Extraterrestrial Life and UFO sightings; constructively critical deliberation.

[Charger]

So what is the take here at the community?

Is there a possibility of Extraterrestrial life?

    If so, is it possible that they would be advanced enough to travel the stars?

        If so have they visited Earth?



I'm gonna start with simple math. There are Billions of galaxies out there with each having billions and billions of stars. And even if only 10% of those would have planetary systems and if only 10% of those would have the potential for life that would still ammount to several millions of possible life baring planets.
So simply mathematically speaking it would be statistically virtually impossible for there NOT to be life out there. But ofcourse the nature of that life is an issue.

Then about the technology...well...Humans have developed space travel (in its infancy but still) in just 200 years after the early stages of the technologial era...that's not even a blink of an eye in the cosmological time frame...the Universe is almost 14 BILLION years old. Think about that in comparison. All that's really needed is a planet that is cosmically bit older than Earth.
Hell lets just think of a civilization that has had 1000 years of technologial age...or 10000 or a million years. Their level of technology would be so far ahead of ours we couldn't possibly even understand. Our laws of physics most likely wouldn't apply to them anymore.
So it is more than possible that on one of those millions and millions of potentially life baring planets would have a civilization that could be millions of years older than we are...hell considering the time frame it's actually more likely than unlikely.

Then about UFO sightings...
It is clear that a lot of them are hoaxes and a lot of unwilling hoaxes (meaning that people who have seen the phenomena believe what they saw was extraterrestrial eventhough there is a perfectly natural/eartlhy explanation to their sightings) but there are also sightings and reports that cannot be so easily dismissed. Reports made by Astronauts, air force pilots, high ranking military officers and so on who have described crafts that to best of their knowlage cannot be from this Earth. Reports which are more plausable than most others.

Would other advanced civilizations be interested in our primitive asses anyways? Well we are pretty interested in our history so it wouldn't be that hard to imagine an alien civilization being interested in a primitive culture. Also we have been very vocal towards space so it is easy to imagine our signals being captured by someone somewhere out there.

In truth though there still is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth...or if there is it has been covered up.


So what are your thoughts about the topic? Hopefully there is something to converse about here...

[Typhon]

So what is the take here at the community?

Is there a possibility of Extraterrestrial life?

    If so, is it possible that they would be advanced enough to travel the stars?

        If so have they visited Earth?

Some comments to this very interesting topic.

I'm gonna start with simple math. There are Billions of galaxies out there with each having billions and billions of stars. And even if only 10% of those would have planetary systems and if only 10% of those would have the potential for life that would still ammount to several millions of possible life baring planets.
So simply mathematically speaking it would be statistically virtually impossible for there NOT to be life out there. But ofcourse the nature of that life is an issue.

All true, though the numbers are even bigger than this.

Then about the technology...well...Humans have developed space travel (in its infancy but still) in just 200 years after the early stages of the technologial era...that's not even a blink of an eye in the cosmological time frame...the Universe is almost 14 BILLION years old. Think about that in comparison. All that's really needed is a planet that is cosmically bit older than Earth.
Hell lets just think of a civilization that has had 1000 years of technologial age...or 10000 or a million years. Their level of technology would be so far ahead of ours we couldn't possibly even understand. Our laws of physics most likely wouldn't apply to them anymore.
So it is more than possible that on one of those millions and millions of potentially life baring planets would have a civilization that could be millions of years older than we are...hell considering the time frame it's actually more likely than unlikely.

One correction here.  It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.

Then about UFO sightings...
It is clear that a lot of them are hoaxes and a lot of unwilling hoaxes (meaning that people who have seen the phenomena believe what they saw was extraterrestrial eventhough there is a perfectly natural/eartlhy explanation to their sightings) but there are also sightings and reports that cannot be so easily dismissed. Reports made by Astronauts, air force pilots, high ranking military officers and so on who have described crafts that to best of their knowlage cannot be from this Earth. Reports which are more plausable than most others.

Would other advanced civilizations be interested in our primitive asses anyways? Well we are pretty interested in our history so it wouldn't be that hard to imagine an alien civilization being interested in a primitive culture. Also we have been very vocal towards space so it is easy to imagine our signals being captured by someone somewhere out there.

In truth though there still is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth...or if there is it has been covered up.

No aliens have ever visited Earth.

[Charger]

One correction here.  It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.

Well that's not entirely true on all accounts. Sure there are certain things such as weights of atoms and such that are obvious constants, but there are several laws of physics that have already changed in our time and most certainly several that will change in the next 100 or so years as our understanding of the universe grows. One of the most obvious ones being the speed of light ofcourse and how in our understanding at the moment states it cannot be exceeded, but that might not be the case in 100 or 1000 years from now.

Although a more likely way of travelling is through artificially made worm holes.

And yes the ammount of planets in the universe would most likely be in the trillions but I wanted to be conservative with the numbers as they are still quite staggering.

I'm glad you are finding this topic interesting...it's one of my biggest interests and I was hoping people here would find it interesting as well..

So you don't believe we have been visited? Then out of curiosity what do you make of all the sightings? All hoax or natural phenomenon being mistaken for something else?

[Zzzptm]

You are dealing with the Fermi Paradox: if there is so much potential for life in the universe, why haven't we seen any of it besides our own?

The answers go as follows:

1. It's too far away (either in terms of space... or time)
2. It doesn't want to be noticed (It's hiding from threats or just doesn't want to be bothered)
3. We're looking for the wrong signs of intelligence (radio communications)
4. There is a Great Filter that keeps intelligent life from going into the stars.

That last one is the most troubling one. It basically says, sure, there's lots of life in the universe but, no, it can't survive either the violence of the universe (comet strikes, supernovae, gamma ray bursts, small black holes zipping around) or itself to last long enough to reach out to other stars. Given our own troubles with wars and nuclear weapons and climate issues, we have to look at ourselves and ask if our technological development also sealed our fate.

If we can hold on long enough for our moral and ethical development to catch up to our technology, maybe we survive that chapter of our existence as a species... but what if that development also makes us more inward-looking? What if passing through the Great Filter is something that makes other intelligent species become inward-looking to the point where they'd rather not push out to other worlds, but to be content with the one they have?

But let us say we consider a 5th possible answer to the paradox:

5. We haven't seen signs of other life because we haven't met it *yet*.

The day of our First Contact is yet to come. Now, the question is if we are ready for it when it happens.

This is where I turn to the East and look at Solaris by Stanislav Lem and Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers.

In Solaris, humans encounter *something*. It could be an intelligent planet. It could be random stuff that's the product of our imaginations interacting with some kind of field around Solaris. We don't know, and, frankly, it's annoying humanity that we can't figure it out. The intelligence is completely incomprehensible to us and we have to question if we are truly communicating with it, in the sense that both parties to the communication understand each others' messages.

In Roadside Picnic, the alien visit to the Earth is as disastrous as a group of tourists pulling off the road to have a bit of fun in a field, hence the title. If you look at what could happen to an ant hill as we eat stuff next to it, it has no comprehension of how we got there, what we are, or what stuff we left behind. It can be beneficial to them, or potentially toxic or disastrous. So what if a species that is to us what we are to ants stopped by to have a meal and take in the sights, completely oblivious to us and our environment?

I like these scenarios because they don't assume, as much of US and Western sci-fi does, that hard work, technological brilliance, and human good nature wins the day and we can have pleasant chats with our alien visitors - or blow the crap out of them, should they cause any trouble. In these works, there's no way to communicate and no way to retaliate for any damage done to us. The damage done, at any rate, is limited enough so as not to justify a massive response, when you think about it.

Personally, I think we're the only game in town that we'll ever know about. If there's other life, it's too distant or that Great Filter happens. And that, given all the massive odds of life out there, I can't accept that when the lottery of the universe comes up with a sentient race, somehow it's not random anymore and it's a species that can chat with us, let alone one that shares our anthropomorphism, or even any sort of similarity with life on earth.

To drive that last point of mine home, look at early life forms on earth and how they don't look anything like what we have now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ice47loNmsc

[AnnoMundi]

Are you guys^^^ PHD’s? You sound like intellectuals, really smart sounding stuff, I can’t grasp my head around that stuff.

Just thinking about the infinitesimal universe boggles my mind, I’m sorry I’m not in your league guys.

Much respect to all of you.

[Typhon]

One correction here.  It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.

Well that's not entirely true on all accounts. Sure there are certain things such as weights of atoms and such that are obvious constants, but there are several laws of physics that have already changed in our time and most certainly several that will change in the next 100 or so years as our understanding of the universe grows. One of the most obvious ones being the speed of light ofcourse and how in our understanding at the moment states it cannot be exceeded, but that might not be the case in 100 or 1000 years from now.

If we are misunderstanding a law of physics, then what changed was our understanding of that law.  The true law was always there and will always be there and did not change.

Mathematical equations indicate that at the speed of light, time would stop.  Therefore, exceeding the speed of light would cause time to go backwards.  I can not prove to you that this is impossible, but there is zero evidence that it is possible.

So you don't believe we have been visited? Then out of curiosity what do you make of all the sightings? All hoax or natural phenomenon being mistaken for something else?

All of the above and more.

[Zzzptm]

I agree with Typhon - reported visits are natural things or mistakes or something similar.

One very interesting consideration about alien visits comes by way of my having read about N,N-dimethyltriptamine. It's a compound that occurs in nature and which can also be synthesized by the body - concentrations of DMT are high as we dream. Permanently high concentrations of DMT in spinal fluid is associated with schizophrenia.

A particular researcher was intrigued by how different cultures had identical experiences with DMT, in spite of cultural factors that would seem to keep them from being able to have those experiences. For example, cultures completely unfamiliar with cats and/or mantids would nevertheless describe creatures similar to those in their DMT trips. Cats, in particular, were seen as being huge and made of stars, walking over the DMT-influenced person.

So the researcher got DEA approval to use DMT in a clinical study. He administered a dose to volunteers and a placebo to a control group. The subjects were then asked to lie down on a couch and rest. Placebo users had a nap or just lay there, bored. DMT subjects pretty much all hit the jackpot in the "dreams so real, they were treated as real" category.

The researcher videotaped his subjects so that they could play the tapes back and verify that nothing happened to them as they rested/tripped out.

About one in ten subjects reported that they had been abducted by aliens and were subjected to probing and testing. The aliens they described were very similar across all such experiences. They were also very similar to the way other people described "alien abduction" scenarios, independent of the DMT trials.

When the researcher showed the subjects who thought they had been abducted that, in fact, they were in the test room all along and unmolested, every one of them became paranoid, insisted that the tapes were faked and that the researcher was somehow in league with the aliens or just left. All broke off contact with the researcher.

The point here being that if there's a chemical the human body synthesizes that can lead to extremely realistic dreams that have common factors, independent of cultural background or other life experiences, and if one of those types of dreams is an alien abduction or alien visitation, with the aliens looking pretty much as they're depicted in a large number of drawings/renditions, then I have to ask if those were really abductions, or a part of psychology?

And how many other reported experiences with no other witnesses but the person that experienced it were of a similar, highly vivid hallucinatory nature?

I don't say that there's no funky stuff going on that is hard to explain - I've heard stories from people I trust about some really wild experiences, but such experiences could also be connected to manmade or natural phenomena.

[BOGBLAST]

I agree that with the trillions of planets out there extraterrestrial life is almost a given. I don't remember what show it was but someone was way out in space and picked up one of Hitler's speeches. Probably damn near impossible to calculate, but since we started transmitting radio and TV signals, how far could they have traveled and does the signal strength degrade over time?

As far as alien abduction and UFOs I think I would need to see to believe. There is usually an explanation for these phenomena UNLESS it's true that governments shield us from this information to avoid a panic. OK now I'm sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

The one thing that still intrigues me is Roswell. The final word on that event was a crashed weather balloon, pretty cliché if you ask me. I believe there were pictures and I know there was a newspaper article about a crashed UFO which was retracted the next day. I've also seen interviews with retired military personnel saying it in fact was a UFO. So what's the real story?


The Truth is Out There

[Charger]

Man loved reading all this stuff even if I don't share all of your views.

I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.

As far as what the sentient life on other planets would look like?
They might not look anything like us. The humanoid evolution might be an Earth thing...BUT then again it might not. Who knows it might also be something of a standard evolutionary model.
But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.
But the one thing that would suggest a technologially advanced society might be primate is the thumb which proved to be rahter vital in human evolution.

That DMT study thing was interesting. Also sounds very plausable cause for some of the abduction stories indeed.

I personally left out all these abduction stories as they quite often sound bit too far fetched...but ofcourse not impossible. Also gotta think that there must have been a first incident at some point and I find it really hard to believe that someone all of a sudden would have just come up with the idea that "Hey I'm gonna make up a story about alien abduction!"...it's one of those things that is bit too far out there for someone to just invent out of the blue.



And Bog yes the Roswell incident is still of some mystery.

The first newspaper report very clearly described it as a disc shaped craft and the presense of bodies...the next day the story was retracted and the "official" story came out. Bit too fast rewrite if you ask me. That cover up story was dictated by the government.
Weather balloon it was not that's for certain. Weather balloons first of all don't have crew and there were bodies at the scene, there were many witnesses to that and later on even the military crew who were sent to the scene have said so.

Naturally it is possible that it was some sort of an experimental US military craft that happened to crash there and the crew died and were so badly burned that they looked extraterrestrial...BUT there were no reports of massive fires though. Also there hasn't been a disc shaped military craft that has come to production since then.

Something crashed in Roswell on July 1947 that is a fact...what was it really? That we might never actually find out as that was covered up.

Are you guys^^^ PHD’s? You sound like intellectuals, really smart sounding stuff, I can’t grasp my head around that stuff.

Just thinking about the infinitesimal universe boggles my mind, I’m sorry I’m not in your league guys.

Much respect to all of you.

No I don't think we're PHDs...and all of this is just light hearted ponderings with some science thrown in.
Intellectuals? Us? Well I can only speak for myself when I say:

[Typhon]

I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.

This is incorrect.  Radio waves travel at about the speed of light.  But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy.  Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.

But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.

I think you are letting the things you have seen in science fiction shows get the best of you here.  All mass in the universe is made up of the same elements found on Earth.  Every star, every planet, every creature.  These elements are the building blocks.  The top 4 elements found in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen and Carbon.  Therefore, it is likely that any living thing out there would contain these 4 to a certain degree.

[Charger]

I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.

This is incorrect.  Radio waves travel at about the speed of light.  But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy.  Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.

What's incorrect? The thing is with the speed of light that is is slow when talking about distances of this scale. It is not an efficient way of communicating. For a species that travels stars there HAS TO BE a more faster way of communicating. Subspace transmissions or ofcourse a possibility of using worm holes.

But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.

I think you are letting the things you have seen in science fiction shows get the best of you here.  All mass in the universe is made up of the same elements found on Earth.  Every star, every planet, every creature.  These elements are the building blocks.  The top 4 elements found in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen and Carbon.  Therefore, it is likely that any living thing out there would contain these 4 to a certain degree.

You forgot Silicon which has nearly the same potential as Carbon which is why it is widely considered as a possible life building block.

Yes it is likely that most life would be based on Carbon but nothing is certain on a universal scale. When options rank in the billions nearly anything is possible. Also it is completely possible that there is life that is based on an element we don't even know yet! Unlikely perhaps, but possible.

[Typhon]

I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.

This is incorrect.  Radio waves travel at about the speed of light.  But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy.  Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.

What's incorrect? The thing is with the speed of light that is is slow when talking about distances of this scale. It is not an efficient way of communicating. For a species that travels stars there HAS TO BE a more faster way of communicating. Subspace transmissions or ofcourse a possibility of using worm holes.

Radio waves are not slow.  They travel about as fast as it can get.  Sound waves are an example of slow.

[Zzzptm]

As for communication, that's only a prerequisite for control or coordination. If a species sends out generation ships with the intent merely to preserve a strain of the species somewhere else as part of a dispersal strategy, then there is no need for any interstellar communication. The only need to communicate would be local, should a generation ship happen upon a planet already occupied by an earlier expedition.

As such, radio is a jolly good way for us to communicate, but who's to say that other civilizations wouldn't use gamma ray bursts or induce semaphores from the local star? How fast would such communications be? What if they communicate by means of three beeps, with the message determined by the ratio of the second beep to the third, relative to the first? That ratio can produce a very long and complicated decimal, which itself could be decoded to deliver messages of encyclopaedic length.

This doesn't even get into the resources and energy necessary to support a voyage across an interstellar void. Absent a mode of FTL travel, we're either looking at an expedition that has to grow its own food (and hope and pray it never has a malfunction or crop failure) or a method of reliably suspending animation and reviving animation at the appropriate time. Then there's the matter of cosmic radiation sources. Want to fly past Jupiter like Voyager did? Think again, because there's a substantial amount of hard radiation that will cook any terran life form good and hard. How do we balance shielding necessary to protect our life forms against requirements for food, power, fuel, sustenance, oxygen, waste storage/reclamation, and so forth?

Now let us consider the problems of space psychology. The Russians discovered that crews on long-term missions can develop paranoia, typically manifested in hostility towards the ground crews or refusal to communicate with them. There are other issues of long-term space missions, and video games / movies / porn will not solve them. Depression very easily takes over during long periods of inactivity or when activity is perceived to be of little or no value.

These are just the problems with travel to Mars - how would we be able to scale our solutions to an interstellar degree? And if we do not have the answers, who does? What if, for all intents and purposes, non-robotic interstellar travel is impractical to the point of impossibility?

[Charger]

Radio waves are not slow.  They travel about as fast as it can get.  Sound waves are an example of slow.

Okay okay! Poor choice of words on my part I suppose!

What I meant to say ofcourse (and did or so I thought) was that in a universal scale the speed of light is too slow for instant communication. There needs to be a faster way for such distances that is why I find it extremely hard to believe that an advanced civilization would still be using radio waves to communicate that's why searching for those seems rather futile.



And zzz! Some great ponderings again from the view of a not so advanced race.

There would be huuuuge obstacles to overcome for space travel that is for certain. From a human perspective (at this time) the idea seems rather far fetched even. But for a civilization 1000s of years older..who knows. They might have already overcome all those. It is after all a matter of perspective.

But we most certainly still have a long way to go. 100 years won't be enough...nor will 200...maybe 500...maybe...unless ofcourse by some miracle (or accident as many great discoveries have come from accidents) we discover a worm hole or a way to create worm holes.

But I suppose we are getting bit off track here now...or are we? This is all some super interesting stuff here though.

[Typhon]

Radio waves are not slow.  They travel about as fast as it can get.  Sound waves are an example of slow.

Okay okay! Poor choice of words on my part I suppose!

What I meant to say ofcourse (and did or so I thought) was that in a universal scale the speed of light is too slow for instant communication. There needs to be a faster way for such distances that is why I find it extremely hard to believe that an advanced civilization would still be using radio waves to communicate that's why searching for those seems rahter futile.

Okay, I guess what you stated earlier could have been taken that way as well.  I just didn't want anyone to think that radio waves were slow.  But we keep looking for radio waves here on Earth because, like you said, if some other civilization has been around a few thousand years before us, then those radio signals could be arriving here any day now.