Are we alone?

[ray_MAN]

Well, as the title suggests, "Are we alone?" Are there intelligent life forms in the universe? Personally I don't think we are alone. There are definatly other things out there. Whether they are intelligent, I do not know. I think we will be enlightened as to if we are alone of not within the next 10-20 years. Discuss.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well, as the title suggests, "Are we alone?" Are there intelligent life forms in the universe? Personally I don't think we are alone. There are definatly other things out there. Whether they are intelligent, I do not know. I think we will be enlightened as to if we are alone of not within the next 10-20 years. Discuss.

In Universe that big, only fools can think that we are alone. Plus distances are very large and I doubt we will ever see any other intelligent life form. We don't have technology for it.

 

[ray_MAN]

Well, obviously we aren't alone. But, do you think that what is out there is intelligent?

 

[craig]

What Mr.Reak said. the chances of intelligent life on other planets is miniscule and in the same vein the chance of us finding them is also miniscule. It would be rather silly to think that there werent beings more intelligent than ourselves however, so maybe they will find us... who knows? Frankly, who cares, if there was a species equal to us the govornments of the world would probably wage war against them just incase they were terrorists hell bent on taking over the world anyway... prolly ask them if they had any WOMD's before saying hello infact. Basically what I'm trying to say is we as a species are too paranoid and any 'landing' would be a bad thing!

 

[Estevan]

Theres obviously something out there, Take a look at some original Paintings from Past time when jesus still lived. You can see some UFOs in the bakcground

 

[PvtRyan]

Well, as the title suggests, "Are we alone?" Are there intelligent life forms in the universe? Personally I don't think we are alone. There are definatly other things out there. Whether they are intelligent, I do not know. I think we will be enlightened as to if we are alone of not within the next 10-20 years. Discuss.

Well, life is pretty common in the universe, would be very very odd if we turned out to be the only life. Whether there is intelligent life, well the only question is: what's the definition of intelligent?
They could be so different from us, be silicon based for example, have no moveable organs, but still able to solve a complex math equation in milliseconds for example. And really, what is your definition of life at all? The only life we know is from earth, so maybe we won't even recognize aliens as living beings.
But that there is complex (that means poly cellular) life out there is absolutely certain. Even if you're a religious person you'd have to admit those 200 billion x 200 billion stars HAVE to contain numerous forms of life.

There is probably more life in this solar system than just earth, Mars and Europa (one of jupiters moons with a huge ocean) have high probabilities of life or once had living beings.

 

[crabcakes66]

a better question....(statistally speaking....its pretty ludicris to think we are the only "intelligent" life in the universe)


is...

What happens if we encounter life thats a billion or so years ahead of us in evolution?


ofcourse...most people still believe we were created by god so they have a hard time believeing we evolved from monkeys....and that we might not be the only kid on the block.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well people were hard time believing that Earth is round. I mean, it takes time to believe in something as humanity (not individual). What would happen? Frankly, I don't know. Who knows what kind of aliens there are and what they want. But seeing us we can't even live together, there would be, no doubt, big problems when aliens arrive.

This why I tend not to think about stuff like this, because it seems that we are so insignificant in this universe, that our existence doesn’t really matter to anyone, expect us. Whatever.

 

[Warbie]

Theres obviously something out there, Take a look at some original Paintings from Past time when jesus still lived. You can see some UFOs in the bakcground

I hope you were being a bit tongue and cheek with this reply

 

[Prince of China]

There possibly could be life out there, the universe is a very big place, we Can't be the only intelligent life out there.

 

[LoneDeranger]

I bet if the aliens arrive they are going to be so much more intelligent then us, we wouldn't even be able to communicate in a useful manner. It will be like us trying to explain physics to a dog.

 

[LoneDeranger]

I hope you were being a bit tongue and cheek with this reply

No it's true. There are some paintings and achient sculptures clearly showing UFO's or people in space suits. You should read some of Erik Von Daniken's research or watch the TV program.

 

[crabcakes66]

no post editing anymore...... wtf



i said 'statistally" ......let me change it biatch!

 

[Lil' Timmy]

it is neither obvious that there is extra-terrestrial life, nor foolish and ludicrous to believe we are alone. indeed, in many ways it may be the most reasonable stance to take. you might speak of statistics, yet what is the basis for your statistical resoning? one way to look at it is that every other planet we know of either has no life, or it is inconclusive (with extra-solar planets). there is really no statiscally logical reason for assuming that htere is other intelligent life out there. the infamous drake equation is based on so many implicit and unproven assumptions that it could easily be meaningless. discovering past life on mars would certainly add something to the expectaions of finding life elsewhere, but we're still waiting for that.

 

[mchammer75040]

No it's true. There are some paintings and achient sculptures clearly showing UFO's or people in space suits. You should read some of Erik Von Daniken's research or watch the TV program.

Yea I remember watching something about that on the histroy channel. They also say in the early Egyptian times, that "gods" gave them technology. In fact I remember reading a article awhile back saying we have discovered a planet that has the neccessities for life and have already sent out radio frequences (err thatll have to do cant remember right name) to the planet.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Yea I remember watching something about that on the histroy channel. They also say in the early Egyptian times, that "gods" gave them technology. In fact I remember reading a article awhile back saying we have discovered a planet that has the neccessities for life and have already sent out radio frequences (err thatll have to do cant remember right name) to the planet.

Well actually we have been inadvertantly sending our radio frequencies for the past century which means they have already reached thousands of solar systems.

This might explain the recent rise in UFO sightings.

 

[mchammer75040]

Well actually we have been inadvertantly sending our radio frequencies for the past century which means they have already reached thousands of solar systems.

This might explain the recent rise in UFO sightings.

Yes I was about to put that in my last post, in the article I read it also says we have a "bubble"(not sure how far out it is) of radio frequencies around the world from TV. So out in space right now there are episodes off old 50's shows playing.

 

[hero]

lets break into area 51 and find out if aliens are real

 

[mchammer75040]

Hell yea man, Im tired of all this "oh we arent keeping anything secret in here but you cant come within a 20 mile radius of the place or you will be killed" my best guess is its a top secret brownie recipe... :rolling:

 

[Prince of China]

hey! Let's do it with some alien chicks and see what kind of half-breed we get.

 

[mchammer75040]

lmao @ tred

 

[Fender357]

The question is........if they were much more intelligent than us.........how would we know? Does a monkey know that we are smarter than it?

 

[Jammydodger]

First of all I will say that I do believe there are extra-terrestrials out there, the universe must be teeming with life if it can form in this system alone. But like many others I feel that maybe these 'Greys' that visit may not be Aliens, but time travellers of this planet FROM the distant future.

Okay, this is nothing new, this theory has been around for ages I know, but if these Greys are possibly 'us' in aeons to come, why the physical change? I donot believe in typical evolution as such, like I don't believe our heads will get bigger just because we do more study these days.

Rather, species only evolve by process of natural selection (e.g dinosaur breeds with longest necks to eat off tall trees were more likely to survive etc)

I believe, *if* the greys are future earthlings that they are genetically modified beings, severely altered DNA or possibly completely synthesized DNA. I cannot see humans naturally evolving INTO this creature.

This tecnology is already getting closer within our grasp, and teams of greedy scientists and geneticists alike will probably one day strive to create a 'perfect' human or humanoid being, smarter, healthier, etc.

Whether they are modified descendants of humans, or possibly a race created by humans that overthrew power and took over civilization, who knows?

This is just one theory, and for all we know, it is perfectly possible. I am interested in anyone's thoughts on this.

Jammydodger

 

[SubKamran]

It would be fun to "hack" into the "bubble" and stream "live" TV from 40 years ago

And I think life exists somewhere out there. I don't know if it's intelligent or not but anything out there has to be more intelligent than "yo dawg" teenagers (myself being one...but...not that kind)

 

[Dedalus]

has anyone read Chariots of the Gods? it's an interesting read. although apparently quite a few of von daniken's theories have been proven wrong. but it really is an interesting theory as a whole, and one that does explain an awful lot of things in our world.

 

[Dedalus]

The question is........if they were much more intelligent than us.........how would we know? Does a monkey know that we are smarter than it?

you remember the phrase 'it takes one to know one'? well that would apply in this case. it would take an intelligent animal to spot another intelligent animal.

 

[theotherguy]

Actually, we've only been sending frequencies THROUGH out amosphere since around the fifties, most of our broadcasts are to weak to be picked up by anything except for the huge military transmissions and the SETI radio telescope signals. But even with those signals, if you were on a planet 50 miles away, you would need a radio telescope with a surface area of 3 km or more, and if you were thousands of lightyears away, you would need a radio telescope larger than the distance between the earth and the moon. So, if they were the same technological level at us, I would find it unlikeley that anyone has heard our callings.


And to actually SEE us from a thousand light years away, you would need a telescope with a mirror that stretches the distance between the sun and jupiter.

and since the universal constant is light, it is unlikely that anoyone has traveled to earth, unless they found some way to break the speed limit.

I bet there is intelligent life out there, and either they are not advanced enough to send radio signals, or they have not been sending them long enough, or we just dont have the technology to pick up such a weak signal

 

[LoneDeranger]

Actually, we've only been sending frequencies THROUGH out amosphere since around the fifties, most of our broadcasts are to weak to be picked up by anything except for the huge military transmissions and the SETI radio telescope signals. But even with those signals, if you were on a planet 50 miles away, you would need a radio telescope with a surface area of 3 km or more, and if you were thousands of lightyears away, you would need a radio telescope larger than the distance between the earth and the moon. So, if they were the same technological level at us, I would find it unlikeley that anyone has heard our callings.


And to actually SEE us from a thousand light years away, you would need a telescope with a mirror that stretches the distance between the sun and jupiter.

and since the universal constant is light, it is unlikely that anoyone has traveled to earth, unless they found some way to break the speed limit.

I bet there is intelligent life out there, and either they are not advanced enough to send radio signals, or they have not been sending them long enough, or we just dont have the technology to pick up such a weak signal

There are solar systems only 4 lightyears away from us. So even without beaking the speed limit they could travel here. And who knows, maybe they can live for 10,000 years, unlike us.

 

[theotherguy]

There are solar systems only 4 lightyears away from us. So even without beaking the speed limit they could travel here. And who knows, maybe they can live for 10,000 years, unlike us.

the nearest solar system with planets is around 60 lightyears away, and even it only has 3 gas giants, no rocky planets. Technically, the ones that are closer to us are mereley stars, not actual system

 

[LoneDeranger]

the nearest solar system with planets is around 60 lightyears away, and even it only has 3 gas giants, no rocky planets. Technically, the ones that are closer to us are mereley stars, not actual system

Well actually we don't have a good way of finding planets similar to earth because they are too small.

In fact, the Alpha Centauri star system (the closest one to us) has the right conditions for an earth-like planet that could have life on it.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Area 51 break-in? Alrighty then.
McHammer, you sneak in while me and Tredo distract the guards. Once in you can steal a uniform, knowkc out the guards and then we'll all dress up as them and stealth our way in. How's Thursday?
But on the subject...who knows? If all they can pick up is 50s TV, they'll never want to come within a lightyear of us...

 

[Lil' Timmy]

wow, my post was completely and utterly ignored. i take that as a sign that i'm just operating on a level so far beyond the rest of you guys. damn i'm smart.

let me know how your investigation of aera51 goes.. take lots of pics.

if aliens have been watching tv for the last several decades, maybe they've become as stupid as we are..

 

[CrazyHarij]

If we aren't alone in this universe I hope outer space is packed with cool Aliens from the movie with the same name and Predators.

 

[Brian Damage]

Actually, we've only been sending frequencies THROUGH out amosphere since around the fifties, most of our broadcasts are to weak to be picked up by anything except for the huge military transmissions and the SETI radio telescope signals. But even with those signals, if you were on a planet 50 miles away, you would need a radio telescope with a surface area of 3 km or more, and if you were thousands of lightyears away, you would need a radio telescope larger than the distance between the earth and the moon. So, if they were the same technological level at us, I would find it unlikeley that anyone has heard our callings.


And to actually SEE us from a thousand light years away, you would need a telescope with a mirror that stretches the distance between the sun and jupiter.

That's not entirely accurate.

There are several designs for an arrangement of telescopes (I think it's called an "interferometer") that use two or more telescopes of any kind to do the work of one big one.

Basically, if you have two telescopes a certain distance apart from each other, both focused on the same spot, you can use some fancy mathematical algorithms (Or something like that. I forget. I haven't read up on it for a year now. Terrible memory, too.) to make a composite picture equal in quality to one from a single gigantic telescope.

The US government/NASA is going to construct one in space sooner or later... the dimensions involved will allow us to see an Earth-like planet within a certain distance of our solar system. Later versions will allow us to see surface detail.

 

[Gorgon]

No we are not alone.

:rolling:

 

[jimbones]

I doubt they'd want anything to to do with us...

 

[PvtRyan]

Rather, species only evolve by process of natural selection (e.g dinosaur breeds with longest necks to eat off tall trees were more likely to survive etc)

I believe, *if* the greys are future earthlings that they are genetically modified beings, severely altered DNA or possibly completely synthesized DNA. I cannot see humans naturally evolving INTO this creature.

It's possible, even in a stable enviroment natural selection still has a small grip on us. But who's to tell if their enviroment (I mean the guys from the future) was always stable? Maybe the magnetic field around earth weakened severly (actually it's weakening as we speak and it will switch poles in the not too distant future) and wasn't restored and it exposed us to the suns radiation? What if their grey skin is a somewhat protecting armor. Which can't be right because their big black eyes would absorb huge amounts of radiation

But perhaps some massive disaster upped the need of adapting (selection pressure) because all of their technology is destroyed (because right now we adapt the enviroment to us, instead of us adapting to the enviroment).
Maybe they aren't grey, but very very pale, that could be caused by further degeneration of the genes who give us our pigment (caucasians and asians are degenerations of black people, ironically the opposite of what Hitler suggested) because the pigment isn't needed anymore. We lost all of our body hairs for the same reason.

And our heads growing that big wouldn't be strange, because the reason for our big heads was that our ancestors changed their eating habits preserving more energy for their brains which could then grow larger. Nowadays, there is plenty of food and thus energy, we could easily feed the energy need of much larger brains. And it would be a huge advantage.

 

[mchammer75040]

And our heads growing that big wouldn't be strange, because the reason for our big heads was that our ancestors changed their eating habits preserving more energy for their brains which could then grow larger. Nowadays, there is plenty of food and thus energy, we could easily feed the energy need of much larger brains. And it would be a huge advantage.

Yes but theres only one problem with that, birth. If we were to have much bigger heads like the "greys" suggest that would cause a problem at birth since we might not be able to fit through the womb! Ofcorse you could do a C-section but it would still cause problems. So even if we are to have huge brains its going to take massive adaptations over a long long time.

As far as theorys go, Ive always thought that it is totally plausible that we are a part of some kind of experiment. They could be documenting us and everynow and then helping us(such as i suggested with the "gods" giving the Egyptians tools and technology). It would explain the concept of "gods" coming from the sky or "souls" going into the sky after death that are found in religions.

 

[dawdler]

Lets phrase it this way:

If you sit down and think on logically from a human point of view with the internet constellation as a helper, we can answer;
Are we alone? Nope.
Is there intelligent life out there? Hmm... Hmmmmmmmm... Doubtfull.

:E

On a more serious note, as I mentioned recently in another thread, a lander has already tested positive for life on Mars.

 

[Brian Damage]

When did that happen, dawdler?

EDIT: All this reminds me of that song from Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life:

"So pray that there's intelligent life,
Somewhere out in space,
'cos there's bugger all down here on the Earth..."