ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood

[CarpeVeritas]

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/et_betterodds_050114...

Decades ago, it was physicist Enrico Fermi who pondered the issue of extraterrestrial civilizations with fellow theorists over lunch, generating the famous quip: "Where are they?" That question later became central to debates about the cosmological census count of other star folk and possible extraterrestrial (ET) visitors from afar.

Fermi’s brooding on the topic was later labeled "Fermi’s paradox". It is a well-traveled tale from the 1950’s when the scientist broached the subject in discussions with colleagues in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Thoughts regarding the probability of earthlike planets, the rise of highly advanced civilizations "out there", and interstellar travel -- these remain fodder for trying to respond to Fermi’s paradox even today....

The scientists point to two key discoveries made by Australian astronomers and reported last year that there is a "galactic habitable zone" in our Milky Way Galaxy. And more importantly that Earth’s own star, the Sun, is relatively young in comparison to the average star in this zone -- by as much as a billion years. Therefore, the researchers explain in their JBIS article that an average alien civilization would be far more advanced and have long since discovered Earth. Additionally, other research work on the supposition underlying the Big Bang -- known as the theory of inflation -- shores up the prospect, they advise, that our world is immersed in a much larger extraterrestrial civilization.

Given billion-year advanced physics, might not buzzing around the galaxy be possible?

It's always seemed more likely to me that "we" as a species were seeded on this planet by other advanced civilizations, rather than being created by an omnipotent omnipresent omniscient deity who can look into the hearts and souls of every living being- i.e. the god of the bible, torah, or koran.

if there are civilizations out there with a billion-year headstart, it seems pretty likely that they would probably have some pretty kick-ass technologies...and perhaps Earth was/is one large science project, or a planet that was colonized by a long-dead alien civilizaion(s) when their own solar system became uninhabitable.

perhaps the "intelligent design" folks have even kinda gotten it right- except that instead of the hand of god behind it, it was actually "aliens" what did all the creating.

[benburch]

1. I, for one, welcome our new Alien Overlords!

[shraby]

2. I've often thought the same thing.

The rise of civilization was pretty much confined to a short time span all over the world. Was a grand experiment????

[CarpeVeritas]

11. not just the rise of civilization-

but also the appearance of homo sapiens on different continents, geographically isolated- yet all around the same time.

[Lizzie Borden]

44. I've thought this too.

If it's true, I do hope that they are wiser than we are. Humans can be so horridly stupid.

[Nitrogenica]

3. They're coming here to permanently install tinfoil hats on freepers.

[AverageJoe]

4. Interesting post

I recently read a book that took an extremely pessimistic view on the whole question of extraterrestrial intelligence. It's *Where Is Everybody?* by Stephen Webb.

Webb presents fifty possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox but concludes, finally, that we are probably alone in the universe. A most discouraging take on things, if you ask me.

The biggest flaw in his reasoning, as far as I'm concerned, is a complete discounting of UFO sightings as possibly being ET. I'm not saying that they ARE, I'm just saying that if you read the literature, there sure seems to be something odd going on in our skies and it's been going on for a very long time.

Anyhow, I enjoyed your post. The truth is out there....

[geomon666]

5. How can

Anybody, with common sense, say the we're alone in the universe? The entire universe? We're finding new things out there almost everyday? We know there are other planets out there orbiting distant suns. Now all of them of course are not going to support life. The conditions have to be just right for the to happen, but to be so arrogant as to think we're the only ones is absurd.

[girl gone mad]

46. I don't think it's arrogant.

The Drake equation is a pretty good starting point. Even if life exists outside of our solar system, the likelihood of intelligent life existing at precisely the same time in space and possessing the ability to communicate intergalactic-ally is extremely low.

One of the big issues is that civilizations don't seem to last, at least not here on earth. We continually reach a point where our technology gets ahead of us, and we don't have the energy to sustain our demands, then civilizations collapses.

There's a small window in time, and everything has to work out precisely. You can't assume that alien life would have developed at the same pace as life on earth has. It could have progressed much more rapidly or staid in a primordial stage for much longer. Alien life may not have had any reason to develop the intelligence required to send messages out into space (after all, most life on earth has done just fine without intelligence).

Count me among those who believe that the possibility that we'll ever come in contact with alien life forms as slim to non-existent.

[Ready4Change]

6. To me the BIG question is...

Is Faster Than Light (FTL) travel possible?

I think, with the vaste number of stars in this universe, that the odds of ETs existing are a surety. The fact we exist is proof that it's possible. The only unsurety is how often it happens. 1 system out of 10? 100? 1 billion?

So for me, the question of FTL travel answers whether ET's matter, as I think without FTL meaningful interaction with them may not be very useful.

[CarpeVeritas]

24. there might be other possibilities than faster-than-light travel-

the technology used in the movie "Stargate" for example- some type of synthetic wormhole or something...

btw- i'm not naive enough to think that just because something is used as a plot device in a movie that it has any basis in reality, or is even in the realm of the someday possible- i'm just pointing out that physics can offer a lot of theoretical possibilities, and who knows? with a few thousand more years of technology, maybe some of them can actiually be fleshed out...after all- as i mentioned elsewhere, based on the popularity of things like 'Star Trek', it seems that a sizable chunk of the populace is willing to believe that we can somehow achieve faster-than-light travel within just a couple hundred years.

[Ready4Change]

52. By FTL I mean any means of travel quicker than light speed.

Whatever means, either "cheating" by point to point teleporting, or warping space, or plopping into some form of hyperspace which allows FTL flight, etc... Anything that gets from point A to point B faster than light can I'd call FTL.

I'd love for something to prove workable. When people ask if I could accomplish anything, what would it be, I always say "develop a workable FTL drive system." But there's nothing that exists today that is much more than a twinkle in a sci-fi writers mind.

[amazona]

41. this has been addressed

Getting old sucks, the dude's name has slipped from mind at the moment. But a professor at Tulane did the math and showed that if we really did have any number of E.T.s then even without FTL we would be over-run by unmanned craft by this time of century.

A book called Rare Earth gives some good arguments as to why there might be very few or no other E.T.s. My opinion is that we have no proof that UFOs are from other planets as opposed to being some sort of emergent property caused by intelligent life on earth. We might be IT, so we should treat life as sacred, because this might be the only chance.

I don't see a downside to taking this attitude toward life.

On Edit -- Ha! Hit "post" and the name comes to mind. It's Frank Tipler.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Autobot77]

47. There are different theories out now that address FTL travel...

Wormholes are one also an Alcubierre warp drive, which would distort spacetime. I remember reading somewhere where someone was allegedly abducted and the aliens said they had mastered gravity or something like that. Theres some info here about FTL travel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

[alarimer]

7. the vast majority of life on this planet is bacterial

and other microscopic organisms. If there is life on other planets, logically it will most likely be microscopic, in no position to build UFOs of any type.

[AverageJoe]

8. Indeed

But what of the sightings? At the risk of sounding naive or nutty, I think it's a mistake to simply discount the abundant evidence (not proof) of SOMETHING weird going on in our skies.

[alarimer]

13. All those "sightings" can be explained

Read "Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. Michael Shermer (of the Skeptical Inquirer) and James Randi are good at debunking UFOs too. The fact is there is no evidence (beyond a few anecdotes) that "aliens" of any sort have visited this planet. Photographs can (and have been) doctored. Eyewitness accounts are not evidence. Ask any police office who has to take statements from people who see exactly the same event. Eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable. Evidence would be some artifact that is obviously not of this world or alien DNA or something, not a shred of which has ever shown up. Because there is no concrete evidence, UFO conspiracy theorists insist that the government is hiding it. I don't believe they are. Weird things happen, yes, but it is almost certain that there is a rational explanation for it.

Some people are also more prone to seeing UFO's (or demons or angels) by their psychological makeup and their educational level.

[AverageJoe]

19. Did it ever occur to you

that blind denial is also a form of faith?

Clearly, the vast majority of UFO sightings are explainable. However, even Project Blue Book closed up shop with hundreds of unexplained sightings.

Still, before you assign all such encounters to the feeble minded or the ignorant, you might want to read some of the work done on the other side of the issue.

Keith Thompson's *Angels and Aliens* is quite good, as is Jacques Vallee's *Passport to Magonia*.

I've never seen anything resembling a UFO and I don't know the truth of the matter any more than you do. But you might want to be careful about suggesting that those who have an open mind are somehow less educated, aware, or sane than you are.

[Occulus]

25. huh

http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/mamary /

Kind of an interesting site regarding paintings which contain depictions of UFOs. Problem is, these were painted long before aircraft were invented...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

27. Please explain this......cause for 20 years I've been trying to...

5 witnesses all see a bright, fast moving light that suddenly stops, changes directions, (repeats this a few times) then suddenly streaks off. We watched it for 45-60 seconds. Several seconds later, we saw 2 planes headed the same direction.
This was a clear, cloudless night in CO, 1 hour from any city...

[Lorien]

37. No sound from that light either, I'll wager

stops dead still, hovers effortlessly, non-ballistic flight....yeah, they were in my neighborhood when I was a kid, too. Saw it in broad daylight; the whole neighborhood saw it. We had three F15s chase after ours (which seemed like a joke, considering how those things can move).

[Viva_La_Revolution]

57. Yea, but it was fairly high up....

we barely heard the planes...

[Downtown Hound]

29. More than one million people

witnessed numerous U.F.O.'s over Mexico City in the early 1990's, and hundreds of them took photographs and videos. I've seen some of the videos, and they clearly show craft of some kind in the sky. Not weather balloons, not swamp gas, not the reflection of the planet Venus, but craft. The videos are as clear as day. After these sightings the Mexican Defense Department made an official statement that U.F.O.'s are real. These are sightings backed up by video and over a million witnesses with their government giving them official support.

With all the skeptics out there saying, "Where is the hard evidence?" Well, just what exactly do you need? To me this is pretty hard evidence. Yes, I suppose it would be nice if they landed on Devil's Tower and we had a big light and music greeting, but the truth is, we're probably not very important to them beyond simple curiosity. Now we don't don't know what exactly U.F.O.'s are, the term is simply short for Unidentified Flying Object. But to sit back and simply say that there's NO hard evidence that they exist is not good science at this point. There is a huge mountain of evidence that something is going on, and to simply ignore it and dismiss it as the products of those with low education levels is no different than the attitude of the church in the past that always maintained Earth was the center of the universe no matter what evidence was presented against it.

[immoderate]

33. That's not enough evidence to say what it is.

At best, it's unexplained. There's certainly records of hoaxes, mass hallucinations and delusions. That could also explain it. Except which explanation has actually happened before?

I believe that life is a common occurrence in the universe. Even higher forms of life and civilization I guess to be common.

When it comes to interstellar or intergalactic travel we get into problems.

1. A civilization that achieves the technology necessary for interstellar travel will probably extinguish itself before it gets anywhere.
   
2. If they do get to be interstellar, their use of vast energy resources would be easily detectable. (They're not.)
   
3. If they are able to travel between stars without leaving a trace because they don't want to be detected, why do these overlords of the universe get sloppy and let their saucer take a photo op in Mexico City?
   
4. If the visitors can arrive without detection, abduct us by levitation, anesthetize us by radiation, and extinguish our memories of the encounter by neural control, then what can they hope to find out about us by sticking their finger in our butt?
   
5. Where's the beef (evidence, any at all)?

See, the hypothesis becomes less likely as you have to add assumptions.

--IMM

[CarpeVeritas]

34. regarding numbers 2 & 3...

#2. If they do get to be interstellar, their use of vast energy resources would be easily detectable. (They're not.)
#3. If they are able to travel between stars without leaving a trace because they don't want to be detected, why do these overlords of the universe get sloppy and let their saucer take a photo op in Mexico City?


if another civilization had achieved the technology for interstellar travel, it may well be a technology that is nothing like our own, that uses energy in a different way, and that we cannot detect...there's no reason to say that we wouldn't be able to detect it "because they don't want to be detected"- that wouldn't necessarily be the case.

our planet could even be one big intergalactic science experiment...

it makes just as much sense as anything written in the bible.

[immoderate]

35. My point exactly.

You have to make some preposterous assumptions to justify a belief in something for which there is not only no evidence, but which goes against common sense.

..."it may well be a technology that is nothing like our own, that uses energy in a different way, and that we cannot detect..."

...And they are invisible, and their spaceships run on marshmallows so they don't make any noise...

"it makes just as much sense as anything written in the bible."

Now you've stumbled onto the truth!

--IMM

[Downtown Hound]

42. A hoax of one million people?

A mass hallucination that's caught on video? Really, I don't know who sounds more far out at this point.

See, here's the thing, you're not addressing any of the evidence. You're simply dismissing it and then posing questions to which we have no answers. We have no idea what their energy sources might be or whether or not they're detectable. Our air force has stealth planes that are undetectable by radar. We came up with those in less than a century of air travel. We're talking about a civilization that could be more than a billion years ahead of us. You state with absolute certainty that their energy sources would be detectable to us if they were interstellar. How do you know that? Based on current theories that could be milleniums behind theirs?

We have no idea what their motivations may be for appearing over Mexico City or any other area that they might have appeared over. If they do in fact abduct people and stick their fingers up our butts, we have no idea why. Maybe looking for good dope?

You ask where the evidence is, and I will ask you again, what evidence do you want? You have hours of video, you have millions of eyewitnesses, you have official statements of Mexican government officials, you have countless other people around the world that have passed lie detector tests. Maybe this isn't proof enough for you, but don't tell me that none of this isn't evidence. If someone witnesses a murder and testifies at a trial, it is called evidence. So is this. If someone filmed a murder and it clearly shows who did it, that is called very strong evidence even if you have nothing physical such as a murder weapon. If a million people witness a murder and dozens of them take pictures and movies of it, that is called overwhelming evidence.

[immoderate]

54. I'm not aware of any natural limit for victims of a hoax.

Here's the way I analyze it.

These super futuristic civilizations, perhaps many of them, develop in various star systems, by evolutionary processes we are aware of, except they are millions, or billions of years ahead of us.

Since they are very advanced, they have long ago gone through the stages of technology that we are first embarked upon. They have harnessed electromagnetism with radio and television, nuclear power, interstellar travel, etc. In each of these stages they will broadcast energy. And to populate and have commerce between stars, we're talking about hhuuuueeeeggggeee amounts of energy. These signals carry on infinitely at the speed of light.

If one of these civilizations discovered star travel a million years ago, and they are one million light years away, then the effects of their activities are reaching us now. If they started a billion years ago, and have colonized galaxies, then their activities would be even more apparent. Multiply this by possibilities in millions of billions of galaxies.

Now, why can't we detect them? Oh, they have mysterious ways that we never dreamed of. You mean they never discovered radio and television? And they invented ways to shield a nuclear explosion before they invented nuclear reactions? After a while you have to build in a whole system of far-fetched assumptions to justify other far-fetched assumptions.

And so they are alternate energy, alternate matter, invisible to us and our scientific detectors throughout space, and they blow it over Mexico City?!

But if I say a million people and their video cameras were fooled by say, some holographic image -- that's impossible?

--IMM

[Downtown Hound]

61. A good response

but there are several problems with it. Your point about radio and TV waves is well taken, however, when you really think about it, the chances that we would actually hear radio or TV waves coming from alien civilizations is rather small.

Okay, first, we're going to assume two things. We're assuming that it is possible to travel great interstellar distances in relatively short time frames. And we're going to assume that it is possible to communicate within those distances. If you can't do those things, then any sort of galactic civilization would really be impossible, but we're trying to shoot holes in U.F.O. theories here, in other words, trying to discredit the photographic evidence that purports to show their existence.

Let's say that in the year 2050, a human being walks on Mars for the first time. Over the next hundred years or so, humans gradually begin to branch outward into our solar system. Let's say the process takes 300 years all together. Yes, we will likely be using radio and TV a great deal during this time, sending many waves out into space. Over the course of the next thousand years, we send some expeditions out to neighboring stars at sub-light speeds. The humans on those vessels would never make it back in their lives, but they could be frozen or simply reproduce on the ship and their great grandchildren could. All this time radio and TV is used extensively. But suddenly, a way is discovered to traverse the great distances of space in short time frames. Maybe it's through wormholes, maybe some kind of warp drive is developed, maybe it's something else entirely. But there is also a way developed to communicate between these huge distances. Any real sort of galactic civilization would not only have to be able to travel huge distances, but communicate between them as well.

Would it not stand to reason then that traditional forms of radio and TV would eventually be abandoned in favor of this new method as humans branched out into the galaxy? So you would have a time frame of several thousand years at the most that humans used radio and TV. Eventually, all those waves will pass far beyond into the reaches of space, and they could easily pass by a planet that has not yet developed the methods to listen to them. We've had radio for roughly one century, and only had really powerful radio telescopes combing the heavens for thirty or forty years. For us to hear an alien civilization, they would have had to be at the exact distance at the exact point in time for us to be hearing them now. When you consider the size and age of the universe, the chances of that happening are not only small, but extremely small.

As for things like atomic explosions, I'm not sure why you think we would be able to see something like a individual atomic explosions across the gulf of space with our current technology. We have yet to even see another planet. We know they're there by measuring the light from other stars and spotting what's called the "wobble effect," which is a disruption in light caused by a planet's gravitational pull. At least I think that's how it works, I'm not really clear on that. But the fact is we have never actually seen one, not yet. If we can't even see a whole planet, what makes you think we should be able to see things like spacecraft or atomic explosions?

As for the Mexico City incident being a holographic projection, is it impossible? No, I'll grant you that. Is it highly unlikely? Yes. I don't know if you've ever seen the videos, but the resolution of some of the craft that are shown is very clear. Now, it is possible to create holograms with very high resolution, but it takes the most advanced form of holography there is. If this was a hoax, whoever pulled it would have had to project multiple images thousands of feet above the city with near perfect clarity. To do that would take immense technical know how and huge financial resources. And not to trash Mexico, but come on. This is a country whose citizens risk jail and sometimes their lives to get over here just so they can work some shitty $7.50 an hour job working in the fields for lazy Americans. What percentage of the American population could pull that off? There's maybe a few thousand people in the whole country. In Mexico, there's even less. Also remember that this was in 1991. Home computers then were primitive compared to what they are now, and the internet was just taking its first baby steps.

And if you're going to say that maybe some foreigners went there and did it, why would they choose Mexico City for their little stunt? If their purpose was to get a good laugh out of a fake mass U.F.O. sighting, why not do it in an area that would get much more media attention, such as over the Super Bowl? Again, is it impossible? No. But you have to admit, it's kind of stretch, to say the least.

As for the aliens "blowing it" over Mexico City, or any of the other thousands of sites they've supposedly appeared over, who's to say for sure they did? Perhaps they wanted to be seen. There are those that say that they sometimes intentionally appear to work their way into the collective consciousness of humans so that we will eventually accept their presence. To foster debate such as the one you and I are having if you will. I myself try not to ascribe motivations to them, because it is just speculation. But there are all kinds of possible scenarios to deal with. One may be that we're dealing with more than one species. One species does in fact abduct humans and tries to remain secret, the other simply doesn't give a damn if humans see them. Who knows? And perhaps, they did in fact "blow it." Being technologically advanced doesn't automatically mean they are infallible. Take us and Iraq for example. We can send a smart bomb down their chimney, but we can't get their electricity working. We make mistakes, why can't they?

Anyway, we'll have to agree to disagree. But I for one refuse to simply discount the testimony of not only a million eyewitnesses in one place, but also many thousands of others all around the world. But I guess until they land and say, "Take me to your leader," we're never going to have a definitive answer.

[amazona]

38. agreed this is the example I always use

If a million witnesses to an event are not good enough for you, then it's hopeless. No piece of metal is going to convince someone who isn't convinced by the testimony of one million eyewitnesses.

As for the folks who mumble, well, Mexicans, I then like to point out that a similar phenomenom occurred over Washington D.C. in the 1950s with tens of thousands of witnesses and many photographs being made of those craft.

A cute billboard I saw in the 90s was a billboard showing a Mexican beer (might have been Sol) with a satisfied Space Brother drinking down. The sign said "Why they come" in Spanish.

More recently I saw a very similar campaign used by the Beef Council -- something along the lines of "Why they steal our cows."

I don't think we'll ever know the true story or motives of these UFOs but to deny that they exist in some form is silly. And at least we can have a little fun with the way they spark the human imagination...

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Lorien]

36. I know several Ph.Ds who have seen them

so does one need a doctorate to be "prone to seeing UFOs"?

Nearly every modern US President has admitted seeing them. I've seen them. My best friends have seen them. My parents have seen them. Guess we're all just "prone" to delusions?

Just because we don't understand something DOESN'T mean that there are no rational explanations for it; it just means that we still have much to learn. A person living 150 years ago would have no rational explanation for my Macintosh computer; to them, it would no doubt seem like something supernatural.

[Minstrel Boy]

48. And how many of "all those 'sightings'" have you read?

For instance, have you ever read of this one, from Oct 4, 1955: Senator Richard Russell sees a UFO (from Richard Dolan's UFO's and the National Security State):

"One of the key UFO sightings of the year involved US Senator Richard Russell (D-Georgia), head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, during a trip to the Soviet Union on October 4, 1955. Russell was on a Soviet train from Kiev and passing through the Transcaucusus region. He was accompanied by Armed Services Committee consultant Ruben Efron and Lt Col E.U. Hathaway. Shortly after 7 pm, Russell looked out his window to see a disc-shaped object slowly ascending vertically. Its outer surface revolved slowly to the right, and a spark or flame emanated from the bottom. It reached an altitude of about six thousand feet, then headed north at a very fast speed. Russell rushed over to tell his two companions. Hathaway looked quickly enough to see the UFO; Efron missed it. To everyone's astonishment, a second disc then appeared about two minutes later and performed exactly the same maneuver as the first. This time all three men saw it. A distraught Soviet trainman then closed the curtains of the car, and directed the three not to look outside.

"The report went past Blue Book to much higher levels.... Aviation reporter Tom Towers tried to get the details from Russell, but received no response. After Towers tried again, Russell replied on January 17, 1956: 'I have discussed this matter with the affected agencies of the government, and they are of the opinion that it is not wise to publicize this matter at this time.'

"The matter was classified Top Secret until 1959 and remained Secret until 1985 when Stanton Friedman was able to get it declassified following a FOIA request. Interview notes about the sighting stated: 'There were two lights toward the inside of the disc, which remained stationary as the outer surface went around.... The aircraft was round, resembling a flying saucer.'"


Anyone who wants a dispassionate look at the evidence, including uncontrovertable evidence of cover-up, should pick up Dolan's book. Here's an excerpt from an essay "The Real Wonderland," posted on his website:

"Another person I know – someone who is a fairly well-known celebrity in Western New York State – had a UFO sighting in May of 1980, just outside Syracuse. It was late afternoon on a sunny day. Driving with a friend, in the small town of Manlius, this person asked his companion if she could see the large object outside her window.

"She answered, 'I’m really glad you mentioned that, because I didn’t know what I was going to tell you.'

"According to this person (who also never reported his sighting to any organization), he and his companion got out of the car and watched what he described as 'right out of a Steven Spielberg movie.' It was a classic flying saucer. Silent, hovering over trees, 'as large as a football field.' It has rotating lights around the perimeter – red, green, and yellow, as he recalled. The object wasn’t doing anything – merely hovering silently and impossibly in broad daylight.

...

"The kicker of the story is this. He was sure that this would be on the T.V. news that night, and stayed up till 11 p.m., specifically to hear the much anticipated report about a massive UFO seen just outside Syracuse. But not only was there no story on any UFO, but it seemed to him as though the talking heads in Wonderland went out of their way to downplay anything odd at all. The news announcer actually said, 'another boring day in Syracuse.'

...

"In Wonderland, reality is upside down. Living in this world is like living on a nonstop LSD trip, in which the 'reality' we are being fed bears little to no resemblance to the actual experiences of people. In Wonderland, UFOs are imaginary."
http://keyholepublishing.com/The_Real_Wonderland.htm

[CarpeVeritas]

10. not all life on earth is bacterial...we're here.

why wouldn't other planets have equivilent, or even more advanced organisms than us? especially with an extra billion years or so of evolution under their belts(if they were belts, that is...

[alarimer]

17. I am talking about sheer numbers

There are millions of bacteria in a teaspoon of soil, for example. If you were to extrapolate out to the whole Earth, those numbers would completely dwarf numbers of people, animals, etc. The first organisms were simple single celled organisms. So I am talking about probability when I say that if we find life on other planets, it is likely to be microscopic. Life requires such a special set of circumstances to even exist that it must be exceedingly rare. For those conditions that existed at the dawn of time on this planet to occur again, the likelihood is vanishingly small. Again Carl Sagan is the authority on this issue. He explains all this much better than I can.

[CarpeVeritas]

22. It's not so much about us finding other life forms-

as it is about them finding us...or possibly even having "seeded" us to begin with.

and considering some of the discoveries and changes in thought that have occurred regarding deep space just since his death, even Carl might have done some re-thinking on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.

[DS1]

55. What peculiar logic

[jdj]

9. They're too far away. By the time they get here we'll be dead.

And so will they.

But if they watch U.S. tv they'll stay the hell away anyhow.

[CarpeVeritas]

12. but if they have a billion-year headstart...

they could have already been here.

and maybe we are their descendants-

that's my point

[jdj]

16. I like to pretend to myself that they are much smarter than us.

please don't dent my illusions.

Maybe we are a mutation.

[flaminbats]

14. any alien advanced enough to visit us will probably view us as rats..

Rats live in holes, they stockpile food, fight among themselves, and often live in a society..or pack. Shall we try and communicate, share with them secrets of our advanced technology and knowledge? We could even help them find a cure for rabies, or maybe we'll just use them for experiments and kill off the rest.

When comparing the intelligence of a human to a rat or frog..the differences will be modest when comparing humans to intelligent alien life! In other words, humans will have more in common with other lifeforms on Earth.

[Deja Q]

15. I've a few minor problems with that otherwise lovely theory:

1. Civilizations come and go. We exist now. Will the 8-headed green blobby things also exist at the same time AND have the ability to space-travel?

2. Given all the chatter of "near miss" asteroids, toutatis, and all, and also given how we're kinda at the edge of our galaxy, how must all the critters on the life-supporting planets toward the center of the galaxy feel? Like pancakes, I'd guess...

3. Let's say they exist. WHY would they invent technology to travel out? Did they exhaust their own resources? Not all intelligent critters think the same.

4. Given how similar we are to all the other critters on this planet, why would ONLY humankind be deposited here? While the idea of being dropped on this planet, much like a bird dropping, is nice, it just doesn't fly for me.

5. Maybe these billion-year-old civilizations ran out of fossil fuel and snuffed it before they could develop further?

6. The galaxy is a big place. If you think it's a long distance to your front garage, that's a billionth of an attometer compared to size of the galaxy, never mind the universe. (in otherwise, the relative distance is very small.)

7. Any advanced civilization is bound to be intelligent and not a species of Dubya-wannabes. They're going to scope out any planet they visit and make an amusing attempt to learn about their subjects, much the same way we learn about bacteria under a microscope. Now they've probably clocked the fact we're as peaceful as rabies-stricken dogs on crack. There is NO WAY they're going to visit.

8. We have enough satellites and space shuttles littering our orbit. Yet NONE of them have picked up ANYTHING?

9. See point #8 noting that, given the sad reality of physics, light and radio beams take a lot of time to traverse. If we just got a signal from a distant planet, it took the signal HUNDREDS of years to get here. The civilization that made it had probably died by now.

10. See point #9, noting that if "subspace" and technobabble needed to send messages faster than the speed of light could be developed, WE SURE AS HELL COULDN'T RECEIVE IT because WE don't have the means to collect and translate it. (in other words, why is NASA wasting tons of money to seek out life forms using reception equipment that is, let's face it, pointless given what it's supposed to do? If they get a blip from 1 million billion miles away, we can't exactly get into the car and investigate it, now can we? And do you expect the aliens to knock on the front door, saying "Hi there! I'm Winkeldy Poofus Glicketysplatblidder and I'm here to freely give you this information so you can intercept our transmissions. Now where's your operating room so I can be dissected just for your edifaction?" )

[alarimer]

18. I have also thought

That if aliens were advanced enough to get here, there is nothing we could show them that they didn't already know. what would they need us for? Aside from simple curiousity or conquest, I can't think of a reason why they would visit us at all.

[CarpeVeritas]

21. it's not so much that an alien species would be visiting us now-

so much as maybe being responsible for us being here in the first place that intrigues me.

or-

maybe we're some type of inter-galactic science project, and we're constantly being checked up on.

or-

who knows??

[CarpeVeritas]

20. the way i see it-

there are billions of people on this planet that worship this god or that, whom they view as the almighty creator of the heavens and earh and all that dwell therein. and for the vast majority of thoise, their belief is based on nothing more than pieces of ancient parchment, and/or word of mouth thru stories that have been passed down from generation to generation- and on and on.

to me-
it's a lot easier to accept the possibility that our planet was populated by humanoid life forms from other parts of the galaxy than it is to accept the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful god who created us in his image, can simultaneously know the thoughts and minds of every living being on the planet, and sent his only son to die for our sins on a cross, etc. etc. etc.

as to why/how these life forms would find their way here- a dying star in their own solar system perhaps, or maybe just plain-old exploration, or just to escape religious persecution...and with as little as a few thousand years more technological experience, it might be possible to find a way to make the vast distance irrelevant- a lot of people are willing to believe that we'll be able to do so in just a few hundred years, based on the popularity of "star trek".

who knows? I don't- nobody does...but without any type of concrete evidence for any theories on our origin, I'd rank seeded by an alien humanoid race a lot higher up in possibility than creation by any of the various supernatural deities being worshipped around the world.

[Occulus]

26. .

[DiverDave]

23. If we are alone

"What a terrible waste of space"

Carl Sagan said that, and I agree.
There are others, there HAS to be, the odds are to great that we are not the only life.

[OxQQme]

28. You say you want Evidence?

Lucy's been archiving crop circle data for years:

<home page>
http://home.clara.net/lucypringle/photos/2004/may.html

<some pics>





also..........
There is Mr Sitchin @ http://www.sitchin.com/adam.htm

<snip>
The Role of the Anunnaki

Readers of my books must be smiling by now, for they know the answer.

They know that the biblical verses dealing with the fashioning of The Adam are condensed renderings of much much more detailed Sumerian and Akkadian texts, found inscribed on clay tablets, in which the role of the Elohim in Genesis is performed by the Anunnaki – “Those Who From Heaven to Earth Came.”

As detailed in my books, beginning with The 12th Planet (1976) and even more so in Genesis Revisited and The Cosmic Code, the Anunnaki came to Earth some 450,000 years ago from the planet Nibiru – a member of our own solar system whose great orbit brings it to our part of the heavens once every 3,600 years. They came here in need of gold, with which to protect their dwindling atmosphere. Exhausted and in need of help in mining the gold, their chief scientist Enki suggested that they use their genetic knowledge to create the needed Primitive Workers. When the other leaders of the Anunnaki asked: How can you create a new being? He answered:

"The being that we need already exists;
all that we have to do is put our mark on it.”

The time was some 300,000 years ago.

What he had in mind was to upgrade genetically the existing hominids, who were already on Earth through Evolution, by adding some of the genes of the more advanced Anunnaki. That the Anunnaki, who could already travel in space 450,000 years ago, possessed the genomic science (whose threshold we have now reached) is clear not only from the actual texts but also from numerous depictions in which the double-helix of the DNA is rendered as Entwined Serpents (a symbol still used for medicine and healing) -- see illustration ‘A’ below.

When the leaders of the Anunnaki approved the project (as echoed in the biblical ”Let us fashion the Adam”), Enki with the help of Ninharsag, the Chief Medical Officer of the Anunnaki, embarked on a process of genetic engineering, by adding and combining genes of the Anunnaki with those of the already-existing hominids.

When, after much trial and error breathtakingly described and recorded in antiquity, a “perfect model” was attained, Ninharsag held him up and shouted: “My hands have made it!” An ancient artist depicted the scene on a cylinder seal (illustration ‘B’).

And that, I suggest, is how we had come to possess the unique extra genes. It was in the image of the Anunnaki, not of bacteria, that Adam and Eve were fashioned.


A Matter of Extreme Significance

Unless further scientific research can establish, beyond any doubt, that the only possible source of the extra genes are indeed bacteria, and unless it is then also determined that the infection (“horizontal transfer”) went from bacteria to Man and not from Man to bacteria, the only other available solution will be that offered by the Sumerian texts millennia ago.

Until then, the enigmatic 223 alien genes will remain as an alternative – and as a corroboration by modern science of the Anunnaki and their genetic feats on Earth.

ZECHARIA SITCHIN


illustration A


illustration B

© Z. Sitchin 2001

Permission to reprint is hereby
granted on condition that the
following is prominently stated:

© Z. Sitchin
Reprinted with permission.

[BrklynLiberal]

30. Not all extraterrestrials may be good news. Check "The Arrival"

[CarpeVeritas]

32. or the"To Serve Man" episode of The Twilight Zone...

yikes!

[IndyPriest]

31. "Time" and "space" probably don't "work" the way we think they

do. We're just beginning to imagine how many forms of energy there are and how they all function or CAN function. So my bet is there are all kinds of "someones" out there who've been here and are probably still around. Kind of fun to imagine, actually.

[Shopaholic]

39. I really wonder how many of us here on DU have seen UFOs or know

sane, well-educated people who have seen UFO's?

I saw something that I couldn't explain about 5 years ago. Two others with me saw it also. It was circular, hovered low over a field, then shot off at unbelievable speed to an unbelievable height in an unbelievably short period of time. There were all sorts of red and yellow lights around it and it made no sound whatsoever. I live within two hours of three air force bases. I've often wondered if it was some sort of experimental aircraft but I've grown up around planes and bases my entire life and it was unlike anything I'd ever seen.

It still remains a mystery to me. And for the record, until that night, I never believed in UFO's and never had the slightest bit of interest in them.

[Lorien]

40. See post #36

I was like you; a skeptic who had little interest in UFOs (even though I saw one as a very young child-I still believed there were other explanations). It took a few sightings to convince me of anything. I still have no desire to "research" them; I know they're out there and for now, that's all I need to know.

[Shopaholic]

45. Me too.

I have no desire to research them either or devote my life to their study but I know what I saw--or more correctly--I saw something I couldn't explain. I thought people who claimed to see them were seeing optical illusions or something like that until it happened to me. And now, I believe that something is out there. Maybe it was just a test aircraft of some kind but if we've got that kind of technology-why aren't we using it? Surely if it is one of our aircrafts wouldn't they be done testing it after nearly 50 years of sightings???? Just saying.

[Lorien]

49. Actually, it's been hundreds, if not thousands

of years of sightings (see post #25).

Yeah, after I saw those things move, I've been wondering why it still takes me so long to get from New York to Paris!(If they are ours, that is).

[IndyPriest]

50. I've not seen one, yet. But my brother

and mother have. My brother's experience was a lot like yours. He was travelling along an interstate late at night. Some glowing circular craft with bright lights on it was traveling alongside him at about treetop level. He pulled over to watch it. Several others did, too. Then the thing stopped, hovered, and then shot up into the sky at impossible speeds and disappeared.

My mom's case was seeing a craft in a field, glowing. She was riding with my dad. SHe was so spooked by it she didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. Then told my dad, who wheeled the car around for a look. WHen they got back to the spot, it was gone. Dad always hoped a UFO would land on the mall in Washington. That'll show 'em, he always said!

[FlaGranny]

60. That is much like what

my cousin and I saw last summer. We saw the object early in the afternoon, directly overhead, on a bright, clear day, but we saw no lights. It was just a perfectly round dullish white object that moved at incredible speed. Just before it disappeared it started to show a reddish glow on the edge that faced the sun (a reflection?). Totally silent. It traveled under one small cloud, and then over another cloud (the kind of clouds you see at about 5000 to 6000 feet) and then we didn't see it after that. The object traveled at an angle to the clouds and at such a high speed, it removed all thought it could be a weather balloon. I live close enough to airports that I often see jets, and even an occasional fighter, flying at approximately 5-6000 feet so I am confident in saying this thing went from an altitude of about 1500 feet, when we first saw it, to about 6000 feet and traveled 1/4 the distance of the horizon, in 3 seconds or less. How fast is that? I'm not good at math, so I can't say, but comparing it to the speed of the passenger jets, I'd have to say well over 1000 mph, with NO sound. I can't say if this was an ET UFO or an experimental craft, but I can say it was real. I don't hallucinate.

Someone spoke above about holograms, and I don't know much about them. Can you project a hologram against a very crispy clear type blue sky in broad daylight and have it resemble what I described? If you can, then I suppose that is a possibility, but what equipment would that take and who would do it?

[Minstrel Boy]

53. Something Jacques Vallee says about space and time

in Messengers of Deception:

"The theory of space and time is a cultural artifact made possible by the invention of graph paper."

He says if we'd invented the computer first, we'd have a much different understanding.

[IndyPriest]

59. Love that! - You gotta believe that our methods and means of

perception have everything to do with what we take to be reality. I think it was Einstein (?) who said: reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Or: reality is just a small slice of what's actually going on.

[lateo]

43. We might also want to consider this...

A lot of people discuss the problem with traveling millions or billions of light years on the human condition. What if we don't really, or the aliens for that matter, have to travel billions of light years to visit another intelligent life form? It could be very possible that inter-dimensional travel could solve the riddle of extra-terrestrial life.

String theorists posit that there may be as many as 11 dimensions. Currently we only know or see 3 of them. If there are other dimensions there is a chance that there is life in them also. This could mean that intelligent life might be very close to us, we just don’t see them yet.

[LifeDuringWartime]

51. string theory

all of the extra dimensions in string theory are small. so small, that we couldn't possibly observe their effects with current technology.

check out the NOVA episode on string theory, narrated by brian greene. the whole thing is available for download on the PBS website. its very interesting. i started reading his book that the film is based on, but i couldnt finish it.

[unpossibles]

56. something else I've considered

is that if life here on Earth can take a wide variety of forms based on the environment in which it evolved (see: tube worms that live in "unlivable" conditions), then perhaps it is not as improbable as some would assume.

It seems the argument that conditions must be perfect and narrow is a bit too anthropocentric. Why would life which evolved on a different planet need to be even remotely similar? Why would it need to be carbon based? To our understanding, it would have to be, but who knows?

I think this is an interesting subject and am somewhere in the middle - not 100% skeptic, but not a believer per se either. I am open minded about the idea however, and agree that there seems to be something going on.

[HeeBGBz]

58. Then you have interdimensionality to contend with

Where they are not out there, but right here, right now. With only a thin layer of consciousness/time/space to veil the coexistence. The lights being more of an elevator than a spaceship.

[mr blur]

62. "Take me to your leader..."

"..wait...THIS is your LEADER ??!!"