Aliens

[orbsycli]

didn't get my facts from the government. they wouldn't be facts if i did so

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by burnitall31

says the government

What sort of discussion is this? Stop throwing oneliners back and forth or I'll move this to the watercooler before you can say "taken".

[infamous]

Just look aroung our planet, a multitude of various life forms we haven't even begun to completely catolog yet. Why would we consider ourselves so special, considering the vastness of our universe. Oh yes, there are some that want to believe that they are so unique that there could not possibly be others out there in the endless expanse of space. How utterly egocentric for some to believe themselves without peer. Right now there are probably others asking this same question about the existence of others in this universe. And there are in my opinion others that already know the answer to this question, but deem us unworthy of any scrutiny because of our infantile position in history. But please don't ask me to prove this, for we all know that no such information is available at this date. There are however many others that view the possibility of extraterrestial life as quite possible if not even inevitable. If there is no interest in this possibility, why is there so much time and money being invested by our government in the space program? The question is continually asked, "will we find any life". If we were sure that none existed, I'm confident that we would not be looking.

[spennithorne]

Originally Posted by infamous

Just look aroung our planet, a multitude of various life forms we haven't even begun to completely catolog yet. Why would we consider ourselves so special, considering the vastness of our universe.....

There are however many others that view the possibility of extraterrestial life as quite possible if not even inevitable. ...

Thanks, Infamous----One does have to embrace the fact that after finding ~156 (Jupiter-class) planets orbiting around ~143 stars in the last 10 years, "we" have just in the last month have found a planet only twice Earth's diameter orbiting a fairly (15 lightyears) near-by star. [Google: extrasolar planets]. With the development of further technology, already well-along and funded (!), we will be technically capable of discovering many more Earth-size planets quite soon. Presumably a few percent of these will be in the "temperate zone" in distance away from their star, that is, where water is largely between freezing and boiling.

This however, is very different from saying that some sort of civilized being will be living there, even if we found some. For example, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. For the first billion years there was essentially no life here, and for 3.5 billion years, there has been no intelligent life to speak of, excepting only the last 5 thousand years or so. Prior to that, any one coming to Earth would have been meeting people who were prehistoric, literally. You can do the math---these 5 thousand years are a very tiny sliver of time out of 3.5 billion; and the probability, the pure chance, of meeting intelligent, let alone civilized beings on our Earth itself, for a visiting species from somewhere else, is extremely small.

Now, let's take a look at the probability of civilized intelligent life on some other planet---one has to look at all the Earth-size planets in the "temperate zone" of other stars that haven't and won't ever evolve intelligent life that we could recognize---and unfortunately, that's likely to be a majority of them. And most of all, there's the teensy little problem of travel time. One has to take into account that "nearby" stars are still dozens to a few hundred light-years away---and that's no short hike.

Well---where's the positive note?---there IS one! That's when we as a species have solved the travel-time problem (I don't anticipate that'll be any time soon.) And that's that there are ~100 billion stars in our galaxy. The majority are NOT Class-M stars like our sun. Some Class-M stars may have (had or will have) Earth-class planets in their orbital temperate zones. However, the segment of TIME that they will have intelligent life on them may preclude us from finding them, or they from finding us. And the Milky Way galaxy is, after all, some 100 thousand light-years across----we see any star on the other side as it was 100,000 years ago---it may not even exist now. And that's just in our little old average non-descript galaxy....

I think humanity will at some point encounter extraterrestrial life, but I think the chances of encountering extrasolar life, particularly intelligent life, are vanishingly small before our species conquers faster-than-light travel. And the chances of that .....??!

[selky]

was that roswell by any canse

[riper]

there are alot of things they write about alience. just buy any book on et or ufo sightings and u will go mad from reading it. most of it is like a fantasy, but there is some hard proof. besides look at the sky at night. how many stars can u see ? it cant be that life exists only on our planet.

[Boerseun]

Wow. Talk about zombie threads!

Personally, I think that Life is just what Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Calcium, Iron and a host of other elements get up to, given enough time in the right circumstances.

And the universe is big. Very, Very Big. With plenty of the above elements in various configurations lying around in muddy pools on sunny planets, just waiting for the right bolt of lightning to strike the right puddle.

Ironically, in any given life-bearing galaxy, one of the lonely and isolated civilizations must be the first to achieve space technology. The chance that for the Milky Way, it might be us, is very small - but exactly as small for every other civilization. Imagine if we're the first?

(And then the same argument applies to the entire universe. Some civilization somewhere must be the first to dive into space. And it might as well be us. Because the chances are equally small for any other given civilization out there...)

[maddog]

Originally Posted by riper

there are alot of things they write about alience. just buy any book on et or ufo sightings and u will go mad from reading it. most of it is like a fantasy, but there is some hard proof. besides look at the sky at night. how many stars can u see ? it cant be that life exists only on our planet.

The probability is high even in our galaxy that their are other planet capable of supporting
life. Sufficient in number that some of those planets also do have life on them. There are
two more leaps there. Enough planets in number that some of planets with life have sentient life ? Good question. I think all I am aware of are opinions. I have mine.
Second leap is enough of those planets with sentient life to have sufficient technology to
get here. In the Drake's equation the toughest factor to calculate is the expectant lifetime
of a civilization. How long do they last. We are not too sure about our own at the moment.
So I shan't care to guess about the rest of the galaxy.

Boerseun is also right. We may be the first (either for the Galaxy or the Universe).
IMHO in the Universe we are also-rans. Though we may be first. Too much is unknown.

maddog

[stereologist]

Don't forget the old argument that:
1. We are close to discovering how to make a self replicating machine
2. Such a machine could be built to explore the nearest stars
3. When it gets to a planetary system it builds replicas of itself
4. One or more replicas are sent home and others are sent to other stars
5. In a few tens or hundreds of millions of years many stars are covered in our galaxy

This begs the question, where are the probes sent by other civilizations?

[Jethro Tull]

In my opinion, there are many, many planets capable of supporting life, even in our own galaxy. As far as aliens visiting Earth; I don't know. I'd say either we are known by other life and they just don't want to deal with us because we're still killing each other, or that other life is asking the same questions we are.

A David Bowie song comes to mind..."There's a starman waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds."

I certainly don't think we're alone, and that it is possible that there are alien lifeforms waiting to meet us when we wake up and start working together as one big organism - the human race. All this separation is just an illusion, a very costly one.