” to believe in life on other planets. That’s just daft, Canuck.
Life DOESN’T “rise spontaneously out of nothing,” Canuck… who says it does? It didn’t on earth—it arose (apparently) out of chains of protein molecules that developed the ability to duplicate themselves. We DO know this happened at least ONCE in the galaxy. (On earth)) And it didn’t take long to happen, once the earth was “made.” Since the environmental circumstances which allowed this to happen on earth were by no means unusual (all the needed bits are common out there in space) then it is not at all unreasonable to assume that life is *very* easy to create. If we find evidence for it on Mars, eventually, we’ll know even better how easy it is.
LIFE itself clearly MUST exist out there—if it doesn’t, then we’d actually have a serious time explaining why it’s so unique. It wouldn’t make sense given everything we know about the cosmos and biology here on earth.
Intelligent life is another matter—but what you were saying just makes no sense at all. The Drake equation is a tool for trying to find out how many intelligent species are out there we can communicate with. It cannot be used to support your untenable idea that there is no support for *life itself* existing on other worlds. In fact, all evidence we have suggests very strongly that life MUST exist “out there.”
February 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
stormy617:
Thanks for the compliment. I just view it as my purpose in life to keep people honest and help them to become better-informed.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Randall: You’re right, the story makes little sense. Perhaps the actual incident was more clear-cut, and the years have just embellished the story. Maybe Brazel never was picked up by the military…sure makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? I don’t believe any extraterrestrial craft has ever visited earth, but that assumption does leave an awful lot of unanswered questions, and there are some cases of UFO activity that have been fully explored with indeterminant conclusions. Could it just be that the aviation technology of world superpowers is just that much more advanced than they are leading the public to believe? It’s kind of a catch-22.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
i love the drake equation – proves my point to “do aliens exist” skeptics every time.
back to the stars visible at night – so for purposes of determining life on other planets, only naked-eye visible stars count?? Life on planets around stars in Andromeda don’t count?? Is that galatial discrimination??
there are hundreds of thousands of GALAXIES in this universe (infinite or not). each of those galaxies has hundreds of thousands of stars. recent estimates say probably 2/3 of those stars have planets. SOME of those planets are going to have life. Intelligent life?? maybe, maybe not.
the original question was “do aliens exist”. if you define an alien as a life-form not of this planet, the answer has to be yes.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Yes,space is just too damn big. if they arnt already here they will either kill us all, enslave us, not bother us and just study us, or be really nice and share. Im hoping for the last.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
copperdragon:
No, the issue about stars visible at night had nothing to do with the question about life on other planets—it was related instead to the question of whether the universe is infinite or not.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
SlickWilly:
Yeah, it’s a tough question. And we may never know the full answer.
Me personally—I don’t believe that aliens are visiting here or ever have visited here. Though I do of course believe in life on other planets.
UFOs—to me they’re explainable as unconventional, experimental and/or secret aircraft. Those, that is, that are not misidentifications of ordinary things, like regular aircraft, balloons, etc.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Correct me if I am wrong… but haven’t we found evidence of life on other planets? Now when I say life, I realize the difference between finding a plant and finding evidence of intelligent life. But doesn’t it seem pretty likely that if there is evidence of plant life and water on other planets, that there could have been intelligent life there once?
That said, I don’t think they have come to earth, at least not recently.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Nelia:
See my posts up above, particularly #105… no, there has AS YET been no clear evidence found of life on other planets.
When it *does* happen, we’ll all know it.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Randall – Ah, so just evidence of water on mars, but no life? interesting.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Nelia:
*Not YET.* That’s the thing we have to remember. Water–almost certainly. Life? Still up in the air.
But even if we don’t find evidence of life on Mars–it means little. There may be life on Titan, or on Europa.
But even if there’s NO life elsewhere in the solar system… you can bet there’s life out there somewhere in space. We just haven’t found it yet.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I can subscribe to that school of thought… It just seems unlikely that we are the only ones. It might be a very different kind of life than the kind we think of, but the universe is still pretty much all made up of the same stuff.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
they must exist. you guys seriously cant think that were the ONLY living things in the gigantic universe.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Ysh well i think they r reel n we sgud mayb try to tlak to them. maybe there nice n they wont hurt us, mayb they willl. mayb we ned 2 laeve it alone. so yah thas wat i think.
HAY ANDREA! I loved talking 2 u on the fone. We got to do it again sumtime!!! =DDD
February 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Dude! Is Bass the only person who I can agree on or what!? Of Course we’re not alone! And for all the stupid religous people that think God gave life to only humans, animals, etc. THE BIBLE IS BULLSHIT!!!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
We’ve radio signals and the like bouncing around everywhere, so it’s rather likely that we’d be traced.
However, other galaxies may have different laws of physics, and obviously would have foreign materials and resources, so they may well be advanced in technology but don’t have the means to communicate with us on the same level.
Or, other life may not be as curious as us humans, and therefore is still in a state of barbarianism.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Ha, Kylie, you crazy kid. Let’s do it! By the way, I think you’re right about Slickwilly.
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Subliminaldeath666: You appear to have jumped into the conversation without reading it first. Most everyone here believes extraterrestrial life exists, and for exactly the same reason as Bass. Also, I don’t think *anybody* mentioned anything about what the bible has to say on the matter, so I think the anti-religious propaganda would best be left for another time.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Andrea Carlena: And what, praytell, does Kylie have to say about SlickWilly?
February 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
from what we know about space and the vast size of it…..it is extremely possible, and I believe probable, that there is other life forms out there. How could there not be? I mean when I think of outter space I am in disbelief of how big it is. And when thinking of how big it is, I cannot consider it plausible to think that we are the only living organisms in the universe….that just doesn’t make sense to me.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Ha, something. A little of this.
A dash of that.
In fact she went on a rant about some of our popular commenters.
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
XD Dammit SlickWilly!! You read me like a book! Of course I wasn’t gonna read 100+ comments about this very debated question!
P.S. Hopefully that “anti-religious propaganda” I said earlier would be the next topic in these “Your View:” question!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Andrea Carlena: About what? Our good grammar, syntax, and spelling? Hardly material for a rant, I would say.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
there is a theory of reptillian shape shifters. They can change into human form, so society doesn’t freak out. But thats just something i’ve heard of, I haven’t looked much into it.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
SubliminalDeath: Oh, Lordy, I hope not. That’s a can of worms that gets opened up enough around these parts. Jamie would be nothing short of a sadist if he created a “your view” about the efficacy of the bible.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
zeppelingod: You’re probably talking about David Icke. That man is about as sane as LRH was before the end of his life, and with about as many scruples. If you ever happen to run across any of Icke’s material, do yourself a favor and return it to the wastebin you found it in.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
SlickWilly: HaHa!! I know! Just imagine it! Over 750 comments would occur. I would place a safe wager that it will not reach one thousand comments though. Even if the question is highly controversial! And by the way, what the hell is that Carlena is talking about!? Just because we don’t type like this: OMG gyez!! did u c wat dat wierd cahmentor wuz sayin!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!11111oneoneoneonety-oneeleven11! Doesn’t mean that someone can rant about how people type better than others.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I believe aliens probably exist.
They must also obey the laws of physics and, if what we know if true, it is unlikely we will ever meet them.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
SubliminalDeath: Haha. You’re the one who said it, not me. Doesn’t mean I disagree with you, though.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Andrea Carlena: I can tell you right now what is true and what is not true about SlickWilly.
If its good, it’s true.
If it’s bad, it’s not true.
Simple.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I think extraterrestrials are maintaining close tabs on all aspects of our human culture from near orbit, or at least somewhere within the Solar System — but they’re not coming down because thye find our culture problematic. Come on: “V: The Series”; “Independence Day”; “The X-Files”; “War of the Worlds”? Any interstellar explorer with the least sense of self preservation isn’t gonna come down and wave his purple phosphorescent feelers and say “Howdy” to a species so blatantly paranoid AND bigoted. And besides, when you step back and just look at our stupidity, blindness, greed, our willingness to foul our own nest and commit insane atrocities in the name of a personification of the Infinite that our explorer’s people either outgrew or got the straight scoop on long ago … face it, folks, we’re too weird for the Galactic Federation. They can’t even stand our cooking.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
She says that you’re probably balding, chubby if not overweight. Leader of sorts, picky, but charming
February 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Ooops! Forgot to sign my name. How will anyone ever know it was me?
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
is there another civilization. In all likelyhood YES. Will they ever be here or are they spying on us. no
universe is to vast to huge to large. Light is the fastest we can travel yet it takes an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light. and if we could reach the speed of light time actually slows down so you caught yourself in a nice catch 22. Then take in account that OUR own galaxy is 100,000 light years long. Then take into account that other galaxy’s are billions of light years away. We come to conclusion that it aint possible. sorry
February 25th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Balding = No, I have full head of luscious hair, thank you.
Chubby, if not overweight = You got me on that one, though this is perhaps coincidence, since I personally find it very hard to guess someone’s weight over the internet without any sort of web-cam involved. I’m also extremely tall too, so I don’t get “chubby” or “fat” very often. “Big” is the word I hear the most. Like Sasquatch. Not as hairy, though.
Leader of sorts = I can be. I think I’m a natural leader type, pushy but not over-aggressive. I can follow too, when need be.
Picky = Very.
Charming = Yes. That’s what my mommy tells me, anyway.
It’s interesting these mental pictures we create of people we have never met before, just based on our own prejudices.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Anywho, what’re your perceptions of moi?
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
as eleanor arroway’s father said, if they didn’t exist it would be a terrible waste of space.
100 billion star systems in our galaxy.
100 billion galaxies.
the universe in about 11 billion years old and we have had intelligent life on our planet for about 50,000 years.
imagine if intelligent life developed on another planet a billion years ago! to them, we are still savages.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I don’t quite understand why some people here believe that humans do not believe in aliens because they are self-centered. This would be like me saying that you are self-centered because you don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster or in Bigfoot. Doesn’t quite make sense to me. I don’t think people that don’t believe in aliens do so because they think they’re all that, that’s just ridiculous.
I’ll take the view that humans who don’t believe in aliens are ignorant though.
As for me, I’ll take the same stance I do with ghosts – perhaps they exist, perhaps they don’t; I’ll believe it when I see one.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Ack! Carly!! U told!! Mite as well tell ever1 els wat i sed…
=D
February 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I actually spend most of my time trying to imagine Randall as a strange synthesis of William Shatner and Harrison Ford, sitting at his computer in a polo shirt that exclaims “UCSC – Go Banana Slugs!”
For the others that I haven’t seen a picture of, I never venture a guess as to their physical appearance, other than how old they might be. Except Mom424. She described herself as a MILF once and I can’t get the image out of my mind.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Yes they do exist, but i don’t believe that “they” have ever visited here.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Slick:
Okay, A) the fact that you spend time trying to imagine me AT ALL is disturbing. Stop it. B) It was Harrison Ford and Dennis Quaid. The Shatner thing was over 20 years ago. In college. Need I correct you again? C) Where did you get the idea that I am from California or would in any way wear a shirt extolling the virtues of a California college (let alone Santa Cruz?) OR its disgusting mascot?
I am a New Yorker, pal. Don’t you forget it.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Contact:
You know, there are four hundred billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, and just of out of a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life; there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.
Well, if there wasn’t, it’d be an awful waste of space.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Randall:
a) It’s a sick fascination. I can’t help it.
b) My mistake.
c) Pure fantasy on my part. Hell, if I were so inclined, I *could* imagine you riding on the back of a flying horse, wearing spats and a pair of bicycle shorts. That would be gay, though.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
If you’ve met my ex-wife you know.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I had an answer, then I read bwmyers18 and I can’t stop laughing.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Slick:
A) Lack of willpower is no excuse. Get help. Medication exists for deviants such as yourself.
B) I’m glad you admitted your error. This shows progress. Also, it’s about the hundredth time I’ve forced you to humble yourself before me. Good. You’ve learned. Next time bring a sacrifice. I like lamb.
C) Your fantasies grow more disturbing. I have no doubt that, having mentioned this one, you have, in fact, actually had it. And I agree, it *would* indeed be gay. Perhaps there’s something you need to admit to yourself. There there… we’ll all understand and accept you.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Ha I saw that Randall, thanks!
Cheers to planetarium folk!
February 25th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Hahaha….Randall, you’re alright.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Tommo:
Indeedy.
The planetarium I’m associated with is in resurgence after years of neglect. We’ve secured new grants (NASA, working on the NSF) and we’re hoping to have a new projector in a year or so… (the old one is ancient technology from the 1960s!)
Our observatory is new though… and the seeing is great where I am, though of course nothing like the really great seeing in a place like Arizona or what have you. But we’ve got a great huge ’scope and tons of visitors… exciting times.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
DUDES look @ ACB bein dumbb!
=D
http://photobucket.com/mediadetail/?media=http%3A%2F%2Fi37.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe98%2FChanelPrincess03%2Fponytail.jpg&searchTerm=ponytail&pageOffset=6
February 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
You just HAD to take the worst picture of me EVER didn’t you?
BEHOLD! “kylie’s idiot face” Revenge is sweet. She’s the doof on the far left. My sisters are on the sides.
http://photobucket.com/mediadetail/?media=http%3A%2F%2Fi249.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fgg218%2Flittleone1108%2FDSCN3655.jpg&searchTerm=stupid%20face&pageOffset=18
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Killery/Andrea: Alright, you two, take it to the user pics thread in the forum.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Yes sir!
-Andrea Carlena Beauman
February 25th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Posting a hot pic on a site like this in order to tease the gigantic nerds here is a funny idea and I can get behind the mild cruelty in it a little, being a cruel bastard myself… but it’s also like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?
February 25th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I really need to get in to the posts quicker than this.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
there are hundreds of millions of galaxies in the KNOWN universe. it seems obvious that intelligent life off the earth exists. and even more unintelligent organic species. The chances of them visiting are almost impossible becuase if a distant alien planet would want to come to us. They would have to get the angle correct to go straight here. that isn’t easy. Plus they would be more different then we picture them and much more different then what hollywood pictures them as. Chances are they might not have cells. Verbal communications doesn’t seem likely either. And for all of those nerds who think that they could smell colors. they can’t! YOu smell chemicals. Not light!
February 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Of course aliens exist. I meet ‘em in Minneapolis all the time – they come down here from places like Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, etc.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I think it would be arrogant to believe that earth is the only planet in the entire universe to provide the necessities of life. So yes, there is life somewhere out there.
I do not believe we are the only intelligent/thinking beings on our planet. Dolphins and porpoises are both intelligent and sentient, but the environment in which they live is the determining factor in how that intelligence manifests itself. Kind of hard to build The Sistine Chapel with no hands. So not only does there have to be life, there must be an environment that encourages a particular course of evolution. I’m not so sure that intelligence must always end with industrialization.
Not only must they be intelligent, they must be so in a way similar to our own. Plus all the scientific facts that Randall has so kindly informed us of, plus they must be in synch with our society. Too many plusses. I’m not convinced that the chance is very high for even an attempt to contact us.
Although it would be really cool if I’m wrong.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I think they must exist due to the size of the universe. I also do believe that they have visited earth. Out of the millions of UFO sitings there has to be one plausible one that is true. I do agree that about 99% of sitings are just lunatics but there must be that one person who was correct withe what they saw.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
frozenmidwest; ha ha ah, good one!
February 25th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Of course they do. The universe is so much larger then we can comprehend. You may think you are able to judge the enormity but you can’t. Your not even close. Why wouldn’t intelligence be universal? It would not make any sense if there were not planets extremely similar to ours. The very fact that our planet is here with us on it is almost proof in itself that life is constant throughout the universe. To think we are so special. Typical creationist arrogance. With intelligence being universal we can look at our own evolution and growing intelligence to predict what life more advanced they ours would be like. They would not try to harm us nor try to influence us. They probably would not contact us but simply watch and study us. They would be scientists, not invaders. Life isn’t a movie. When global intelligence and technological advancement had progressed far enough, or we were about to destroy our planet through global warming, they would make themselves unambiguously known(and probably give us some free energy technology). I look at our own advancement and feel this is what we would do given enough time and the technology to visit distant planets. It is simply a matter of education. If every child in the world received a decent education, that involved diverse topics and whatnot, then there would be no war. It would be a fucking utopia. And I think its the inevitable outcome of the evolution of intelligence. Its only a matter of time and globalization is speeding it up every year. Though it will still be a slow process. There are far too many douchebags with powerful positions. Mostly in the US and China. And too many uneducated people who don’t really care about those powerful douches. Mostly in the US and China. The biggest shame though is that they did contact us they would probably take every precaution not to crash the party that is religion. Its a shame. Because they would no doubt have the scientific knowledge to take that silliness down a notch or two.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
yes, they do exist and if they are
(a) not as smart as us then we obviously are going to have to wait until we find them or they find us
(b) are smarter than us then they are probably watching us, waiting until we are ’smart’ enough to handle their first contact, because they probably know that if they land we are going to go into full military alert and their astronauts will be killed, so they are probably watching us through agents here on earth waiting until we are ready. plus, if they have mastered intergalactic travel then they probably also know how to not be visible to our elementary detection instruments.
also, maybe they do exist, and no matter how much smarter than us they are, they can’t get to us because intergalactic travel for distances in millions of light years just may be impossible.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Space is HUGE!!! We exist so there is a chance, no mater how small or large, that there is another human-like species out there.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
yes i do think they do the universe is so immense how can you deny life on other planets and even if they haven’t gotten here how can we deny it probability says yes there is life out there
February 25th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
If they do exist and have visited the earth…by, what? buzzing remote trailer parks?
I want nothing to do with them nor do they have anything useful for us.
But of course I do believe that there is life out there.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
A lot of what I’m seeing is that people think it is impossible for alien life to visit earth because of distance. The problem with that logic is that people are thinking in terms of propulsion that we have availability right now. If an alien race were even 100,000 years older than humans, which in astronomical terms a blink of an eye, they would be so far advanced that we could not possibly imagine the type of propulsion systems they have access to. Heck, just think of the advances the human race has made in the past 100 years. In 1900 nobody ever thought it was possible to walk on the moon. Even now, scientists say that in theory it is possible to bend space in order to travel large distances instantly. To say that some advanced civilization hasn’t figured this out just because we haven’t shows an extreme lack of imagination.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
A quote from Calvin and Hobbes “In my opinion, the greatest hint that there IS other intelligent life forms in the universe is that none of them has ever tried to make contact with us.”
February 25th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
They sure do, one of them just shovelled my driveway.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
msot like ley they exist. Haven’t been to earth though. Sia’s on the mark.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Most likely they exist. Haven’t been to earth though. Sia’s comment is on the mark.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I think that they most definitely exist,
but I mean come on,
1. Who says they are in a form we can even recognize? Perhaps they are tiny, or are liquid or whatever,
2. Who says their technology would be great enough to reach us? Or that we would even recognize them trying to communicate with us?
3. The universe is huge. Isn’t it possible that we’re just a bit out of the loop, or that the few populated places are few and far between?
February 25th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
May I just say, excellent choice of lolcat for the header.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
so, here is a question to ponder…
if we are the only planet with life at all, what does that mean?
February 25th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Whoever thinks that there are no intelligent lifeforms in the universe…
1. does not comprehend the size of the universe.
or
2. naive to think they are the only one to exists.
Analogy:
You are an ant on an island. You think you are the only race on this universe.
Ant = you, island = earth.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Okay, what a stupid question, do you think aliens exist. Who the hell doesn’t think they exist? Of course something is out there. We cannot even begin to COMPREHEND what we are living in. Do you realize we are a speck of sand in a completely mysterious, unknown and infinite space. The amount that we know of the universe is NOTHING compared to what it all really is. You cannot even begin to grasp what this is, how can it go on forever, one poster said the universe is not infinite but spherical shaped. Okay, so it has a shape, what the hell is beyond that shape, what is outside of the shape? The mind begins to boggle, more proof that our minds aren’t nearly as advanced as we think they are, we can’t grasp the concept of the universe, what is beyond this all?
To think there aren’t any other life forms is ridiculous.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
let me see if i get this right…
-aliens HAVE to exist because of the vastness of the universe and the mathematical probability is extremely high.
-and most of you (granted this is just a generalization based on reading other comment) would come to a conclusion stating that God does not exist.
how can you argue from silence for the one and dismiss the other on the perception of silence?
February 25th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I think they probably do…but this is the thing. It seems most people have this notion that an alien is some kind of creature with startrek like technology…for all we know there are animals on other planets or other creatures that are not capable of space flight. Also if there were a civilization that was advanced enough to travel to other solar systems, what the hell makes us think we are advanced enough to detect them? Also, why would a civilization that advanced even care about us who are barely capable of sending people to our own moon?
February 25th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
granted, this is all assuming that we are talking about intelligent, technologically advanced life forms. not just life in it’s simplest forms
February 26th, 2008 at 12:50 am
DiskHuker: I think it’s easier for a lot of people to believe in aliens because maybe they think it’s more likely that a whole entire race of life forms exists than to believe in one supreme, omnipresent, omniscient, being, whatever he/she/it may be called. We can see our own race, interact with each other, so it’s probably not all that far fetched to some of us that somewhere in the vastness of the universe there might be “people” like us. I hope that answer doesn’t suck, I gave it a shot, anyway! (hehe)
Personally I believe in both, but of course everyone is different.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:13 am
no, they don`t.
at least not the kind that is commonly refered to as aliens, microscopical lifeforms, germs and other creatures, most likely. E.T.? way no:P
if they were intelectual beings, they would surely make contact, or even try to take over our globe.
history repeats itself, always…
February 26th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Space Aliens restraunt has some good barb-b-que cooking in Bismarck, ND.
Other than that nope.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:34 am
This is a rediculous topic – of course aliens exist. Haven’t you all seen Michael Jackson?
February 26th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Jamie, I have to disagree with your statement above re: ‘if logic says they must exist, surely logic would then also say that there must be somewhere a race so advanced that they could communicate and would have.’
Who’s to say if they exist that they have any more intelligence or capability for space travel than we do?
My personal opinion? In the words of Mulder’s poster – I want to believe!
February 26th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Of course they do. You just have to look at the people I work with!!
February 26th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Of course, we can never really know. According to alot of theories and formulas, it’s almost impossible that they DONT exist. As for why we haven’t seen them, the answer is obvious. If you were a technologically advanced, serene civilization, and you observed earthlings, in all their violent, wasteful, greedy, disease-ridden ways, would you want to have anything to do with us? Maybe they are out there, and are saying to themselves, “Let’s give them another couple thousand years to sort things out before we make an appearance.” Then again, there’s another theory that states that any advanced civilization has a tendency to destroy itself. Now there’s a scary thought.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:06 am
In an infinitely large universe everything is possible.so yes of course they exist.but there has never been contact and there probably never will.the chance of such a meeting in an infinitely large universe is ,sadly,infinitely small.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:13 am
RXL- of course, in theory, the Universe is infinitely large, but that doesn’t mean that it’s mass is infinitely large. It could, indeed, be that the Universe is like a huge mobius strip, twisting and turning through multiple dimensions. While it would appear that when moving, you do so through a specific dimension, you are, in fact, twisting and turning in a point in the dimension above. In this theory, while the Universe is infinite in a certain sense, it is limited in another, and so the possibility of extraterrestrial life is also limited.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Going on that theory, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the distant future of hyper-speed space travel, that we find, after traveling some insane distance in a “straight line,” we find ourselves right back where we started.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Ok, sorry if I’m babbling here, but…. if my theory is true, that would mean you could go outside and, looking in any direction, you would essentially be looking right at yourself. I would be willing to bet, given the duration of the expansion and collapse cycle of our Universe, that the distance between “yourselves” would be of greater distance than light could travel, given the age of our Universe, meaning you could never actually detect this other self from here. In a (somewhat) related note, tonight I had an incredible epiphany on the debate of free will vs. predestination. Please let me know if anyone is interested in hearing about this.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Sometimes, on a clear night, I look up at the stars and I wonder…. I wonder which one of those stars has the planet that I’m supposed to be on, ’cause I’m damn sure it aint this planet!…
Someone pointed out that with all these cellphones that have cameras in them, how come we don’t have more people taking pictures of supposed UFO’s.
I think there’s just as much chance that there is life on another planet as there is life on this planet. It could be so far away that we don’t have the technology or any ability to sense that it’s there.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:43 am
If you take a look around our own planet, the varying kinds of creatures in various sorts of environments, and even the extremophiles that survive anything… then you think about how many planets in how many solar systems across the great expanse of space. It’s pretty damn likely that our system is the odd one out with noticeable life only on the one planet.
Have they visited us? Chances are likely as well, but not in the way popular lore as made it sound like. Meteors can carry some of the above mentioned extremophiles and, voila! Alien visitation.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Jaffa- I completely agree with what you are saying. Everyone, seriously, do you really think that there is any way we are the only adavanced lifeform in this gigantic thing we call a universe?
Though, if a meteor did carry even the tiny extremophiles as you had said, then I wouldn’t really call it a visitation. It’s more like a… “Bacterial Encounter”
February 26th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Ok to begin,
We need to ask ourselves a few questions before we can be sure our beliefs on UFO’s are viable.
Are there Aliens?
Short answer, Yes. Aliens are definable by being living organisms which live and evolve outside our own atmosphere. Scientists have proven that there is lifeforms which live all through space. Be it on a planet/comet or the vacuum of space. Life seems to be able to pop up in even the most inhospitable environments.
Is it possible for Advanced lifeforms?
Well we all can look at our own planet and make the rational connection that if we can evolve to what we are, there is definitely a possibility for more advanced civilizations. But there is still barriers advanced civilizations have to overcome, which I believe can severely narrow the percentage of advanced civilizations in existence.
Good example for my theory is the rise and fall of previous Earth advancing civilizations. Rome,Aztecs Mayans ect. All abruptly fell because each time thresholds were pushed which couldn’t sustain either the populous and/or political environment. Results ended in chaos,confusion and resulted in mass evacuation/extinction.
Each civilization is different but still have to overcome similar challenges.
But this dosnt discredit existence of highly advanced beings. It makes them rare and probably alot more advanced then which was first thought.
Next, Space is big, how could they traverse such large distances?
Apart from the obvious point that our technology is not advanced enough to understand fully how they can travel through space. Be it time travel/dimension hoping/speed ect. But you need to also open up the idea of mobile colonies. Self sustainable convoys. But that also raises a tonnes of other methods for debate.
Why havn’t they made a significant attempt to contact the human race as a whole?
Although these advanced beings might be excited to see new lifeforms there is definitely ethical politics they would be adhering to. For them to be as advanced as they are to make it to our planet, they will definitely have evolved more maturity towards their contact approach. If Nasa discovers primitive beings similar to Early 2000BC humans. Ie Egyptians/Aztecs. On the surface of Mars. It wouldnt be wise to approach the populous to exchange ideas,technology ect. Maybe some one on one might be understandable to study the races anatomy. But the differences in advancement would severely make things unfair for the civilization which would need to catch up. This comes back around to the whole Rise and fall of civilizations that I mentioned earlier.
But circumstances are and will be different. There is chance we could make a better connection with Alien lifeforms as a race in the future.(there might be connections I don’t know of but until every human is aware of their presence its not a significant connection.)Until then we are going to have to resort to trying to catch them just like chasing dragonflies in the backyard.
And the last question would be, What is their interest in the human race?
Any forward thinking lifeforms would be excited to discover and investigate new lifeforms. It gives a better clue into the random workings of the universe. Besides if there isnt a profound reason to investigate its still fun to see different forms of life and how they live.
To summarize Im saying UFO existence is just as likely as advanced Alien existence. But being a normal rational being I will not believe something until I see enough evidence for myself. And no ammount of whacked out experiences where someone has had lost time or a vivid memory of an abduction will be good enough evidence for me. Not even video/audio evidence in this day and age.
Thinking about what Ive just talked about I think I can easily write a book on the topic… Like the thousands of other whacked Authors. Im not going to because Im not crazy. Id rather it be a scientific writing, with actual facts, instead of talking about things that could be true.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:06 am
(slapping his head in frustration)
People have to stop repeating the error that science has found or proved the existence of life on other planets or “out in space.” It has NOT (as yet). No doubt someday we will, but we haven’t YET.
The *building blocks* of life are everywhere, yes. But complex molecules are NOT life.
We believe, with reasonable certainty, that liquid water once existed on Mars, and may even exist now beneath the surface. Water is *necessary* for our kind of life (and most kinds of life we can imagine) but that does NOT mean that life IS there or ever WAS there. It hasn’t been found yet.
We also believe there is a liquid ocean beneath the ice of Europa and perhaps also Enceladus. Both moons may harbor life. But we don’t KNOW this yet. Titan, also, is very similar to the early earth—and may therefore harbor life. But we don’t yet KNOW.
Life is surely out there–but we have YET to prove it.
Believe me, when we do find it, even if it’s only microbes–you’ll all know it. It’ll be the biggest news probably in human history.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Randall; Good Morning! Please don’t hurt yourself on our account. Smack yourself every time you encounter ignorance, you’ll soon end up with a concussion. Interesting posts by the way.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Mom:
Good advice, thank you.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:19 am
if a tree falls in the forest…
February 26th, 2008 at 8:35 am
nobody has answered my earlier question…
if we are the only life in the universe, what does that mean?
February 26th, 2008 at 8:39 am
DiscHuker: I don’t know what you mean by that. If we are the only life in the universe (which I highly doubt), how does that change anything?
February 26th, 2008 at 8:50 am
It means that we are/were damn lucky DiscHuker.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Do I believe there is life on other planets in our universe–YES !!!! Have they traveled to Earth— NO. The laws of physics (unfortunately) prevent this. First of all, even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would take an infinite amount of fuel. Then there’s the time dialation thing to consider. I am an avid trekkie, and I wish this type of travel WERE possible, (I’d be one of the first to sign up for star fleet academy), but I don’t see how a civilation, advanced or not can deny the laws of physics.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:13 am
DiscHuker:
Well, we’ll never KNOW for certain that we’re the only life in the universe, to begin with. The Universe is VAST. Yes, maybe someday we’ll find the secret of traveling about the universe–if it’s even possible–but it’s hard to see how we could ever look in every single nook and cranny for life. Of course, if we manage to study a good chunk of our own galaxy and find no life whatsoever—then that would be telling, in statistical terms.
Your question is obviously part philosophical/part scientific. From a scientific angle, if we could somehow KNOW that we were totally alone—then it would cause some very serious questions to arise about our own biology—because right now there seems to be very little “unique” about it. We know that the building blocks of life are practically everywhere in space—they’re common—and we know that life developed on earth only a relatively short time after the earth was formed. So it seems like life should be easy to “make” and should be pretty much everywhere. There also doesn’t seem to be anything terribly complicated about our biology, generally speaking. So if we could somehow find out that we WERE totally alone—then we’d have to answer WHY life on earth is so unique. It really wouldn’t make any scientific sense.
Philosophically—well… you’d have to answer that question yourself. We all would. I suppose one way to cope with it would be to say that it would sorta *prove* the existence of God. But since God says he won’t offer proof of Himself… then it’d be the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy thing… up God would go in a puff of logic.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:15 am
mrader:
All very true… but we must also remember that we don’t KNOW everything about the laws of Physics…. yet. We know what we know thus far. And what we know tells us it’s very difficult. (You’re wrong to say interstellar travel is impossible–it’s VERY possible to travel very close to the speed of light–so such travel could happen–but it would still be slow, and prone to time dilation effects).
But we still don’t even know what *gravity* actually is. Never say never.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Randall,
I certainly hope you are right… and that there’s room aboard the star ship for ME !!!!!
February 26th, 2008 at 9:30 am
i guess my point is this…
given that the majority belief, seemingly, is that mathematically there HAS to be life out there based on probability and vastness of the universe, if there is only life on one small planet in one average galaxy, is that life somehow special?
would evolutionary theory still hold when it seems that life is much more difficult to achieve than simply sprouting up one day?
i.e., would this lead to more belief in a creator?
February 26th, 2008 at 9:41 am
DiscHuker: I think, as Randall pointed out, that if that *were* the case, it would raise some very tough scientific and philosophical questions. I think it might inspire more of a predisposition to accepting something like a religious answer to these questions, but I don’t think, if we discovered we we’re alone, atheists the world over would be sprinting for the confessional.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:46 am
lol, i don’t know if there has ever been a more true statement.
even if God himself showed up, i don’t know if that would cause mass repentence. oh wait, he did show up. bout 2000 years ago.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:54 am
DiscHuker:
I don’t know what answer you’re feeling for. I don’t see how we could EVER find out for certain that we ARE alone… oh, sure… if we find there was never any life on Mars and no life on Europa or Titan… it’d be too bad, but it wouldn’t mean all that much… and then if in perhaps a hundred years or so we’ve examined the spectographic trace of many, many earth-like planets (via telescope of course) in nearby extra-solar systems and found NO evidence for life, we’d be a bit discouraged. And if in perhaps a few thousand years we’ve managed to send robot probes or even spaceships to other star systems within our galaxy and found no life–then we’d be dealt a blow… or, if in that time we did develop some currently unknown method of faster-than-light travel, and we found no life on any of the planets we explored–then that would give us great pause… but we’d probably NEVER know for SURE that we’re alone. The math would simply be reversed and we’d have to assume that life is VERY rare and we might never meet another species other than the ones we know here on earth.
This would truly suck. And it would require us to figure out WHY life is so rare, given that the conditions for its successful evolution must exist in MANY places. But I don’t see how it would “challenge” or negate evolution as we know it. Evolution is real, and it works. It’s proven.
I don’t know if this *would* lead to greater belief in a creator. But it ought to frankly scare us into taking better care of the life we know.
And of course life is special. All life is special. Regardless of how much of it there is.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:06 am
disc, et al:
I think it gets to the heart of the evolution discussion – we can debate that as much as we want but the spark of life hasn’t be recreated in the laboratory. They can recreate what they think the conditions and chemicals are and even manufacture the organic soup – but it’s never once sprung out ‘alive.’
February 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am
DiscHuker: I’ve got a question for you, too. What if we discovered that, not only are we not alone, but we are also genetic relatives of a race of superior alien beings, to the degree that it can be proven beyond doubt that humans on earth share an ancestral connection with these beings and that Earthlings are actually descended from an intelligent, humanoid race of creatures from another planet? How then would that change the philsophical landscape?
February 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
randall: i guess that is what i am getting at. there is a belief popular today, from my perspective at least, that we as humans are no big deal. obviously, i disagree with this believing that we are the pinnacle of God’s creation. consequently, this makes life extremely valuable not something to be toyed around with.
like you say, life is special. this doesn’t seem to be the sentiment of your typical person. they believe that THEIR life is special, but no overall concern for humanity at large unless it impacts them directly.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:11 am
slick: interesting question. let me ponder for a while and i’ll get back to you.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am
bucslim:
This criticism (that you made) means little. Certainly it doesn’t challenge evolution (again, a proven and verified theory). There are a lot of things we can’t yet do, but that doesn’t mean they’re un-do-able or impossible. We don’t know why certain molecules were able, early on, to make copies of themselves… but surely someday we *will* know.
Let’s not illogically jump on a science that really hasn’t been around all that long. (Biology and Organic chemistry). We’ve learned a tremendous amount in the last 200 years–no doubt the next 200 will bring us all kinds of unseen knowledge.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:22 am
DiscHuker:
Well, I don’t agree that there is a popular belief that humans are no big deal. If anything we think too much of ourselves and believe we can go around using the planet as we see fit, wiping out species if they get in our way. We should be humbler.
Yes, in a societal sense human life sometimes seems cheap…. people go around shooting each other, doing other kinds of violence to each other…. terrorism and wars, etc. etc. But the selfishness and barbarism that has plagued us from the beginning isn’t indicative of a disregard for ourselves–it’s simply a lack of capacity to understand and appreciate other human beings and creativity. We have a will to destroy within us that always has to be guarded against. The counter to that is civilization.
Intuitively, though, we (as a species) know that we’re “special.” If anything we think *too much* of ourselves, if you ask me.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am
randall: i don’t mean to say that evolution doesn’t happen. i mean “evolution” in the common, macro sense meaning life evolving from the “primordial ooze” to humans walking and talking. if it is determined that life doesn’t just “happen” what sort of re-questioning would occur, is more my jist.
as far as the human value sentiment…i agree, to a point, with you. we all believe we are special, too special most of the time.(i’m picturing the high school students i work with here
) but this is a very individualisic belief. we think we are great and worthy to be praised. but we don’t think everyone is great or valuable. if we did believe that then things like war, abortion, murder, violence, etc. would be at a much smaller level.
if there was some sort of catalyst for humanity to believe that there is more value to the average person that we don’t like, that would be great.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Randall, my point being is that I have some reservations about evolution in in principal, but not to the concept as a whole. It’s just we haven’t been able up to this point to make life out of lifelessness. I think that means a great deal. Because I think that gives us clues to life on other planets – if these conditions are similar biologically and environmentally, then certainly there is a chance that on some other planet that that stuff of life could begin to replicate itself and follow the evolutionary path.
Yes, just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Creating life out of lifelessness would be and interesting conundrum don’t you think? On one hand it would be a scientific event unlike any other, on the other hand, I wonder what God would be thinking!
February 26th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Randall:
Your approach to discredit life in space as a scientific fact is very narrow sighted. I never said life will thrive in these conditions. But it is a known fact that there are in fact organisms to which have evolved enough to survive these conditions. whether or not they are complex is irrelevant . if I had time I would go through Nasa reports to find examples. A good example off the top of my head is the blood red rain of Karela a few years back.
Its probably easier to think of these organisms as seeds. All that needs to happen is a very very small portion to populate a variably inhabitable planet. Our planets appearance is not due to its own doing. Life has made it what it is.
But I guess your argument is until we see actual proof of complex organisms on other planets its considered actual fact. But I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for a discovery like that to happen in our life time let alone the rest of our solar system.
Also your theory that if there were Extraterrestrials in known existence that we as a race would know about it. You my friend have too much faith in the media/government and people.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:55 am
for anyone interested enough to read some exceptional books about the cosmos:
the inflationary universe – alan guth
any book by timothy ferris – the greatest physics writer on the planet!
February 26th, 2008 at 11:01 am
DiscHuker:
“i don’t mean to say that evolution doesn’t happen. i mean “evolution” in the common, macro sense meaning life evolving from the “primordial ooze” to humans walking and talking.”
I really don’t follow you. What other kind of evolution do you think there is? Evolution is evolution. If you say you agree that evolution “does happen,” then how can you, in the next breath, seem to question the validity of the idea that life began somehow and evolved, eventually, *us*?
I think, if I’m reading you correctly, that part of your problem stems from this idea of “life evolving from nothing” or from some “primordial ooze.” Stop thinking of it that way.
Evolution is simply a process. Life is simply a form that matter and energy (really the same thing) takes on. In that sense, a form that the universe itself takes on. As Sagan said, “we are simply a way for the universe to understand itself.” We ARE the universe. Life IS the universe. We ARE the earth. (When I say “we” I mean all life, not just humanity). The earth is what? A planet, you say. No, not just a planet, I answer. All life is made up, chemically, of material that has been here all along—since the earth was born. It keeps getting recycled over and over again. Life has shaped and built the atmosphere. All of it is interconnected. The life living on the earth is not separate from the earth–it is a part of the earth, it IS the earth.
We’re not different from all this—we’re simply matter that has attained consciousness. Whatever that is. But chemically, materially–we’re still the same as everything else. DNA is our unique building block—we don’t know that other life, elsewhere, will make use of that molecule or some other one instead. But that’s it.
Life started simply and grew more and more complex. This is simply another capacity of the universe as a whole. Infinite complexity as it were.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Basker:
I’m afraid you make about zero sense. Believe me, you don’t know who you’re talking to. I’m telling you, Basker… NO life of ANY kind, complex or otherwise, has AS YET been detected off the earth. Period. There is no NASA report of ANY kind that says otherwise. Yes, it’s known that TERRESTRIAL bacteria can survive space-like conditions. Hearty little critters. But that doesn’t mean NON-terrestrial life has as yet been detected. It hasn’t been.
Your brief reference to the panspermia theory is irrelevant. This theory itself has NOT YET BEEN PROVEN.
There is nothing “narrow-sighted” about my argument. It’s simple fact. ALL life that we know is terrestrial in origin—as far as we currently know. There is as yet no proof of any kind *otherwise.* I’m not trying to “discredit” anything. I believe there is TONS of life out there. I’m simply making the factually correct statement that as yet it has NOT been found.
Yes, Basker… to me facts are facts, and only facts can make for proof. I don’t know what planet YOU are from, but on this one, that’s how science works.
As for your statement that we won’t find proof of complex organisms on other planets in our lifetime—in that statement YOU in fact are the one being “narrow-minded.” The technology to search for life at a distance via telescopic spectography will be in our grasp probably in a few years. Decades at the most. I hope to still be alive when we do find that evidence.
“Also your theory that if there were Extraterrestrials in known existence that we as a race would know about it. You my friend have too much faith in the media/government and people.”
Aside from being very poorly written, this statement of yours again makes zero sense. I don’t recall saying any such thing (though it’s hard for me to glean, from your confused syntax, what you’re accusing me of saying, exactly). You’ve either confused me with someone else, or you need to explain to me more clearly what it is I was supposed to have said.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:18 am
They exist, yes. But whether they’ve been here or not is the real question.
My favorite theory about the so-called aliens that visit us is that they are actually time-travelling humans, advanced beyond recognition. They are searching for cures for their state of being; although I’d hate to see what diseases they have that involve the butt.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am
From the probabilistic, philosophical and religious point of view – they certainly exist. We can assume it given how big and abundant with places for life to evolve the universe is and how successful life was here on Earth (and all of it could be considered a divine plan – hence the ‘religious; point). The rest is really rather a matter of speculation.
Even science doesn’t really help us much here. I think most of us overestimate level of certainty science gives us when it comes to describing things seperated from us by vast lenghts of either time or space. For instance Randall, posting here in probably the best scientifically substantiated manner, states in #132 that we do know that life evolved in at least one place in the universe, that is on Earth. Well, we doesn’t really know even that if you consider the possibility of panspermia
.
You have to keep in mind that most of today’s widely accepted concepts on what happend very, very long time ago and what exists very, very far away, whether you consider the origins of the universe (the Big Bang theory), the origins of the solar system (e.g. dirty snowball hypothesis), the nature of the universe (inflating, definite), the nature of distance objects (e.g. quasars) have been and still are challenged by many scientists (conveniently called ‘cranks’ by the majority of the rest
).
What we DO KNOW is: there is abundance of galaxies in the universe and there is abundance of stars in those galaxies. Recently obtained data acumulates to certainty that there is abundance of planets around stars and points to possibility of abundance of solarlike planet systems. That and knowledge about life on Earth leads to a logical conclusion that there is also abundance of life in the universe. And that consequently leads us to the very spot nobody here seems to have mentioned yet – the Fermi paradox. Basicaly: where are everybody?
But thats’s another story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%27s_paradox. I highly recommend this one for a fascinating read.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Bucslim:
“It’s just we haven’t been able up to this point to make life out of lifelessness. I think that means a great deal.”
I don’t see that it means anything at all, except that we don’t yet fully understand how it worked in the first place. You’re hinting at some deeper meaning. To me it just says that we don’t yet know everything. No surprise there. Clearly we don’t.
“Because I think that gives us clues to life on other planets – if these conditions are similar biologically and environmentally, then certainly there is a chance that on some other planet that that stuff of life could begin to replicate itself and follow the evolutionary path.”
I don’t follow you, nor do I see how one follows from the other. If I read you right, you’re saying that because we haven’t been able to “make” life yet, that this then means that there’s a chance life is possible on other planets.
Huh?
Can you go back and explain that again?
February 26th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Randall: You wouldn’t happen to be a certain professor at a certain New York university, would you?
(Sorry if I’m prying. You’re always saying “trust me…you don’t realize who you’re talking to.” I just wanted to know who I was talking to a little bit better.)
February 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am
magnidude:
The Fermi Paradox has never impressed me. In fact I’ve always been surprised that a scientist as intelligent as Fermi coughed it up in the first place. It’s clearly got an anthro-centric point of view to it. We’re here, they must be far older than us and therefore far more advanced, and have therefore had the time to get here… so why aren’t they here?
There’s a number of sensible answers. A) Maybe it really is impossible to find a way to go “faster than light.” Maybe there’s just no way to get around it. And therefore maybe it’s just not worth it to try to go hundreds or thousands of light years, even with the grace of time dilation. Or, if you find this incredulous (actually I do too) then maybe “they” simply don’t have our driving curiosity and wouldn’t be willing to invest themselves in such journeys. It’s possible. Not all intelligent life has to be like us. B) Maybe they ARE here, but in hiding. Studying us at a distance. Why not? C) Maybe we just think too much of ourselves. Maybe to them we’re NOT considered “intelligent.” Maybe they believe in an even higher state of development beyond our so-called “intelligence.” Even we ourselves sometimes acknowledge that we’re lacking in this regard, in certain ways. D) Maybe we’re the first to make it to this level. Again, as Sagan said—somebody has to be first. Maybe it’s us.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Slick:
Yes, you are prying. (ha ha). Apology accepted. Sorry, but I value my privacy and don’t wish my identity plastered all over the internet. No offense. I understand your curiosity. I often wonder who I’m talking to, myself.
I will simply say that there are things I know, people I know, places I know… and when I don’t know, you don’t hear from me.
But there is very little that I do not know.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Randall: Fair enough, sorry again. I would say that your knowledge definately qualifies you as a professor of some reputable instituation, which is the only reason I said anything to begin with.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Slick:
Thanks for the compliment.
I didn’t say I wasn’t, but neither will I confirm it.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
And let’s leave it at that.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Randall, Bucslim etc; Even if we don’t find evidence of life elsewhere does not mean there never was. The time frames we are talking about are so huge, even the life of our earth is but a moment in the grand scheme of the universe. Even if we are the only life in the universe at this time, how does that prove anything. It doesn’t make us necessarily unique, just unique right now in our own small corner of time.
I don’t think it will be too long before people much smarter than myself figure out how the complex amino acids hooked up to form life. (Randall; didn’t they already create chains similar to rna?)
Interesting debate guys, I’m learning things.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:59 am
people in dr. rick strassman’s controlled study who took DMT (naturally occuring chemical) commonly reported seeing “intelligent beings” that were trying to explain to the participants the origins of life on earth.
a quick google search on the subject yeilds many results.
in the book “supernatural” by graham hancock, he proposes that maybe extra terrestrial “aliens” are possibly something that we misunderstand entirely, maybe they exist in a way which we haven’t fully comprehended yet.
just sayin.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Cheeres 2overpar Ill definitely be looking into reading that.
I do plan to look more into this topic. I admit that I dont know nearly as much about the topic as Randall. But I must be a common case of believing whatever I read. Even though I do filter these articles with great speculation. I believe due to Randalls stance on the topic that he has a more solid viewpoint.
Here is an article I bookmarked a while ago and never found any follow up for. Randall if you can enlighten me.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/11/24/alien.microbe.claim/
Also with reference to my previous statements.
Randall said “Believe me, when we do find it, even if it’s only microbes–you’ll all know it. It’ll be the biggest news probably in human history.”
I still remain skeptical that politics and the media will serve much help the validity of the find. But thats my point of view. I have no faith in most media mediums.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Mom:
Good point, but remember—I believe we WILL find evidence for life off the earth. I have no doubt of it.
It’s been hypothesized that RNA *is* the original molecule from which all life on earth derives. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say anyone’s created anything *similar,* but people have experimented in that direction, yes. I’m afraid I don’t know exact details.
I agree with you though–we *will* know before long how it happened. It’s inevitable.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Oh and Im horribly cluttered in the way I think. Dont hold me to my Spelling/grammer/syntax.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Basker:
Come now. There is no earthly way (pardon the pun) anyone could *prevent* the knowledge from being disseminated. You need to open your mind up to logic. Scientists are in this game to make a name for themselves. The group that manages to find life off the earth—even microbial life—will be heaped with rewards, both financial and otherwise. There’s no way you could *prevent* them from publicizing it.
Please. Let’s use our advanced brains here. The media won’t be in charge of this, Basker… neither will the government. It won’t be the kind of thing you can “keep secret.”
February 26th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Basker:
I always hold people to making sense when they write things directed at me. That’s how I roll.
Now… the story you reference is over seven years old. Note also that it says the microbe COULD be from space. Not that it IS.
My memory is that this finding was quickly disputed and later more or less settled, that the little critter was in fact a terrestrial bug. Big hopes, but they didn’t pan out.
But you’ve also contradicted yourself here. You say you don’t think the media will allow news of extra-terrestrial life to get out—and yet right there you’ve got a CNN story that practically jumps the gun, announcing it. Clearly the media also knows this would be the story of a lifetime, and there’s no way they’d keep it under wraps.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Randall, I’m pretty sure I was distracted when I was typing that out and didn’t say what I meant. I was half replying to you and half agreeing with Disc, lemme go back and read that stuff and maybe I’ll be more clear.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Randall; I too believe we will find evidence of life. From what I’ve read, it seems likely that one of the moons of uranus(?)may support some sort of life under the ice. It’s not gonna be aliens though, unless we’re talking the microscopic kind…
February 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
http://cagle.com/working/080222/tab.jpg
February 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Randall:
ever heard of a light spectrum? red shift vs. blue shift? scientists have seen galaxies with 7 billion light years away…eh..nvrm I’m too lazy to type this out. I do know the things yu pointed out, i didn’t think i needed to be so specific.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Chadster:
Look dude, think about who you might be talking to. Of course I know about red shifts and blue shifts. What of it? You had said we could “see” back 14 billion years… to the Big Bang. And that just isn’t so. We’re close, but still quite a ways away, astronomically speaking.
What does a galaxy 7 billion light years away have to do with it? (Actually we’ve seen galaxies farther away than that). Are you trying to say seeing a galaxy 7 billion light years away is the same thing as saying you can see a galaxy 14 billion light years away? Uh, no. Light from a galaxy 7 billion light years away has traveled… 7 billion light years. We’re seeing it as it looked 7 billion years ago. Period.
Christ, I try to educate you people and I get arguments. And pointless ones at that.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Randall: I disagree with you. I don’t think you try to educate people. I didn’t see any arguments with you at all, with anything you said on any level. I certainly didn’t see any pointless ones…..*ahem*, *checks watch*
February 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Slick:
Cute, Slick. But don’t get cute with me. Trust me, it’ll hurt.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
This shouldn’t even be an argument, of course there is extra terrestrial life in our universe, and, more likely than not, they have visited our planet frequently.(Evidence seems to point this way)
February 26th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Randall: Aw, come on, Randall, lighten up. You take this shit too seriously.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Slick:
The fact that you thought that was serious indicates what a dull sense of humor you have.
Sadly I must retire from the web for the evening. A nasty drive in the snow awaits me. Handle shit while I’m gone, Slick. Ask for help from Mom if you get stuck.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’d say since we haven’t discovered all ends of the universe we can’t rule it out, I doubt they’ve been here though, as mentioned in the starting story they would of communicated with us. (Unless they’re planting spies here for when they’re taking over the world to anally probe us all
).
February 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Forgot, also there’s NO evidence of them ever been here (don’t come sprouting conspiracy shit at me without SOLID proof, just because you’re not allowed in area 51 it doesn’t mean they’re dissecting aliens there), we can’t say for sure they DO exist. (This answer turned out in me basically saying “How the fuck should I know” I guess
).
February 26th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I’ll reiterate my point here stating that if aliens do exist, they haven’t made contact because they’re either too far away, or they have observed us and feel that bringing us violent, exploitative creatures into their society would do them more harm than good. Another view is that they haven’t tried making contact with us for the same reason that we don’t try to make any meaningful contact with insects. Perhaps they are so much more advanced than us that there isn’t anything they could communicate to us that we could even begin to comprehend.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Sounds plausible. Also there always IS the small possibility that we’re actually the only intelligent creatures by OUR standard of intelligent.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Cyn: pointing out to everyone that we might be so caught up with ourselves that we may not even know it/care when it does happen?
February 26th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Lol nah that argument is flawed, we’re not ALL retarded and American Idol watchers here on earth
(which is the same thing really)
February 26th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
i find it sadly funny that so many on this particular discussion speak of human intelligence and have such poor spelling and grammar.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Absolutely positively. The government is just wimpy and scared. You don’t need an explanation for everything.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
“i find it sadly funny that so many on this particular discussion speak of human intelligence and have such poor spelling and grammar.”
That’s cause not all of us have English as our native tongue. I speak your language, come back when ye speak mine
February 26th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Oh and btw “I” is written in a capital letter
February 26th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
so…if the big bang was the start of the Universe, which it may or may not be but we’ll just assume that it was, why couldn’t another earth-like planet have formed at the same time. The Big Bang occurred and earth was just a mass of magma that was kept heated by flying chunks of rock colliding with it. When that cooled it formed the core, mantle and crust. Why couldn’t the same thing have been going on at the same exact time. That also means then, that human-like beings could have possibly formed at the same time that our earliest ancestors did. They could look the same or could not but why not. Perhaps there is a planet out there very similar to earth with a very similar life form on it.
I think it is there, its just a matter of us getting the technology to find it. I don’t know if we really should want to find it because if we can’t have peace on our own planet and in our own countries, towns, homes even, then how would we have peace with another planet.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
jfrater: just because aliens exist doesn’t mean that there must be a race more intelligent than us. It may sound egotistical but someone has to be the most intelligent so why not humans? We are intelligent enough to be asking ourselves this question, how much smarter can one get?
February 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
ian: who knows, i might already speak yours.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I highly doubt it, but give it a go, I’m Dutch.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Point is, ye can’t question somebody’s intelligence by his knowledge of the English language only.
For instance even though I frequently misspell stuff in English, I still speak 4 different languages, can read a lot more.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Yondofan- although metacognitive (thinking about thinking) thought is considered the highest form of thought, I would beg to differ, and say the highest form of mental function is the ability to cease the actions of the conscious mind, or at least step out of attachment to your own thought, and instead sit in the ultimate reality of the present moment. The present moment is the only thing that exists, past and future are figments of our imagination. Further, more advanced creatures than ourselves may have developed forms of telepathy and possibly telekinesis. It’s also imaginable that they may exist in dimensions above the third dimension that we live in, and we might not even recognize them as lifeforms at all, but perhaps instead as simply physical phenomena.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Call me crazy, but I have even experienced something I can only describe as telepathy, under the influence of a powerful psychoactive substance. While unable to communicate vocally (I could make no intelligible sounds with my mouth, only hum) I was able to hold a complete, highly intelligent discussion with a friend who was under the influence of the same substance, and was equally incapable of speaking. I can only imagine that the substance activated some aspect of our brains that allowed transmission of information by some other means. No doubt it is possible for more intelligent beings to freely access this aspect of the mind.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Jasontimmer: not crazy, just high….
February 26th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Lizzie- indeed. But not any more. (It wasn’t marijuana anyway.)
February 26th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Now considering our thoughts are just little electric currents, that should be in theory possible.
Still I do not believe, nor disbelieve it until scientifically proven.
Why not turn to a university’s neurological faculty and have the theory tested? Would be great if you discovered how to use telepathy wouldn’t it?
Still, if you where both on LSD, that’s what it sounds like at least, there always could be the possibility you two did speak, and just thought it was telepathy. After all, the shit changes the way you think, and at some point in the conversation it might’ve come up like “Hey I’m talking to you through telepathy! Well now that you tell me, me too!” or summin similar.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
ian: al Ibehoefte moet toegang tot Internet hebben
February 26th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Sorry mate you used a translator for that :p
The Dutch grammar is so fucked up ye can’t use a translator for it…
Then again Dutch is a bit unfair, it’s not as widespread as for instance English, French or Spanish.
The sentece you typed btw translates back into English as “Need must have access to Internet”.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
ian: well, duh… that’s what i meant.
the original statement wasn’t directed at you because in your writings there is evidence of intelligence. i can tell you have a different native language, not because you write poorly but just because of some of your word order choices. it was more for the people who are just obviously dumb who go on pontificating while in the midst of their ignorance.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Well it was mainly a poor choice of words, when I typed “I” and “mine”, I meant “we” and “ours”, but since there was no edit button I thought “right fuck it, it’ll put the message through one way or another” :p
Anyways, back to aliens, this little misunderstanding isn’t worth an argument, agreed? :p
February 26th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
283. Crimanon
could be we’d be just that shallow
February 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
how come nobody else backs me on the DMT theory?
February 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Cause it’s a single test, not backed by any other scientists (that I could find), AND because he’s using a psychedelic, which, let’s be honest, could induce all kinds of stuff. (Somebody named “bicycle day” on another topic, look it up on wikipedia).
IF there where actual aliens explaining them the origins on earth, we should’ve been able to verify at least some of it, which hasn’t happened. Also he’s not used another variation of the drug, to test if the participants would see “aliens” aswell.
Therefore I believe the entire research is invalid. Would he have actually used methods to scientifically proof his argument (seeking evidence for the “occurrences”, such as verifying what the “aliens” have been explaining, and ruling out other possibilities like a “normal” psychedelic experience, by using variations of the drug. Also it is mentioned that DMT causes near death experiences, where people see a bright white light. Why do they all of a sudden see aliens now? Simply because the good doctor probably told em what the test was for, if the doctor said that it’d be a experiment to see if theres amoebe like species we can’t see but we maybe can see with DMT, guess wot they would’ve seen?
My god this has become a long arse post
February 26th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Cyn: Personally, the only reason why I’d turn and run is due to … certain … ahem …. abnormal fears. I think you can figure it out. J-lo sucks, I’d rather go to a Rush concert.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
the theory is that “extra terrestrial intelligence” left us means to communicate with them by way of compounds found in plants and animals, replicated over and again by DNA (tryptamine family)
how would you scientifically prove that, ian?
it’s kinda like the movie “contact” with jodie foster, there may be no “tangible” proof for years to come and prolly not without a complete paradigm shift in our society’s value structure.
there are no variations of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), it is what it is, there are various methods of ingestion which carry different effects. there are many other hallucinogens that have different experience tied to them, but DMT is DMT. and as far as i have read, it is the only chemical that gives this experience to people.
dr. strassman is not the only scientist that has researched this. ethnobotanist terrance mckenna wrote on it, and there are others, and there will be many more.
it should be noted that nobel prize winner francis crick who discovered the DNA helix went to the grave believing that extra terrestrial life had a hand in creating life on earth, and he discovered the DNA helix on acid.
so the notion that entheogenic research is invalid is not serving science.
entheogenic experience has something to teach us and “accepted” science has a lot of unanswered questions about the universe.
im not saying i am convinced of it myself, but i dont have any reason to dismiss it.
discounting the theory is not doing any service to science.
lots of people had their reasoning behind their opposition to many scientific facts that we accept today to, dude.
dont be h8in
February 26th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon’s_Egg… Look it up people and stop being so closed minded about how life might take shape. The posts have Circled back around and have turned into childish name calling. Look up the book and work on perspective. And anyone how says “It’s Impossible.”, is just being a pessimistic Fartknocker.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Ian- it wasn’t LSD, and given the fact that no one else who was present (there were about 5) could understand a thing either of us were saying, it think it’s hard to deny, for me, at least. I suppose you would have to experience it personally to know what I’m talking about. Actually, it was dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM)back in the days when the stuff was legal to purchase in large, pure quantities. I like where you were going with the electrical nature of thoughts, the substance obviously physically/chemically changes something about your brain. Heck, I learned how to cut rocks and bricks with my bare hands while using AMT, and can still do it.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:27 am
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=496 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2003/denver_2003/2769875.stm
http://meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Disorders/sleep_disorders/my_experience.htm
Three examples why, what you heard from the farmer next door, abductions maybe false. Mind you, I do believe that there are ETs. To think other is narrow-minded and reminiscent of the God made us and only us in the universe mentality.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Evilsin: Mudvayne fan???
…These symptoms suggested that our evolution, I suppose, from the animal kingdom into the human kingdom itself was catalyzed, or triggered by our encounter with these hallucinogenics, and…
…Yes, we are an ape with a symbiotic relationship to a mushroom, and that has given us self reflection, language, religion and all the spectrum of effects that flow from these things…
…And one can only wonder how these hallucinogens might effect our future evolution as well…
…They have brought us to this point, and as we make our relationship to them conscious, we may be able to take control of our future evolutionary path…
February 27th, 2008 at 12:47 am
From the song Monolith, go figure.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Ok, I’m no mudvayne fan. (I know you weren’t talking to me, Crimanon) It’s really hard to talk to people about profound experiences I’ve had with psychedelics when those people haven’t experienced it themselves. They just tend to “poo-poo” it. “Oh, you expect me to believe you got high on this or that and now you understand something about the world?” Hey, I learned to smash bricks with my hand from AMT. I experienced telepathy with DXM. Some of those experiences years ago were responsible for me picking myself up out of poverty, going back to college, becoming a trained professional, and becoming a devout Zen student. (Results not typical!) So yeah, psychedelics taught me a few things. Some substances are just drugs. Some substances are powerful tools.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Did somebody say Mudvayne? I could care less if life exists besides what lies here on earth but bringin mudvayne into the discussion has my ears wide open!
February 27th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Ok…Mudvayne is officially OUT of the discussion.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:14 am
momentary discussion on Mudvaynes take on Pychedelics and the evolution of thought, spiritualty, and interpretation of our current senses.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:21 am
My god that post has drawn some strong reactions :p
I’m gonna reply to evilsin’s post nr 307 only, since I haven’t got the time right now to check out the links in the other posts (but I will! they certainly do sound interesting).
I might’ve been a little bit unclear, which happens to me often I might add. I didn’t dismiss the entire story, I just meant it’s not in the least conclusive enough to believe. As for the theory has not been backed, I stand corrected.
Still, there is too much uncertainties to take it for true. You would be able to scientifically proof this by taking some of the facts the aliens told the subjects about beginning of life, and check it. For instance a vegetation they mentioned, or a piece of DNA, something.
Calling the research invalid was perhaps a tad strong, but it’s certainly no conclusive evidence that aliens might be able to communicate with us that way.
I agree there’s a lot of things we’ve dismissed in the past which have been proven now, but at the other side of the coin much of it has been rejected through scientific processes now aswell.
Also worth mentioning is the Korean(?) scientist that claimed he cloned a dog, and later turned out he made up important parts of the story. Skepticism isn’t per definition a bad thing.
Also, is this DMT dangerous for your health (ie addictive), and is there a some sort of transcript for this experiment?
I think I should be able to get a hold of the stuff from friends at the university, and I’d love to try this experiment for myself (ofcourse in a controlled environment).
I’m always open to new things, still I do require at least some scientific evidence before I believe something.
Oh and on a social note, “dont be h8in” is not a closing note I’d expect from someone who is, judging from the post you made here, clearly not dumb
February 27th, 2008 at 4:37 am
jasontimmer, post 309:
The LSD was just a stab, since I couldn’t make out from the post what you where “on” at the time. Also the mentioning about thinking you used telepathy, was just a thought, since it’s quite hard to be objective (in my experience) when you’re under the influence of mind altering substances.
Here’s also another theory, not to attack your story, just because I just thought of it and would like your thoughts on it.
Seeing as your friends couldn’t understand a word you where saying (I’m gonna assume you actually made noises then, otherwise this little theory would be null and void at once), it might be the primal way we once communicated, by emotions, like animals do. Then again, seeing as the two of you had a complete and intelligent conversation, this theory leaves some pretty big holes.
As mentioned in my post I didn’t reject the idea, and actually wouldn’t be surprised if it where true, same with the cutting rocks and bricks. I’ve seen people smash piles of concrete plates with their hands, simply by technique, where someone without the technique would just fuck over his hand, so cutting rocks and bricks does not seem far fetched to me at all.
I’m actually gonna place a few calls to see if the guys at the uni can get a hold of the AMT and DXM and do it myself aswell, so I got a little more insight in the general experiences with the drug. (This provided it will not in any way damage my health, and it’d not get me addicted).
February 27th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Crimanon, post 310:
These are certainly interesting, especially the first one!
I share your opinion that aliens most likely exist, though as always being the skeptic I am I have to see one, or be able to see one (I know the tower of Pizza exists cause I can go there, even though I haven’t yet seen it myself), before I 100% believe it.
Mind you, the possibility, as small as it might be with a universe this big, that aliens do not exist is always present until one has been found.
Also what defines intelligent life? Is it a lifeform simliair to ours, tangible and with a layout to be compared to us, a “motor” (heart) to keep the body running and a “controller” (brains) to steer it, or does it include the non tangible life forms as suggested by the research of the doctor Evilsin mentioned?
February 27th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Ian- fyi, AMT is alphamethyltryptamine. DXM is dextromethorphan hydrobromide. And yes, we made noises, which were pretty much hums and gurgles. As far as primal communication, yes, I believe is was far more emotional. However, somehow, very specific concepts were conveyed that couldn’t be expressed through any means less descriptive than language, so I’m not sure what it means. For instance, and for comedy, this friend was actually bisexual, and “hit on me” telepathically. I may very well be the first person to be hit on telepathically. Anyway, I redirected the conversation to something more appropriate (I’m not gay or bisexual) and I’m rather glad that no one else was able to understand the subject matter. I’m glad to see that you have an open mind and are willing to entertain the notion that these substances may have long-lasting, beneficial outcomes. And by the way, AMT and DXM is definitely NOT addictive. If you do come across some, PLEASE be careful. These are very powerful medicines and should only be used by those with a strong mind and spirit. They can be very scary.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:01 am
jasontimmer , post 320:
Even though yer not supposed to “mock” someone’s sexual preference’s, I still find that incredibily funny
As for the strong mind and spirit part, I’ve tried mushrooms once (here in the Netherlands ye can actually just buy em in a store), and haven’t experienced anything very scary, although at one point I did think that evil little bastard Spongebob was about to attack me (Yes, I’m a twisted person, AND I watch childrens cartoons even though I’m 23
).
I’ll take the risk since I’m far too curious about the resultand do it with other people present.
(As you always should do with stuff like this! Some Europeans might recall the story of the girl who thought she got attacked by I think Smurfs and tossed herself off a bridge, so always have someone around to keep you from doing stupid shit like killing yourself, remember you’ll only be able to kill yourself once!).
February 27th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Ian- Hahahahha! Amen to that! just whatever you do, do NOT, and I repeat, NOT watch any of the Saw movies if you decide to take mushrooms again.
…I still think Jigsaw is after me.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Bass, jesus christ that would definitely suck
Must of been one of your less enjoyable nights :p
February 27th, 2008 at 7:15 am
hi ian
dmt is a hallucinogen
the politically correct term these days is entheogen
no they are not addictive, period
February 27th, 2008 at 7:31 am
i hope i didnt post this twide or break rules by posting it but here goes again:
good article on it:
http://www.rickstrassman.com/assets/pdf/contact.pdf
mckenna on Hyperspace and DMT:
http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/dmtart08.html
http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/chris_v.html
graham hancock book:
http://www.grahamhancock.com/supernatural/
anecdotal:
http://www.csp.org/nicholas/A4.html
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_writings2.shtml
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_DMT.shtml
February 27th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Aliens? We are the aliens.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Randall – dude, I had some sort of a brainfart. I’ve re-read the thread and I don’t know what or where I was goin. I had to leave in the middle of typing that post and when I came back I was reading what Disc said and fuck all if I know what I was trying to get at. Maybe I was stirring the primordial soup that is my brain.
In the words of Emily Litella – Never mind.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Okay…. look. Graham Hancock is the latter-day Erich Von Daniken. A hack-who’ll-say-anything-to-sell-books, and who will distort easily-explained material as so-called “evidence” for his silly and ill-informed ideas.
I’ve had an “encounter” with Hancock and his little buddy Robert Schoch (I engaged in an argument with the latter about Mayan/Egyptian connections, which naturally I rejected and he, naturally, was trumpeting). I came away even less impressed than I’d been to start with.
Mankind is an imaginative, inventive, intelligent species. We didn’t need help from aliens to build the pyramids or Macchu Picchu or figure out how to grow wheat.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:15 am
bucslim:
You’re trying to politely say you were “on something.” I know. I understand.
But seriously, get help before you find yourself back on the street again.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Randall – I wish I could point to the bong resin from the 70’s, but sadly I chose another path.
To sum up:
Disc: Life is special because God made us.
Randall: Life is special whether God made us or not.
Me: I like tater tots!
February 27th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Randall; Funny, when people don’t understand a process or how something works, they make shit up rather than admit they don’t know. I eagerly swallowed the Von Daniken crap, when I was in about Grade 6. Alien landing strips! snort, guffaw. I’ve become far less credulous; I grew up. I’ve not heard of Hancock; I need some entertainment, I’m going to go look him up.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Mom:
By all means go to Hancock for amusement, but don’t give him the time of day and buy his books–steal them from some dullard who believes him, instead.
I agree, Von Daniken was fun when we were kids–I found him amusing, but as a testament to my gigantic braininess, I didn’t believe him even then, in my childhood… but such crap is also harmful, this kind of pseudoscience–and Hancock is no less a hack promoter. A tad more sophisticated than Von Daniken, but only just.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Cyn (#271) That was hilarious!! Especially considering this list now.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Randall; ha ha ha ha, I guess my kids must have been visited by that ancient pre-civilization. Sit ‘em down with a pile of blocks and it takes ‘em about 10 seconds to figure out the base must be smaller than the top if you want stability. And the end of the ice-age lasted about 10 seconds too! People were stupid and drowned cuz’ they couldn’t move fast enough to escape the rising waters? These guys ever seen the scablands of Washington State? If there was an instantaneous and global catastrophic rise in sea level, there would be evidence,and I’m not a PHD….(Reference to Schoch)
February 27th, 2008 at 9:39 am
erm; larger, edit would be good
February 27th, 2008 at 9:42 am
i think that if you want proof there are aliens in such a vast universe, just take your house, now take a pencil, make a dot on any wall, now imagine the rest of your house as the universe, that dot is earth. Now tell me there can’t be other lifeforms out there.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Csimmons; I believe in extraterrestrial life, I even think we’ll have proof before too long. I don’t believe that we have been visited (see comment #190), the odds against it are just too high.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Mom:
Is that a new kick Schoch’s on now? A catastrophic end to the Ice Age? Cripes.
You know, the guy is a geologist…. but he and I got into it about Mayan/Egyptian connections and other Pre-Columbian visitations by old world people to the New World (what would HE know about it, as a Geologist? Yet he feigned expertise on the subject). I feel I devastated him on the topic, but of course he refused to acknowledge my victory.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:44 am
All because a pyramid doesn’t fall over. Ha ha ha, I can’t get over it…that is so dumb….
It is amazing the similarities you can find when you ignore all the differences…ha ha ha ha
February 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Wait Randall, you’re trying to tell me that the Drake equation proves that aliens exist mathematically? So let me break down (again) why at the very least this is not the case (although you were right in your argument that it doesn’t prove the converse). You say we know the first two numbers in the Milky Way fairly well, and then go on to state that there are 100 Billion stars in the galaxy (which is to what, 1 significant digit?) and 100-200 extrasolar planets. Then you use the argument that the technology is in its infancy to prove that half to two thirds have planets. I think that too high, but it makes no difference. Don’t you see then that even with the stuff we think we might know you’ve cut down the original number to 50 billion? Each fraction after the fraction with planets only makes it smaller, and some of those fractions are tiny. Of the 200 some odd planets we’ve discovered, you know how many might possible have a suitable environment for life? Maybe an outside chance at one (a super earth discovered recently). And so on, with each fraction smaller then the last. The odds that matter can come together to make life? So tiny that some scientists put forth this arguement as the reason for the “irreducible complexity” argument for intelligent design. Just because we formed out of nothing (proteins lying about might as well be that) doesn’t mean it can happen elsewhere. And my equation for the Drake equation? It’s from National Geographic, not Wikipedia.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
i think aliens exsist. have we seen them as ufo’s? i don’t know will we ever meet them face to face in our life time, i don’t but i do believe that there are other life forms out there earth isn’t the only plant in the universe or space that is liveable.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
333. SocialButterfly
February 27th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Canuck:
Look smartass, you need to step back and stop being such a goddamned hothead about this, because it’s clearly compromising your critical thinking skills (though I’m not sure how sharply honed they were to begin with).
A) I never said that the Drake equation “proves” anything. YOU were the one making that claim. I simply corrected your misapprehension that the equation could be used to support the notion that there is no life “out there.” You were wrong, and I’m glad you had the guts to admit I was right. But the equation “proves” nothing at all. It can, however, mathematically indicate–vaguely and subjectively–how much life there might be out there.
B) I don’t need you “breaking down” anything for me in regards to the Drake equation. I’m going to repeat myself–you have no idea whom you’re addressing here. I am an astronomer. I also have certain credentials that I’d rather not go into in detail because I’ve come close enough on this site in the past to giving away my professional privacy.
C) I actually misspoke in regards to the number of stars in the Milky Way, because I was trying to be conservative. Some estimates are as high as 400 billion stars. But screw it, let’s keep it at 100 billion, because it’s an easy figure to work with, and we wouldn’t want to tax you, Canuck. But I trust you can see that the odds for life in our galaxy are made even higher with more stars. (Though clearly you don’t buy this for some weird reason).
D) There are currently between 100 – 200 extra solar planets that have been discovered *up to now.* Clearly many more will be discovered in the coming years.
E) The half-to-two-thirds number of stars that have planets is not a number I pulled out of my ass, Canuck. Every astronomer I know (and trust me, I know some even *you* would have heard of) agree on it, and it’s a number that’s been kicked around in journals for some time now, even before the great burst of extra-solar planet discovery. If anything “half” may be too conservative. You think it’s too high–well sorry, but you’re in a minority if you believe that.
F) What is my acknowledgement of the decreasing numbers (with each successive fraction) supposed to prove to you, Canuck? No shit, I know the numbers get smaller… everybody does. Nobody ever said otherwise…. though you DO make one error here–the numbers do NOT necessarily get smaller–the equation goes from number of stars that have planets to number of planets within each system that can support life–and many astronomers place that number at *two,* based on the situation in our own solar system–since, besides the Earth, it’s assumed that Mars probably *could* support life of some kind, or at least could have in the past. So this would in fact double the previous number. (And don’t get smart with me about this–again, I’m not the only one saying it–Carl Sagan himself made this very same point, for example… *moreover,* while we don’t yet KNOW if there is or was life on Mars, it’s ALSO possible that there is life under the ice of Europa and/or Enceladus, and possibly on Titan. That’s one definite and FOUR possibles in our own solar system).
G) Your point about the extra solar planets discovered up to now being unable to support life is meaningless. Nobody expects these planets to be amenable to life–again, because the technology is still young, we’ve only been able to find very large worlds—gas giants for the most part. But what are you going to try to say next, Canuck? That there are only gas giants out there in the universe? (In fact even gas giants *could* theoretically support a kind of life–though we don’t focus on that because it’s an outside chance). Every astronomer readily assumes–with good reason–that there are at least as many terrestrial worlds out there as there are gas giants—if not more.
H) You say: “The odds that matter can come together to make life? So tiny that some scientists put forth this arguement as the reason for the “irreducible complexity” argument for intelligent design.” WRONG. And perhaps now we can discern where you’re coming from–is this a hint that you’re a Creationist? You certainly seem to be hinting that you’re sympathetic with the Intelligent Design mindset. But either way your statement is entirely disingenuous. A FEW biologists and astro-biologists feel skeptical about the ease of “making” life–but they are WAY in the minority, Canuck. Most feel that life DID develop with relative ease. Life occurred on the earth only about a billion years after the earth was “born,” and we also know that the basic building blocks of life are common in space. The general consensus is that LIFE isn’t all that hard to get, but that *complex* organisms (i.e., anything bigger than a microbe) are much harder to make–we didn’t get such organisms on the earth until the time of the Cambrian Explosion 500 million years ago. Intelligence, of course, seems harder still. Of course we still don’t know HOW life was created in the first place, and some scientists have said that it’s almost easier to understand how life goes from microbial to complex than it is to understand how it occurred in the first place—but it remains a fact that life DID develop on the earth very early on, and that the stuff it was made of is practically *everywhere* out there. STATISTICALLY it makes sense to assume that life develops fairly easily, but that it tends to remain in the microbial state, and it’s harder to develop anything past that.
I) In fact, we DO have to assume that because life occurred on the earth that it can happen elsewhere. Note I say CAN. But it’s still the same–yes, the earth is all we know, the only biosphere we have to study so far–but by the same token, we do know that while the earth is unique in the solar system in SOME ways, it isn’t WHOLLY unique. We know what the early earth was like, and Titan is VERY similar. Mars isn’t all that different from the earth–we don’t feel it would be terribly hard to make it even MORE earthlike if we really wanted to, and there’s every reason to believe it WAS much more earthlike in the past. We are now almost certain that liquid water exists under the ice of Europa–and where there’s water, there can be life. We have the example of life existing on the bottom of the oceans of earth, around the so-called “black smokers”–where no ordinary terrestrial life could exist (in great heat and pressure and permanently removed from the sun) to suggest to us that not only is life tenacious but that it doesn’t always need the sun to exist. This gives a greater chance to not only Mars but to Europa and Enceladus as well. And surely there are countless worlds out there in space, waiting to be discovered, whose environments would be even more amenable to life as we know it.
J) I can’t help that National Geographic fudged a bit on the equation. Generally the equation is “fudgeable” to some small extent… but my interpretation comes from the *source,* Canuck.
Nobody says the galaxy is brimming over with INTELLIGENT life, Canuck… but the consensus is that LIFE is probably fairly widespread. Estimates on intelligent life and intelligent life capable of communicating with us are harder, obviously, to make… and those numbers range from as few as about 10 civilizations out there to as many as a million—depending on what numbers you plug in towards the end of the equation.
But no, it is NOT that tough to estimate how much life in general is out there. And the consensus amongst experts I know is, it’s out there probably in big numbers.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
There was a time while growing up when I like most people chose to believe or not believe purely by choice. But guess what ? A time came when I decided not to do either but to study each subject matter with an open mind. When I am told by people who tell me they do NOT believe in aliens I ask them what do they base their decision on. Not one person was able to answer. Not one person even read ONE book on the subject. Whether pro or con. They just decided to “choose” not to believe in them. I just walk away from them. What’s the use ?
February 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I think the perception of some is that the universe is like your neighborhood,where all you have to do is ride your bike around the corner to find someone you dont know. The vastness of space goes on forever, and if it doesnt then what is after space. The point is that with such an eternity of space around us, how do we know if there is or is not life outside of what we know. The statistical probabilitiy of earth being the only planet to have life seems a bit perplexing to me.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
It’s all guesswork until we seen em… If ye don’t even know how big the universe is, how can you make ANY mathematical equasion that alien life forms should excist?
Theres a high probability since the universe is not very small, but then again we just might be the only “intelligent” life form on earth, until you’ve seen every corner of the universe or encountered an alien, theres no way to either confirm or dismiss it.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Lol shit my post looks almost like a duplicate of yours Dave :p
February 27th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Ian: Comment 319: Evilsins comments are well within what could be called ET. Since science still has no idea how “Trip inducing chemicals” affect the nervous system. It remains possible that our childhood imaginary friend, imaginary wife in my case, may have been our minds so uncluttered and receptive that we were in fact seeing “Aliens”. Psycoactives when used correctly may be, in time, a staple of society and communication. Keep an open mind, ALL things are poosible.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
If you want to believe in aliens, go ahead. I remain unconvinced until I see evidence for them. If they do exist and are intelligent, hopefully they’re either too far away or could not exist in our atmosphere to want to inhabit Earth.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
K, so I read MOST of the comments but for reals, 349 is a lot! Randall I truly enjoy reading what you have to say both here and in other lists I’ve seen!
My take mirrors what has been said often enough. I find it arrogant of humans to think there is no life outside of Earth. With the sheer size of the universe it’s very likely that there’s something out there. Have they been here? dunno. Are they as “advanced” as humans? hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us? No clue. I’m certain they are out there somewhere though.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Do “Aliens” have to be from Another planet, Another galaxy, OR Another universe? Wouldn’t a parallel Entity, say Opposite you, be alien as well?
February 27th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
DK:
Thank you.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
My god this is turning out to unraffle the mysteries of the universe :p
February 27th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Hahahah, you said it, Ian. I bet you the person to discover Extra Terestrials will have a membership on this site.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Of course! The universe is so big I have to believe there’s life out there. Of course, whether they would ever come here is debatable. Who knows, maybe they have.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
So um.. Fark.com (where i get all my internet news from!) haed an article yesterday that said that scientists in India (i think it was india) found a galezy that has signs of a type 4 life form creating it. And for all you trekies out there that watched Next Gen, Type 4 would be like Q, we barly rank as Type 2 right now! SO there you go.. PROF
February 27th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Look Randall, I’m sorry I offended you but if you’ll read my first post (which you did rather thoroughly) you’ll see that it wasn’t directed at you nor was it in a particularly offensive tone. Then you more or less called me stupid, and now you’re saying that I’m being a hothead when I’m just a little passionate about this. I was just trying to debate this with someone who seemed to know what they were talking about, which you obviously do. I’m not an idiot, I may not have whatever your credentials are but I’ve been a member of the RASC for years. I’m not some jackass with a loud mouth. That being said, I think we’re looking at the data and coming out with different answers.
I think it strange that you would think me a creationist, although rereading my second post (and you having nothing else to go on) I guess how I can see you think that. You have only my word for it, but I am not a creationist.
As far as seeing different answers goes, I don’t see how you failed to contradict yourself. You said both that there are five (and possibly more) places in just this solar system where life could have formed and then state that the formation of life occurs easily and quickly. How could this be? Either those aren’t planets that could have supported life (and then supporting life requires more then just water)or life doesn’t form easily and quickly. So then either the ne term is less then you suppose or the fl term is less then you suppose.
As far as there being lots of life out there I still don’t think that the fractions towards the end of the equation are large enough for it to be a statistical certainty. Notice the I. You can think what you want, but the fact remains that neither of us or anybody else has anything better then a guess at them.
You state that there is a consensus among scientists that life must exist but if that is the case I wonder how I failed to miss it. I may not read the scientific journals you do (you seemed to intimate that you were an academic of some kind) but I read a lot of magazines on astronomy and I have never come across a mention of a consensus or even a hint that a majority of astronomers think that way. Would you have a link to some site on it? Or a suggestion of a magazine that might have it?
Again, I’m sorry you took offence to my earlier posts, but note that I took offence to both of yours as well. If you want to debate on this respectfully I’m all ears. But if you think me too inferior in my knowledge or just wish to namecall don’t bother.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Alyshia: Um, I don’t usually say this but, WTF. Are you really that.. do you really believe those … Tell me please what is a type 4 life form. Fark that!!!!!
February 27th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
FARK?????
February 27th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
What the fark is Fark? :p
February 27th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Fark.com is a site for links to other news site. Like saying “Today in other news…”
February 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
FARC
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
FARC is considered a terrorist group by its main adversary…
…the Colombian Military
u dont wanna FARK or FARC with these guys
if there is ET life, these guys can kidnap them
February 28th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Fark.com is one of the greatest sites on the web that there is.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Canuck:
To begin with, I have to say that I repeatedly encounter people on this site who come at me with a very argumentative (and sometimes downright insulting) tone, who then react all defensively (and *take* offense) when I give it back to them. You, Canuck, certainly came at me with an argumentative and I might see somewhat snotty demeanor. But let’s not go on with this “offense” nonsense…. I didn’t take offense at anything you said–but I am a polemicist and when I feel I’ve been tagged, I’ll tag you back. That’s all. And I’ll hit hard if I feel you’re way off-base.
Now, okay, you want to play reasonable here, I’m fine with that. But I still say you’re off-base and being needlessly argumentative on a topic that most astronomers *I* know agree on, more or less. (Which is not to say that there’s no contingent who feel life is extremely rare, or that we might even be totally alone in the universe–but they are very much in the minority).
I didn’t know what to think, about the creationist thing. *You* brought up intelligent design, as though you were pumping for that particular viewpoint. You’d think if you were trying to be scientific about this, and truly understand the ideas behind the Drake equation, then you wouldn’t go anywhere *near* “intelligent design.” Even the fact that you brought it up raised big red flags for me. It still does. I find it suspicious. If you’re a supporter of intelligent design, then come out and say so. Otherwise let’s leave that creationism-in-sheep’s-clothing “theory” out of this.
Another point–I certainly don’t think you’re an idiot, but you fail to make yourself clearly understood, a mistake you’ve repeated here in your most recent response to me. You say that you can’t see how I “failed to contradict” myself–but you immediately follow that accusation up with an argument that… well I’m sorry, but an argument that makes no sense to me whatsoever.
A) We certainly know that there is at least ONE planet in this system where life DEFINITELY has occurred (we’ll leave aside the panspermia notion for a moment as it needlessly complicates this particular discussion). We also know that Mars is not terribly different from the earth–again, something that planetary astronomers have been in general agreement on for a very long time. Recent findings have even strongly suggested that Mars was once much *more* earthlike than it is now. Not an exact match, no–but certainly the consensus is that Mars appears to be (and more importantly to have *been* in the past) much MORE conducive to life than it is NOT conducive. In other words, the odds still seem to favor, or at least leave us with the strong hope–that life once existed there and might still exist. That gives us ONE planet definitely with life–and one possible. And whether Mars did or does have life–or never did–doesn’t *really* matter to the Drake equation. We would have to determine first WHY Mars never evolved life–but for the time being we can certainly say that it fits WITHIN the broad definition of an environment conducive to life. (And in support of this, we know that it probably wouldn’t be terribly difficult–though a major undertaking, yes–to terraform Mars and make it totally habitable). In other words, as far as the Drake equation is concerned, Earth is a planet clearly where you get life. Mars is a planet where life would have a strong chance of evolving. A slight difference in classification–and maybe if Mars never did evolve life, it was simply a matter of “luck” as it were—of course there being no such thing as “luck” where science is concerned–but I trust you know what I mean. Maybe almost all the ingredients were there for life, but one key component was missing for some reason. We could still STATISTICALLY say that our solar system had TWO planets with a GOOD SHOT at evolving life. Do you follow me?
B) And now, as we learn more about our solar system, we have every reason to believe that there is a liquid ocean under the ice of two moons–Europa and Encaledus–and these moons then become candidates for possible life because 1) we feel liquid water is key to life as we know it and 2) we have evidence on earth to strongly support the idea of life in an oceanic environment of perpetual darkness, as long as their is heat-producing and nutrient-producing activity going on to support said life. In fact, to state it plainly such a thing HAS happened on the earth–organisms living on the sea floor in an extremely hostile environment, who have never seen the sun and are not dependent on it. If it can happen here, then it COULD have happened on either Europa or maybe even Encaledus. Further, there is Titan, a moon whose environment is very similar to the early earth–and since life evolved on earth in that environment, Titan also becomes a candidate. This gives us, statistically, FIVE worlds in our solar system that are candidates for life. Though in practical terms, and to be conservative, we can still call it *two* worlds for the purpose of the equation, since we don’t YET know enough about Titan and the other moons… certainly not as much as we know about Mars. In addition, we’re still a helio-centric species, and as great an example as the life around the black smokers is, we still feel more comfortable with sun-driven life.
C) FROM THE EVIDENCE we have, we can reasonably assume that life in an EARTH-LIKE environment is not all that hard to evolve. Because it happened–and happened fairly quickly after the creation of the earth itself. This doesn’t mean it HAD to happen on Mars or Titan, etc., because as similar as they are to “earthlike” in one regard or other, there are also clearly major differences. Titan and the other moons are extremely cold, harsh environments. The earth is and was warmer. And so on. But we also know that organic matter is common and, coupled with the example of the earth, this gives us the reasonable assumption that life isn’t that hard to evolve–at least in an environment like the early earth.
From all this, I don’t see what “contradiction” you’re accusing me of. I can’t even make it out from the context of your statements. The Drake equation is a series of educated guesses. the n-sub-e factor is the number of planets that can POTENTIALLY support life around a given star. f-sub-l is the fraction of those planets that actually DO go on to evolve life.
Using our solar system as an example–the only one we concretely have to go on (but there is no reason to assume our system is by any means unique) then n-sub-e is at LEAST “two” and perhaps as great as “five,” depending on how generous we want to be. Or you can call it “one” if you want to be ultra-conservative. I assumed the value for n-sub-e to be “two.” So no contradiction there. f-sub-l is harder still to guess at, because we still don’t know if life evolved elsewhere in our solar system, other than on the earth. If life didn’t—then we’d still need to know WHY it didn’t before this would adversely affect the numbers of the equation. Is it the cold? Is it some other missing factor? What is the “habitable zone” for a given star? Is it severely limited to only the range that the earth exists in? Or is it larger? Does it depend on the star? Does it depend on other factors? We don’t yet know the answers to these questions—so f-sub-l becomes a wilder guess. And it’ll still be a guess even if we find there is NO life in the solar system other than on earth. Because with the huge number of stars out there in the galaxy, we can reasonably assume that the factors that failed for Mars or Titan, etc. would have worked, statistically speaking, elsewhere. Until we get some definitive answers (i.e. if we find out that Mars and the rest are simply too far from the sun, or whatever) the factor simply remains up in the air, so to speak. But if you want to be conservative–you could still go ahead and say that the answer is “one.” Earth was a planet with the potential to develop life, and it DID develop life. So the two factors would carry on the same number.
I see absolutely no contradiction in this — whatever one YOU see, you need to explain it to me more clearly.
I also think you’re being a tad disingenuous with all this “statistical certainty” business. The Drake equation allows us to guess–nobody says otherwise, and nobody talks about “statistical certainty.”
But something else you fail to note: the purpose of the Drake equation is NOT merely to estimate the amount of LIFE that could be out there, and not even the amount of INTELLIGENT life… but rather to estimate the number of civilizations out there with whom we could MAKE CONTACT with. Our debate has centered more on how much LIFE there might be out there. Yes, we’d clearly prefer to contact or be contacted by another intelligent species… but I don’t see this as the argument you were engaging me on. The thrust of what you were saying from the beginning was that we are wrong to assume that there is probably a LOT of life out there in the galaxy. I cannot agree with you on this, and I continue to maintain that the consensus guess of astronomers is that there should be and probably is a LOT of life out there. INTELLIGENT life is another matter–but I SAID that in my answers to you earlier—we know that complex life took far longer to develop on the earth—and intelligent life longest of all. This suggests that there’s probably a LOT of microbial/primitive life forms in space–but that the number of complex organisms is probably a fraction of this, and the number of intelligences a smaller fraction still.
But again–I SAID all this early on. I never said the galaxy is brimming over with intelligent life. But you seem to be applying the more stringent assumptions about *intelligent* life to life in general—which is your mistake.
As far as the consensus of astronomers that you’ve “missed”—I can’t comment on how or why you’ve “missed” this. Obviously astronomers like any scientists are cautious with their public statements… and all this we’re talking about is based on GUESSES and there’s no particular reason for scientists to write papers based on guesses–when they get down to serious work, they deal in known facts. But for god’s sake, Canuck, all you’d have to do is turn on a TV sometime and tune to some documentary piece on this subject where astronomers are being interviewed, or pick up a book by any astronomer with a good name to verify what I’ve been telling you–it isn’t that hard. For chrissakes, if you want me to play librarian for you, I could probably give you dozens of titles–but can’t you look this stuff up yourself? Come on–go to any of Carl Sagan’s books, for example. If I have time I’ll find you some others.
But frankly I find it hard to believe that YOU have found it hard to believe that astronomers and other scientists are confident that there’s life out there. It’s talked about all the time. Maybe you’d characterize it as a “hope” rather than a belief on the part of these professionals… but either way, it’s not a secret.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Earth is one of the 8 planets of the sun…a star. there are billions upon billions of stars out there. Statistically speaking, there should be life out there that we have not reached yet.
Also, “Aliens”…what is this term mean? Intelligent lifeforms could be in the form of a plant to a speaking walking thing. They may be completely different from what we are like. They may also be in the beginning bacterial stages of life or perhaps stuck in a non-technologically advanced time.
Or perhaps these aliens have tried to contact us already however we do not have the appropriate technology to receive their messages.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Randall: I have a problem with a website that says Male teacher/female student, “Dumbass”; Female teacher/male student, “Cool”. Bias? Very.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
It’s hard to believe there are no aliens. I kind of like to believe that. People who don’t believe it, are scared. People who want to believe it or do believe it, just want something exciting to happen, something amazing.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I say we can only determine whether aliens exist or not if we know more about our universe. We’re one small planet with a small knowledge about something huge… Maybe they came in contact with us many many years ago, and maybe thats how civilization began.. (That may be a little cliche, but bear with me here)Or maybe they already know of us, and are just watching overtime… Who knows, they could have been intervener’s in some of our largest conflicts. But in all honesty, I believe we will
only know of their existence if we knew the whole universe, or we had a sufficient amount of evidence…
February 28th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I think Aliens do exist.. think about it.. the universe is infinite, its impossible for us to be the only species living in it.
HOWEVER, have they visited Earth? NO, I highly doubt it. If they did visit Earth, its only a matter of time they decide to invade Earth.. just like how we invaded the Native Americans for new lands. They are so advanced (because the found us first not vice versa) so they shouldn’t be scared to invade us. Even if they didnt want to invade us, its possible that they would even make communication with us
February 29th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Aliens do exist because there had been some strange events thru history about aliens, although some of these are just claims. But even so, the universe is a huge, huge place, and it is definitely impossible that we’re alone. Some forms of life are made to adapt to all sorts of conditions, even here on earth. Examples are the polar bear adapted to extreme cold, anglerfish in very deep waters, and camels in extreme heat.
Therefore, there should be life in other planets which can adapt to extreme conditions, such as exposure to radiation or lack of atmosphere, if earth animals can survive conditions of extreme cold, heat, or desolation.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:30 am
“Aliens do exist because there had been some strange events thru history about aliens, although some of these are just claims.”
By that logic both God and the Spaghetti monster exist as well.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Crimanon:
The comment for each headline on Fark.com is generated by the submitter–not anyone from the site. So it’s uneven and inconsistent. Some people who post stuff on there are assholes of various sorts, but you learn to just accept that as the nature of the internet and look for the laughs.
And I HAVE seen comments on Fark indicating that many submitters find the whole thing (about older woman/boy action) wrong and twisted. (And I agree, it is).
February 29th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Randall: while what you say is true for the most part, all articles submitted go through a process of selection, and if they are selected, the admins do occasionally change the title – I have had it done to an item I once submitted – they made it much funnier than I did
February 29th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Jfrater:
Well, there you go… I have to confess–none of my submissions have ever been selected.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am
what with thousands of sightings, how can you not think, that someone other than us exist. The government in fact does have evidence. but do remember the panic that was caused by orson wells as a hoax.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
1. Rob – February 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Mathmatically, they must, and for the same reason, they haven’t been here…yet. THe place is just too big!
I don’t believe that I could be as succinct, change “must” to may and I agree 100%
February 29th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I think there is other life out there beyond a doubt, but are the big headed and green and flying around in glorified Frisbees probing people in the night? No. Sorry, but no.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Why are so many comments screaming science and then saying “Impossible”? To think that Space/time travel, Anti-Grav, Telepathy, just to name a few, are Impossible shows that much of our own culture(s) fail to imagine. If life just happens why wouldn’t it happen say … There?
“We haven’t found it!”, so it must not exsist. We don’t know how our bodies work either, doesn’t mean it’ll stop working.
And all of these “Scientists” saying “We haven’t detected their radio waves” and then using that as a basis of nonexsisitance. Should be stripped of their title. Come on, Radio waves? these little primitive forms of communication that give us nothing but Tv fuzz. If I hear another scientist say some thing about radio waves in his next life on Planet Z segment, I’ll stick his laser pointer in his eye!
Thats how I start my morning.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Randall: User submitted Items are often flawed and without intelligence. All it takes is a quick look around at anything like, Ebaumsworld, to see that what people think is Funny usually isn’t anything more that a glorified fart joke. Teacher/student sex, police brutality, and slapstick comedy all have different perspectives, and all are biased.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I have a different opinion,lest start with this,off topic but a deer is born
deer eats grass
deers manure fertilizes grass
deer dies
fertilizes more grass for more deer
cycle starts again
but what do humans do?
destroy,remove,consume,and we give nothing back unless we try too,a deer does regardless
in my mind,yes,they do,and we might be aliens on a different planet,we might be experiments that were set here and they monitor us via UFO
Y’never know!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
How very Agent Smith.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Huh?
Im sorry,adolescence has its troubles
February 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
375. s. eide
None of the sightings EVER confirmed. There’s also thousands of people claiming to be able to speak with the dead, so if thousands of people claim it it must be true!
Also the government has proof? Right, conspiracy nut?
And the Orson Welles show was about an alien ATTACK on earth, not just aliens, that’s why it caused such a massive panic.
If there are aliens, and friendly, it wouldn’t cause panic, but massive curiosity. And if they WHERE violent, I’d think uncle Bush would outfit shitloads of marines to be able to kill aliens.
Proof is needed, before something can be called true. It’s highly probable they exist yes, but not by definition true.
Also all these sightings which apparently to you mean they exist hasn’t led to either a massive attack or any form of communication?
February 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Ian: Did you just say Kill an alien? How would you accomplish that? Mind Bullets? Or just the ones that can be stopped by a ceramic plate? To think that They wouldn’t know how we would react borders on the naive’. No bullet would stop an alien. Unky Bush is saving no one but himself!
February 29th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Seeing as we never encountered an alien, where’d you get that knowledge Crimanon?
And the world is pretty recourcefull, especially when it comes to weaponry.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
These beings Traveled to Earth just to jump out of a cake and yell “Surprise!”? It comes down to logic that even kids know. Watch what is going on, Then say hello. If you were hovering around a planet looking at what’s going on and you see projectile weapons, wouldn’t you think to don some sort of protective layer? Even a chimp will hide behind a tree if they are scared enough.
Lasers? Can I laugh? In the technological state of things, lasers are no more than a parlor trick. “Look what I can do with a (glorified)Flashlight.
And if the “Prez” is STUPID enough to use Nukes, he deserves every inch of probing for failing.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Crimanon, your posts are so far fetched you’re not worth my time anymore
Get a grip on reality and we’ll talk.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Ian: refer to post 378.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”
March 1st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
yes the aliens do exist and to some extent there are some strong evidences that they have visited our planet.we can go through some major examples like the structure of the pyramid,as the ancient humans has no basic knowledge of the geometry and structures, they cant even expect a structure of such a big size and shape and quality, and moreover ancient man was not so practised with the usage of tools and the machienary the carry huge blocks of rocks that weigh more than one ton and even today with such moderanosed technology there are no cranes that can lift a weight more that 500 tons of weight. one example of this is that in 1970’s chinees have planned to construct a pyramid of huge size as an resemblences os the egypts structure but they have failed to do. lets talk about another example, the development of the corn which we eat today, there are no traces of this plant that it was harvested from the wild plant since from the ancient civilization,even today scientists cannot explain the exact evidence of the wild structure of this palnt,one of the important reason here to focus is that 10,000 to 15,000 B.C in the past there are no moderen methods like intermixing the genetics of the plants and animals.the corn which we are eating today is the genetically developed and harvested plant from millions os years ago,how is this possible with a human who mainly depends on hunting and wild grass. another example from this area is the dog ,”HUMANS BEST PET ANIMAL”thre are no wild dogs in the past but they were genetically developved from the wild wolves. another strong example to say that alines do exist is that ,among the carvings on the stones in the egypt there are symbols like they used elictricity during their time for the inner construction and carvings of the egyptian pyramids, they used pots which are filled with material that produce volts i.e current a D.C current ,but they were of large size.another example is that how can a body be stored for such a number of years without degrading inside the pyramids, scientists now are even cannot be able to explain the chemicals they have used for the storage of the dead bodies. The development and the technology which we are using and seeing today is from the past.one thing we should be clear is that “WE ARE REGAINING THE LOST MEMORY” that is the memory from they past.
March 1st, 2008 at 8:08 pm
During a neighborhood get together about 10 years ago, approx 30-40 of us attending stared in awww at a UFO in the sky. It was nothing like any of us had ever seen before. To this day I honestly don’t know what to believe
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Yes, they sneak across our borders everyday. Oops, we’re talking about the other kind of aliens? I don’t know, but the Drake Equation Theory was a convincing read. It actually made some sense when discussing from a scientific point-of-view how many planets across the universe could possibly have life, putting a number of variables into consideration…
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:39 am
i actualy dont realy believe that aliens are up and above………but yeah can be that there are a bunch of beings on the other side of the universe what are mini insects sought of satellites are doing in their territory………so yeah you cant surely say that.there are aliens….or some would pop- up from no where and say..”brrrrrrr brrrrrrr brrrrrr(hey we have come to gather information about homo sapiens)…”
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 am
sudheer:
I take it English is not your first tongue.
Well anyway, I don’t have the time at this moment to tear apart all your (very incorrect) assumptions, but let’s just address this one right off the bat: that “ancient humans had no basic knowledge of geometry and structures.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
Clearly, sudheer, you know nothing about ancient history or archeology—even of a rudimentary nature—and yet, like many people you choose to offer us your opinion on these very topics.
This regular denigration of our ancient ancestors nearly drives me to the brink, with anger. IN FACT *many* ancient cultures were VERY accomplished in building and in geometry–certainly the Egyptians were, and it is therefore no surprise that they managed the feats they did–including the construction of the pyramids. Even older than the pyramids is the more primitive (but equally elegant) construction of Stonehenge and the underground “cities” of Malta—all done by stone-age man with a finesse that we have to admire—but which we can also easily understand. Ancient man didn’t need “help” from imaginary alien visitors to manage these things–we are an inventive and highly intelligent species that can accomplish all kind of things when we are properly motivated or have the desire to do so.
The gradually-increasing skills of the pyramid builders in Egypt can be traced with great clarity in the archeological record—there is ZERO mystery about it. The Egyptians began, in the pre-dynastic era, with simple mastabas—basically slab-tombs. They then began to tier the slabs, in steps–until finally we get to the earliest pyramid still in existence–the Step Pyramid of Zjoser, which became the template for all later pyramids. After that the Egyptians began facing their step pyramids, giving them smooth sides. We can clearly read the progression from simple mastabas to step pyramids to “true” pyramids—happening over generations and generations of mankind in Egypt—yet some dunces still choose to believe that ancient man couldn’t do these things for himself–he needed help from little green men.
Please. Enough of that nonsense.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Just come across this – a little light heartness on the topic http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf
hope its ok to post the link
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Yes, who knows, maybe they’re about as intelligent as Neanderthals.
Either way, the universe is practically infinite, no wayyy we could be the only life…not a very scientific view, but its a logical one
i think that aliens have been here before too, but thats a whole ‘nother story…
March 4th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Maybe aliens have investigated us, and compared to them we are about as intelligent as neanderthals.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:25 am
and ……..i think jamesw n drogo are right ….all possibilities are there………..it can be that they are more intelligent than us or vice-versa……….
they might only have the knowledge of how to eat and shit……..or they have already been on earth in disguise or still are.like men in black thinge
March 4th, 2008 at 8:27 am
yep.i completely agree with #396 and #397…..or they might be currently examining us or alredy have a full fledged observation on us round the corner………
March 4th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Im suprised this hasnt come up but why is it always ALIENS you never know that there might be another world with human’s on it! and on most sci-fi films female aliens have big tits…
the skeletal apearence of this alien depends on the planet’s atmosphere like low grav planet’s there might be aliens that resemble jellyfish maybe? or on strong gravitational planets there might be aliens that resemble gorilla’s.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Mantel:
It’s VERY unlikely that life from another planet is going to look like anything on earth. Remember that a countless number of random factors, over millions and millions of years, have influenced the appearance of the multitude of life forms on our world. The more complex the organism, the more unlikely it would be that a similar-looking being could evolve in a totally alien environment.
Most of the higher-order life forms on our world, for instance, are tetra-pods. This means they have five projections from their central body-core. Head, two arms, two legs, or Head, four legs. All mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians and birds fit this basic body plan. This is just one possible arrangement that evolution hit upon at random millions of years ago, and the various families of organisms descended from that, retaining that basic shape. It is statistically very unlikely that another world would develop organisms that would reflect this very same body plan–and far more unlikely still that they would end up looking anything like *us* or anything we can recognize.
There are also other body plans on earth, less closely related to the tetra-pod form (nevertheless, all life on earth IS related to one degree or another). Insects for instance, have the body plan of head, thorax, abdomen, and six legs. Arachnids, head, abdomen, and eight legs. Starfish and their relatives have another plan, and so on.
We’re tempted to think that with the seemingly-great variety of life on earth, that something “out there” would resemble life on earth–intelligent insects, for example, or alien apes–the stock stuff of science fiction—but in fact, no matter how you look at it, the random nature of life and how it evolves precludes this. Life on another world would almost certainly follow an entirely different plan from ours and from anything else on earth.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I only said that it might resemble a gorilla on high gravitational planets because of the size of the gorilla and the strong muscle’s in the arm’s and leg’s as i believe falling on high grav planet’s can be fatal and with the jellyfish on low grav planet’s you simple can’t “walk” you will have to swim so i chose a jellyfish as how they move in the sea.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:04 am
It’s been said that the only truly faithful film potrayal of what aliens might actually look like is The Blob.
March 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
NZSpringy, where exactly did you find that song? It is so funny and informative strangely. Its a good song and it tells you facts on the Earth and the galaxy. Weird!
March 31st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
My answer is no, but I do think that aliens exist on other planets
April 6th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Ask Tom Cruise.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
of course aliens exist! it’s only the foolish and most arrogant of people who think that they don’t!(No offence though) People have been seeing them for what…thousands of years? tens of thousands? paintings,scripture and of course the ever religious person who has no concept of what technology looks like and calls it a chariot of fire from god…it’s not convinvcing at first, but you also have to remember this; we have yet to explore the huge-ass vacuum that is our universe, and the possibility that there is more than one earth is probably big if you really think about it. Saying that we are the only species is about as dumb as saying you think the Holocaust is fake!!!…
… and I hope my last comment won’t start off anything.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I used to believe when I was a kid, but now I don’t. I don’t believe in aliens because this is just sci-fi. There are documentaries about aliens in National Geographic channel, Discovery channel. But I don’t believe in those stuff, I just watch the Documentary shows because they are interesting. If aliens do exist then people should give me a hard concrete stainless-steel proof that they do(you know like pictures, audio or video that says that aliens do exist)
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I can understand why people believe aliens don’t exist. Basic logic dictates, if you can’t prove it, it doesn’t exist. However, I believe aliens exist out of a combination of faith and logic. Personally, I would love to witness alien species, to see shapes and sizes, similiarities and differences. More importantly though, if Earth was created by chance, there is a good chance of at least a second “Earth” out there in the universe. It may not be like Earth, but it is nonetheless capable of supporting some kind of life.
I am quite speculative of aliens visiting Earth. If so, a civilization capable of interstellar travel would pay us little attention; perhaps we are seen as no different than the various forms of life in the universe or nothing more than specks in the cosmos. After all, would a man stop to converse with a fly?
May 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Aliens do exist. There called viruses. Its already been proven that viruses are not alive & more than likey not from this planet. They came here on some comet & sat around until they found a host.
Wherever they came from has to have some form of higher & more complex beings.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I had seen a lot of x-files drama series, where two FBI agent collecting evidence to prove the existance of aliens. Ayway, prove almost nothing to the real world though. By the way, i believe that alien really does exist, and the problem now is how do human going to prove its existance. Sometimes, i think its hard to believe, but you know what, i have seen an UFO ( unidentified flying object ) myself and have been one of my memorable moment in my life..
June 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
no.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I am sure intelligent life exists somewhere out there in the galaxy (even if there’s bloody little of it here on Earth). However I believe that any race intelligent enough to travel from another star system to ours is problably gonna be smart enough to stay the Hell away from us savages until we wise up.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
you got it Glowbug
June 25th, 2008 at 5:56 am
i think aliens are real and one day thay will be the great over lords of eath
July 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
About intelligent Life in other planets:
Can you see how long it took us to come to our present state( I mean with Airbuses , 750Gb Hard Drives and Klashinokovs)…Forget even that, can you see how long it took us to evolve?? One wrong in turn in History ( the dinosaurs surviving , Another Ice age etc.) and the human race would have been wiped out.
the point I am trying to make is the circumstances were just too perfect for us , and mathematically speaking , its quite improbable that intelligent life could flourish anywhere else. Sure there be have Giant Bugs or Multiple trunked elephants , but expecting intelligence is stretching it.
Calvin: ” The surest sign that there is no intelligent life out there is that they have never tried to contact us”
LOL
July 6th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
uvberot: Wrong, “mathematically speaking”, Try looking up the Drake equation. Math will tell you otherwise kid.
July 7th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Dawkins tells us that anything is mathematically possible, even if totally unlikely.
An interesting question to consider is whether life is obligatory (as ice will form anywhere, given a the right temperature and pressure variable) or accidental. The known universe (let alone what is unknown) is so mind-blowingly vast that most scientists suppose that, if obligatory, organic life in different stages must be teeming out there.
Should this be true, we only know how far it can evolve intelligently in relation to ourselves. And just think how we have advanced by cultural and technological evolution in a mere few hundred years.
It is interesting though that after extinctions, parallel evolution often produces very similar looking and adpapted organisms: pterosaurs and bats, ichthysaurs and dolphins, etc. That might also happen across the spheres.
The nearest likely inhabited planet in the universe is probably what for an ant colony in Australia would be another ant colony in Finland. So there appear to be two major problems concerning communication. The barrier of the speed of light. And the ability to set up some travelling, self-sustaining equivalent to a planet in cold, dark space (or go criogenic for a few million light years and invent an appropriate celestial automatic pilot).
Of course, travel just might prove easily possible between dimensions. That would be fun.
If life on our Earth is accidental, then it might be all there ever has been and all there ever will be. In that case, perhaps, as Carl Sagan said, we ought to be taking better care of it.
I’m writing this late and without reading above yet, so apologise if I’m going over trodden ground here.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am
uvberot
I’ve had a good night’s sleep and am not so tired now.
What you say about the accidental fragility of human intelligent evolution is perfectly true. One twitch in biological history and we all wouldn’t be here. A big enough inter-stellar collision would even have put paid to all life. Homo sapiens was once reckoned to be down to a few thousand in scattered tribes, the very lower limit of our reproductive continuance.
Yet each of us is the product of perhaps an even more remarkable co-incidence. Of the countless billions of sperm cells that males produce over their reproductive life, half of you and I are the product of just one. If you mum had sneezed a bit before you were conceived, or your father had turned over to switch the light off, YOU wouldn’t EXIST, let alone be where you are now! Not only that. Any minute difference in the whole previous sequence of almost everything back to the Big Bang within cosmic influencing distance of you that went on before in the universe would have had the same result. If someone had pushed in front of your mum in a shop queue when she was a little girl, you wouldn’t be here, because that would have caused an irreversible knock-on effect throughout her life. If your dad had stayed on later for a game of something at school, you wouldn’t be here either. So incredibly chancey and precise are the meeting between one egg and one sperm, that anything influencing the behaviour of their bearers, right back to what we might call ‘the beginning of time’ and way out into space, would ensure that those particualr two would never have combined into you and me.
But now look at it from another more objective viewpoint. Unique you and unique I might not be here, but plenty of combinations of egg and sperm going on all over the place would be producing others with extremely similar qualities. And if not another individual exactly like us from our own mother and father, there would be people here and there with bits and pieces of the qualities we now possess. Life goes on. Nor do we know alternatives. If Shakespeare, etc. hadn’t ‘happened’, but a whole load of different gene-combinations had, we may be pretty sure there would have been equivalents of Shakespeare, or Beethoven, or Clapton, or Hitler …
So that’s the stability and persistence of life. If you want another incredible example of it, take DNA. Your and my cells are dividing all the time. So are bacteria. From the moment DNA established on this planet some 5 billion years ago, that process has been going on in a continuous chain (well, you won’t accept that is you are a creationist, in which case read something more profitable for yourself). The DNA thread of life cannot break, or it will stop. That’s what we call extinction. Maybe one day we ourselves will discover how to start the process off, but not yet. All the cells in our bodies go back by division through all life to its very beginning.
Coupled with that, everything is moulded by adaptive evolution. In other words, if the only viable element is water, everything has to be able to breathe and move in it, so you are going to get plenty of fish and no butterflies. And there has to be time for that adaption to take place. Dry out a pond overnight, and the fish in it are not going to turn into grasshoppers. That’s why massive human alternation of ecosystems is so negative and concerning. But given time and fairly constant environments, organisms will tend to evolve towards the optimum design for survival in those environments, almost as though computer-modelled. Hence the bat and the pterosaur, the dolphin and the ichthyosaur, as I explained previously. Also, there is undoubtedly an inexorable evolutionary drive towards what we call intelligence. This may be a fundamental quality of the universe, or a ‘survival of the fittest’ mechanism, or both. Fascinatingly, dinosaur experts have noticed that some of the last of the line were comparable with human size, had flexible fingers and were rapidly developing a big brain box. The assumption is that if whatever disaster hadn’t overtaken them, they may well have been ‘us’ now.
So you see, nature will perhaps always develop towards intelligent life under the right circumstances anywhere, and over and over again, either in the same line of DNA or its equivalent across the universe. The circumstantial evidence for what we call aliens, or alien life, is very high indeed.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to reading ‘The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy’.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
The probablilty is 99.999999999% that aliens exist. The problem is that the laws of physics say that they can’t get here from there.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I believe that there are other life forms in the universe. However, I don’t beleive that the UFOs people talk about seeing are actually aliens. The other life forms in the universe probably aren’t intelligent like us. They are probably just microscopic cells that haven’t evolved with no capability of building a flying saucer.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Mike,
We don’t know what the limit of organic intelligence is. We may be close to it or nowhere near it yet. Nor do we know if there is any natural mechanism to set a limit. The likelihood is that it remains very primitive for a great length of time wherever it is, as it has on earth. And that once it gets to our stage, cultural and technological evolution take over from plodding Darwinian evolution and the whole process explodes, as it’s doing with us now. Assuming life is limited to planets more or less of the same size and with the same features as our 3rd rock, the problem then becomes escaping the bonds of the planet and finding somewhere suitable to colonise. Otherwise all available resources rapidly get used up and other problems such as pollution and environmental instability probably enter into the reckoning.
The alternative to interstellar travel, it has always seemed to me, would be an organism that has the same capacity for intelligence and technology as ourselves, but a whole heap smaller. It would not need the resources we do, and so could keep on developing for far, far, longer, if not indefinitely. Of course, being much smaller would bring its own problems, as anyone who has the film ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ will know.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
GuessWho: So you have such a grasp on things like Quantum mechanics and Alien tech that you can prove it?
What do we humans Know of Physics? We can barely understand Gravity, Matter, Time, and Energy.
You should get to work writing the next world world changing essay, instead of posting here.
Mike: Here is one for you: You as an Inter-Galactic entity have landed on a ball of dirt covered in Beings who rationalize murder. OH NO! You crashed. Now these primitive have your tech and all of the equipment on it, a good bit of it Dangerous. Would you really want to stick around long enough to get Shot at?
Would you approach a violent guy who just picked up your pistol and ask for it back?
July 14th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Maybe they’ve been here. Maybe they bugged out when they found out that we’re morons.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:05 am
There has to be some other life the universe is just so big. But I doubt that they would be able to travel to Earth from that far away.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
1 the universe is expanding, so obviously it’s not infinite
2 it is statistically very unlikely that mankind will spread in space. Why ? Because if it did, our species would go on living and spreading for as long as the whole thing lasts. But we are only here on this one planet. How likely is it that when entering a cinema at a random moment, you’ll watch the first second of a film that is being played constantly ?
If mankind is going to exist for billions of years, this would be this first second. Very unlikely.
3 rather that trusting mathematics, I trust what people say whose consciousness is more evolved than mine. Doesn’t that make sense ? (What do they say ? You find out)
4 why do we assume that aliens are in a different class than so many other beings people claim to have had contact with ? Angels, deva’s, gnomes, spirits, demons, etc.
5 my take: just like we hear and see only a small part of all vibration, so we are aware of only a limited number of beings. Namely, the ones that have a physical appearance that matches our senses. all we need do to become aware of more beings, is expand our awareness.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I definately think that aliens are out there, this universe is far to big for us to take up the little spec that we do.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:44 am
We don’t know if aliens does exist or not!the universe is a an enormous place and there are thousands of trillions of stars so it is not logical ( not to mention egotistical) to assume that we are the only living entities in this universe!It is worth mentioning that a man’s life span is not enough if he wanted to exit the solar sustem with conventional propulsion! the proper question should be if aliens have visited Earth or not which is an entirely different subject of debate.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:19 am
IM ONE
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:21 am
THE GOVERMENT SAID THEY HAD ONE AND DIED SO WHAT
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I think aliens exist, not necessarily the little green aliens that are so stereotypical in our pop culture. The universe is huge and unexplored it is egotistical of us to think that we are the only intelligent beings that exist.
Have they visited Earth..its possible. Have they communicated with us…once again its quite possible. Just because we think there hasn’t been any contact or they haven’t communicated with us, its possible we have missed it, because if they are a different race and they have the advance technology to visit us its quite possible that we don’t have the equipment to pick it up. It is all hard to say. Just because how Earth evolved doesn’t mean that’s how other planets and life evolved.
Its also possible that judging by how we treat living beings that are different than us in the past, they are just staying the hell away from us.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
If the universe is infinite then there are infinite ways for life to manifest. But what is the mathematical caculation for us to be the only intelligent life? The theory that the universe is expanding is a theory and not actuallity, so is the big bang and so it counless other theories. Hell, if you count string theory and M theory then there are 11 dimensions; and we can not constitute that as actuallity.
I believe there is life since the vastness of space houses too many opportunities, but i don’t count out the fact that we maybe alone. For all we know this universe is young and we are the only “life” or intelligent beings right now. Our subsequent endeavors could contaminate worlds that can seed future intelligence.
Even with mathematical caculations nothing is absolute, alien life may or may not exist.
I believe intelligence is rare and the likely hood of intelligent aliens able to detect and choose to visit us is even rarer.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
There must exist because the chances are way to small that in the whole universe we are the only inteligent life forms. That they live on Mars is one thing, but that in the entire universe there might be intelegent life forms is almost certain.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
There is smart monster out there on space..
i think there is many type of aliens..
1st group of aliens:got low technology example human
2nd group of aliens:got normal technology that they can travel
space
3rd group of aliens:got highest technology that they can travel space,control black holes and they can do anything that we can not!
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Yes they do exist. But they have better things to do then come to Earth.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 am
On July 22, 2003, CNN News reported that astronomers announced there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe. A sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeroes.
That’s 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 known stars in the universe. That’s more than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the entire Earth.
This is not the total number of stars in the universe — it’s the number within the range of present day telescopes. The true number could be a zillion times higher.
There are nearly 7 billion people on this planet; that’s 10 trillion known stars for every human being on Earth.
For every single person, there are 10,000,000,000,000 known stars in the universe.
Each star could have multiple planets within their system, just as we have multiple planets in our own solar system. Numerous planets have already been discovered in the closer regions of space.
Plus, many theoretical physicists believe there are other (parallel) universes and multiple unperceivable (parallel) dimensions as well, all of which could possibly contain intelligent entities.
If only one out of every million known stars (solar systems) has just one planet with intelligent life, there would be approximately 70,000,000,000,000,000 planets with intelligent life in our known universe.
To assume human beings on Planet Earth are the only intelligent life-forms in the universe is preposterous.
In fact, to assume human beings are an intelligent life-form is also preposterous.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
MT: lol.
No. I don’t believe in aliens.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I’m sorry… I mean.. I don’t believe aliens exist.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:13 am
There, i feel is 100% life out there, there no way possible that we are the only living things in this universe.
On some planet, some form of animal is living i think this doesnt mean they have big green heads and abduct people from earth but there just must be something.
Earth is like a grain of sand on all the beaches in the world put togther. I really hope they find some kind of lifeform before i die.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Do aliens exist? Yes, I believe they do. Earth is a tiny little spec of dust in the vast universe. It’s just so big..how could we be ALL that’s out there?? I mean..if we were the only planet in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE that had life on it..then I’d feel very lonely. There has to be other life out there. Now, do I believe in crop circles and such..no. I don’t see why life from other planets would travel lightyears to our planet just to make pretty designs on the ground. Do I believe we’ve ever been visited by other life? I don’t know..I’m on the fence about that. This is my opinion. I respect other peoples opinions as well.
December 11th, 2008 at 4:13 am
440: agreed. i see no reason y crop circle pop up overnight and as a deed of human beings.
What if spaceships have the ability of being invisible? While humans cant spot them and say “Alien dont exist”…
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Just ask your United States Government if planet earth has been contacted by aliens/crafts from another planet. They will give you an honest answer.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
…or not
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
This is a cute question. I’m not sure if I believe in aliens or not. I believe all the people who claim that they’ve been abducted by aliens are nuts and just looking for attention. However, I wouldn’t close my mind to the idea that there is intelligent life on other planets. To quote my favorite comic, Calvin and Hobbes: “The only sure sign of intelligent life out there is that none of them have tried to contact us.”
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
They exist…
so why is there other exo planets..
dont tell me we are the only living creature on the universe…
think again
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 pm
i think that they do exist .
there are a no. of galaxies in this whole universe
in our galaxy ‘akash ganga’we live . so it is also possible that there must be a no. of planets like our earth where life is possible in this universe . neil armstrong also said in his personal interview that he has seen an alien on moon when he landed on moon.
so it is very clear that the aliens do exist
even i have seen one
January 6th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Aliens probably do exist, but there are many reasons why they haven’t contacted us. I’ll rattle of a few as they come to mind.
1. they don’t know we’re here
The universe is huge. Gigantic. Just plain Big.
2. They think we’re too violent
Humans are destructive, pure and simple
3. They don’t have the resources
It would take a lot of energy to send things to Earth from a distant location at any kind of speed.
4. They don’t understand our language and vice-versa
Easy to understand
5. They think differently
Sentient beings from another place most likely evolved on a completely different course from us, and they might have reasons that we can’t comprehend.
6. They aren’t as advanced as us
In movies, they’re always hyper-advanced, but it is possible that aliens aren’t at the same technological level we are.
7. They like to torment us
It’s possible that there are alien pranksters who like scaring unsuspecting humans shitless. I know I would in that position
January 7th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Surely alien life exist in the universe. Kind of naive to think it doesn’t, but I don’t think aliens have ever visited earth.
Surely there are races both less and more technologically advanced than us but due to mindblowing distances in the universe it’s not likely we’ll be able to communicate in a long time.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
I find it hard to believe that earth is the only planet with life on it. But i also doubt that life from other planets has contacted or tried to contact earth. If they had the means and will to find us why would they hide it? And why does there nesecarily have to be life that is MORE advanced than ours? why is it so unlikely that we aren’t currently the most technologicly advanced life in the universe? Its unimpressive but not unlikely.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Without doubt i believe in alien existence. Think about it do you think that the universe would end or be just empty after our tiny sun died while destroying our planet earth at the same time. i doubt about it. All the star that we see in the sky are all suns for other solar system or for other planets. And our galaxy (the milky way) alone contains a billion of stars and there s billion of galaxies out there in which our solar system is completly out of them. I believe there are aliens somewhere in our galaxy and even if there is a possiblity that we alone on the milky way, there is at least one other earthlike planet in one of those billion of galaxies. And i don t know if alien already visited earth may be they haven t find a way to travel at the speed of light just like us. Ps: we all aliens for other aliens. They may have questions about our existence too.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Not a serious post:
Aliens exist, came here long ago and shacked up with humans and that is why red heads are physically different from the rest of humans! The Ginger Alien hybrid theory! I heard this on the radio. Can’t remember if it was NPR or the Beer, Boobs and Basketball Talk Radio channel. You decide…
Again, not a serious post although I really did hear it on the radio. They gave scientific sounding gibberish and I thought it was hilarious.
To reiterate, not a serious post. Please don’t anal-probe me with your indignant righteousness.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I think concidering we can’t get out of the Milky Way, there very well could be some other form of life out there. If you cristian (which I’m not.), I can see why you think there isn’t, but there is so many ways they could or could not exist.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
to even think about considering the domination of other life from another planet would be ridiculous, the simple answer for this is because no life have visited our planet for obvious reasons, but if they did lets just say it would be a bit of an aberration, afteral, it would be a sudden change from something which is normal would it not.
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 am
It is really hard for me to believe that there is no other form of life out there in the universe considering its size. In fact I speculate that simple life-forms such as bacteria or even primitive fish or plant-like creatures might be relatively common in the universe. And I am just talking about life as we know it living on rocky planets that fall within the habitable zone allowing for the existence of liquid water. Our knowledge of life is limited to what we have seen on planet earth. Who knows? Perhaps there are forms of life that can exist without the need for liquid water that can thrive on planets outside the habitable zone in environments that are too hostile for any forms of life here on Earth
If intelligent life exists there are a multitude of reasons for them not contacting us. Perhaps other intelligent life-forms don’t have the same interest we do in meeting up with civilizations outside their planet. Maybe they have a different kind of intelligence that emphasizes a different set of skills rather than the kind of intelligence we have that gives us the ability to speculate about alien life. Maybe intelligent life is so rare that we are the most intelligent ones out there. Also Considering the vastness of the universe maybe they simply haven’t found us yet even if they are incredibly advanced.
I think the idea that we are alone in the universe is a little depressing. I hope we discover alien life-forms within my lifetime, however, there is large chance that we won’t. Its not that I’m not satisfied with the life we already have here on Earth, I just think it would be cool to have my mind blown by such a monumental discovery.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Ok…I commented on ghosts yesterday so I will try aliens today.
I think they do exist. Not that they are hiding or coming down here to see how our digestive system works. I believe they are watching and waiting. Waiting for us humans to get our heads out of our butts and start acting civilized. Watching to see what we do next. I know that if they ever came down like they do in movies, the human race would lose their minds!
As a side note, I wouldn’t mind meeting them. I think it would be very interesting….also I would grab my towel and hitch a ride.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:23 am
if we, the humans, would discover a planet where there is also life, what would we do?
of course we will not atatck or communicate right away (for they might be good or BAD), we do some eavesdroppings, then there we go, the final time to ATTACK!!!
BEWARE!
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Don’t know, don’t care. Just be happy.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:52 am
they must exist! and whos to say that they arent such an advanced race that we simply dont recognise them for what they are? and vice versa they dont notice us as we are so far down the evolutionary ladder compared to them? for instance single cell organisms to us are what we are to them?
also as part of the “god” debate if there is a higher power i would bet on it being another far more advanced race that birthed life on our planet as an experiment.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Asking humans about alien life, size of the universe, creation in general, is like calling your friends goldfish to ask if he want to come over and watch the game. “Oh and pick up some funions on the way”. It’s not gonna happen! Everyone talking about the big bang and the universe expanding and alien life is like six month old kids figuring out how to get rid of all the extra applications running in their task manager! We are way to dumb to even contemplate the idea of infinite. What is the universe expanding into? Nothing? Even nothing is something. If you divide a neutrino, and divide the half again, and again and…you get the point, is it just going to disappear? There is infinite greatness and infinite smallness. Things that our 3D thinking minds can’t even begin to comprehend. Is there alien life? What do you consider alien? Something outside of the atmosphere of Earth, the galaxy, We call each other aliens right here! I think it’s a mistake to think we are the only life (what is the definition of life?) in this huge expanse (to us) that we have barely begun to discover. I know some of you know what I mean. It makes me laugh when I think of aliens studying us ” Yeah Bob, there fighting over old organic matter, then burning the shit out it and fighting about that! Toss me another beer would ya”. What makes us think we are intelligent life?? One thing for sure (about the only thing we know for sure) is that we are some arrogant bastards.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:01 am
I think it is incredibly ignorant of people to say that aliens do not exist. Do you seriously think our planet is the only inhabited planet in the whole universe? We are the only ones?
You can say you haven’t heard of any significant proof.
But think about it, just because we don’t get alot of unexplained radio signals or whatever, this doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It’s stupid of us to expect that they have the same technology, same radios, etc.
Someone who thinks they don’t exist please tell me why?
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 am
I agree with Brognan above. I laugh just as at some point a whole culture will laugh at you people who think aliens can’t exist. Just like the world is flat and everything revolves around Earth.
Do you have any concept of how large the universe is? I think those who believe in aliens can just grasp that little enough to understand why it’s so probable.
Ok, let’s say it takes millions of years for a planet to form life. Billions of things that have to happen to make a planet even be able to support life. Screw that, let’s say trillions.
Now.. the sun is so large that Earth is hardly even worth calling a period compared to it. See how small it is in the sky? Get the idea of how far it is? The distance to the sun is so ridiculous, yet it is NOTHING compared to the distance from another star. Each star contains however many planets. Each star you see in the sky at night could hardly be considered a percentile of what’s out there. You take a trillion stars alone and you have hardly a sector of the galaxy. Now string that along all of the arms of the galaxy and figure out how much you have. Then let’s include the inner-circle of the galaxy with a much much higher concentration. Holy mother of God, why are we only counting in possibilities of trillions anymore?
As you consider the sheer size of just one galaxy, you will begin to realize that mathematically the probability of other worlds like us and also with developed life like us sky rockets towards 100%. You’ll also realize just how awesomely advanced aliens would have to be to know about us. We are so small that we’re hardly even worth acknowledging. You think radios are going to work? What medium does any creature have to transmit communication so far? Even light is ineffective at those ranges. And as far as our physicists say, it’s the fastest thing there is.
Also, even after that note, I’m not so sure we HAVEN’T been discovered. There are a lot of writings and paintings and such in every culture across the world. How can this be a coincidence? If they aren’t here, maybe it’s because their means was a one-way ticket and they couldn’t survive. For all we know, aliens far far away sent a probe out with hopes that it would one day reach someone and then later blew themselves up through war and never reached any higher state of technology. The probe hits us, fails, boom.. everything’s gone, but it was still contact.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
We do exist, and we are happy to have recently discovered the internet so that we can access JFrater’s lists of top tens (.. and learn a little more about your sexual practices.. I mean, who would have thought a human female could insert BEEEP in her BEEEP ???!!!)
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:49 am
((X-files music starts))
I believe that the notion that we are alone in the universe to be a naive and arrogant one. If life has bloomed forth from this planet, why not else where?
However, have they visited us? I doubt it very much although I am willing to change my mind given the sufficient evidence.
((X-Files music stops))
June 27th, 2009 at 5:42 am
It’s ironic that we may never know if aliens exist due to our own failures. After all, why would an alien crossing the Milky Way Galaxy intentionally merge onto the one-way Hell’s Highway to Earth when EVEN WE know it’s just a dead end.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I believe that aliens do exist, but at this point in time, cannot communicate with us, or *plot twist* they choose not to communicate with us. We have done a remarkable job of screwing up the world, not to mention the fact we cannot even unify as a species.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
it is very likely other life, whether sentient or not must exist in the vast expense of the universe wether infinate or finite, it is extremely large, and the earth is extremely small in comparison with some of the massive objects floating around in space. They do not even have to exist outside of our planet. they may just exist on another plane and/or dimension. perhaps we are not meant to communicate, perhaps contact is unlikely because they are different. we only have 5 senses, perhaps we cannot perceive them and vice versa, they may well be among us but exist on another space/time field. perhaps where is not the question but when.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:13 am
and in fact, there is another lifeform, but does not procreate, or cannot. maybe there is just one, somewhere out there (and im not talking about god). think outside the square.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
the universe is not infinite, and here is a very simple way to prove it:
if the universe was infinite, it would contain an infinite amount of stars right? if there were an infinite amount of stars, then the sky would be completely white with the light coming from these stars
however, empty space could be infinite, but there is definitely a finite number of stars, and soon they will all burn out
to make things more interesting tho, there probably is an infinite number of universes, and big bangs happen all the time…reality seeks structure in chaos, and nothing can never exist = there will always be reality in one way or another
September 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
They do.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I dont think so because everything on earth semms to work so perfectly together, coincidentally, but simple very different organisms probably do