Aliens and ufos: what to you think?

[Papewaio]

Here, I doubt it.

In our Galaxy. Well the Drake Equation estimated maybe ten civilizations on parity with us.

So an optimistic astronomer would estimate ten at our level in our local galaxy right now.

Say there is only one in this galaxy right now. Then We are it's eyes and ears. Bit of a responsibility.

Be a pessimist and say the Drake equation is two or three orders of magnitude over confident... With some in the order of 100 billion galaxies out there... That means there is potentially 100 million to a billion civilizations out there.

The bigger question is where are they? Most of science doesn't assume that we are unique. IFF we are that is a very massive responsibility.

Oh btw on current tech we could easily get across our galaxy in the order of ten million years... Which is tiny considering dinosaurs walked the Earth 65 million years ago and ruled the earth for so long.

[B-Wing]

I'm not sure whether the OP was intended more to speculate on the existence of alien lifeforms or to discuss the significance of reported sightings and encounters, but I'm definitely more interested in the later. I've never had an experience that I could attribute to aliens, but it seems many people have. Such reports make me extremely curious, and I wonder how they can be explained. UFO sights and aliens abductions are obviously two very different things, and the former is probably easier to dismiss than the later, but it seems extremely unlikely that so many people have had such experiences if they aren't possible in the first place.

I had a roommate who is still one of the most honest and respectable friends I have, and he told me once about an experience he had as a child. He claims to recall seeing beings that he believes were aliens in his bedroom one night. He didn't say they moved him or harmed him in any way, but he knows what he experienced. Many people have reported similar experiences. The only explanation I've heard that doesn't involve supernatural entities is sleep paralysis.

[naut]

I've never had an experience that I could attribute to aliens, but it seems many people have. Such reports make me extremely curious, and I wonder how they can be explained. UFO sights and aliens abductions are obviously two very different things, and the former is probably easier to dismiss than the later, but it seems extremely unlikely that so many people have had such experiences if they aren't possible in the first place.

The real question regarding these so called sightings is: Why would aliens reveal themselves to loonies and hicks? Surely if they wanted to make an impact or talk to us they would have identified our leaders and approached them. If they have the technology to get here in the first place they surely have the technology to find out who the important people on our planet are.

[Major Robert Dump]

The real question regarding these so called sightings is: Why would aliens reveal themselves to loonies and hicks? Surely if they wanted to make an impact or talk to us they would have identified our leaders and approached them. If they have the technology to get here in the first place they surely have the technology to find out who the important people on our planet are.

Ah, yes, the superiority of man

Based on your argument, they have the ability to observe us, and to observe the fact that we kill each other wholesale. I don't blame them for not wanting to reveal themselves. By keeping contact to the hillbillies they keep their identity safe.

I mean seriously. How do you think DC and the internet comments on yahoo news makes mankind look?

[gaelic cowboy]

The real question regarding these so called sightings is: Why would aliens reveal themselves to loonies and hicks? Surely if they wanted to make an impact or talk to us they would have identified our leaders and approached them. If they have the technology to get here in the first place they surely have the technology to find out who the important people on our planet are.

Why is it impossible? Maybe we don't understand everything about physics everywhere and forever, eh? So why not?

You make the mistake of attributing human motivations to them.

Surely, impossible, 100%, 0, definitely, never: stop that.

People always seem to think that advanced races may generally avoid more primitive ones purely cos of Star Trek, in fact the monetary benefits of interfering with a less advanced race probably mean it is not a likely scenario.


For all advanced races to have a rule about not interfering would obviously require that they all have the same rule, clearly that would be an unlikely assumption to be true.

[Crazed Rabbit]

With regard to the Drake Equation, courtesy of XKCD;


The time required to travel to a different galaxy is so inconceivably great that pondering civilizations in other galaxies will always be purely academic.

The nearest non-dwarf galaxy is two million light years away. Light takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to earth. Now imagine not eight minutes but two million years traveling at the absolute fastest anything in this universe can travel to reach just the closest spiral galaxy.

Intelligent life out there somewhere? Maybe. But I hope we never find any - or rather that none ever finds us.

As for UFOs? Bah - we could detect any foreign object in our solar system easily enough to find any spaceship coming at us.

Here, I doubt it.

In our Galaxy. Well the Drake Equation estimated maybe ten civilizations on parity with us.

So an optimistic astronomer would estimate ten at our level in our local galaxy right now.

Say there is only one in this galaxy right now. Then We are it's eyes and ears. Bit of a responsibility.

Be a pessimist and say the Drake equation is two or three orders of magnitude over confident... With some in the order of 100 billion galaxies out there... That means there is potentially 100 million to a billion civilizations out there.

The bigger question is where are they? Most of science doesn't assume that we are unique. IFF we are that is a very massive responsibility.

Oh btw on current tech we could easily get across our galaxy in the order of ten million years... Which is tiny considering dinosaurs walked the Earth 65 million years ago and ruled the earth for so long.

[Kagemusha]

Im not sure about any of that stuff, but if traversible wormholes exist.We can throw into trashcan anything we imagine about distances in space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Seriously though, I think there is a very large possibility that there is sentient extraterrestrial life somewhere out there, I doubt they'll come visit anytime soon though.

[A Nerd]

Mr. Spock says:



Technology is moving quickly. Perhaps someday.

[Fisherking]

True confessions time.

In July of 1967 I saw a UFO. Meaning something in the air that I could not identify as any aircraft I had ever seen before or since.

It was very near sundown on a very clear summer evening. My original vantage point started at perhaps, half a mile and closed to around 400 yards. I may have observed it for perhaps, a minute and a half.

I was traveling in a car and was about 4 miles from my home along a road I had often traveled and knew like the back of my hand. I saw movement to my left and saw an object passing just over a house and across the highway.

It was a metallic silvery object and rounded above and below from what I could see. The view was in profile and it appeared like an oval shape at that point, with no typical control surfaces on the aircraft. It looked to be about 40 to 45 feet long.

It was at an altitude of only about 25 to 30 feet and moving very slowly when I first saw it. It moved from right to left (roughly west to east), moving next to a house at about rooftop level (single story house) across the road and descended in altitude to perhaps 10 feet off the ground. Across the road was a ditch and the other side of that was a railroad build on an embankment.

When it was just short of the railroad it stopped and hovered for a moment and seemed to be surrounded by an iridescent blue light. The forward end lifted up and at this point it appeared to have a roughly triangle shape but very rounded at the edges and looked to be perhaps 25 feet wide. It remained in that attitude for a few seconds, started to glow in a much stronger light and then suddenly shot away at incredible speed.

It seemingly zigzagged to a height where it looked like a star in the southern sky and then moved at extraordinary speed east, southeast until it was lost from sight in the clear night sky.

Details of the craft that I remember: there seemed to be a port or a lager light on the side and the forward area seemed to have an opening or view port that was of a deep blue color.

That is the one and only time I have seen such a thing. It was definitely physical and defiantly technological. But that is all I know. Who made it or who was flying it would just be conjecture.

But I can say it was shocking.

As to various possibilities of being visited, we don’t have the technology for interstellar flight but because we don’t know how dose not mean that it can not be done, dose it?

[Kagemusha]

True confessions time.

In July of 1967 I saw a UFO. Meaning something in the air that I could not identify as any aircraft I had ever seen before or since.

It was very near sundown on a very clear summer evening. My original vantage point started at perhaps, half a mile and closed to around 400 yards. I may have observed it for perhaps, a minute and a half.

I was traveling in a car and was about 4 miles from my home along a road I had often traveled and knew like the back of my hand. I saw movement to my left and saw an object passing just over a house and across the highway.

It was a metallic silvery object and rounded above and below from what I could see. The view was in profile and it appeared like an oval shape at that point, with no typical control surfaces on the aircraft. It looked to be about 40 to 45 feet long.

It was at an altitude of only about 25 to 30 feet and moving very slowly when I first saw it. It moved from right to left (roughly west to east), moving next to a house at about rooftop level (single story house) across the road and descended in altitude to perhaps 10 feet off the ground. Across the road was a ditch and the other side of that was a railroad build on an embankment.

When it was just short of the railroad it stopped and hovered for a moment and seemed to be surrounded by an iridescent blue light. The forward end lifted up and at this point it appeared to have a roughly triangle shape but very rounded at the edges and looked to be perhaps 25 feet wide. It remained in that attitude for a few seconds, started to glow in a much stronger light and then suddenly shot away at incredible speed.

It seemingly zigzagged to a height where it looked like a star in the southern sky and then moved at extraordinary speed east, southeast until it was lost from sight in the clear night sky.

Details of the craft that I remember: there seemed to be a port or a lager light on the side and the forward area seemed to have an opening or view port that was of a deep blue color.

That is the one and only time I have seen such a thing. It was definitely physical and defiantly technological. But that is all I know. Who made it or who was flying it would just be conjecture.

But I can say it was shocking.

As to various possibilities of being visited, we don’t have the technology for interstellar flight but because we don’t know how dose not mean that it can not be done, dose it?

Who knows what that was. By the way were you driving the whole time or did you instantly stop when you saw the thing?

[Beskar]

As for UFOs? Bah - we could detect any foreign object in our solar system easily enough to find any spaceship coming at us.

I remember reading about that, it would take a matter of milliseconds to detect some one lighting up a cigarette in orbit of mars simply because the energy readings are so low in the surroundings, lighting up a cigarette is like watching a firework display in your back garden on the sensors. Obviously, it becomes very clouded if you have other objects need by like the space-ship which can cloud the fact the astronaut lit up, but it is simply hypothetical.

[gaelic cowboy]

Are Aliens real and do they exist, I would safely say given the size of the universe that it is indeed highly likely.

Are they on earth right now or are they visiting on a regular basis, I would say given the size of the universe again it is unlikely they have been or are here.

One point of concern is that it should really only takes one civilisation to achieve interplanatery colonization, no matter how advanced or primitive to completely flood our galaxy with there own species. This may or may not be a mark against there being another advanced civilisation in our galaxy at the same time as us.

I certainly hope if we ever do meet any aliens species that it is us the humans who are the more advanced beings.

[Montmorency]

Notice how I said at this point in time? It maybe possible that our planet is stumbled upon when our race is long dead. But, today, at this moment. Impossible.

Why is it impossible? Maybe we don't understand everything about physics everywhere and forever, eh? So why not?

The real question regarding these so called sightings is: Why would aliens reveal themselves to loonies and hicks? Surely if they wanted to make an impact or talk to us they would have identified our leaders and approached them. If they have the technology to get here in the first place they surely have the technology to find out who the important people on our planet are.

You make the mistake of attributing human motivations to them.

Surely, impossible, 100%, 0, definitely, never: stop that.

[Papewaio]

The nearest non-dwarf galaxy is two million light years away. Light takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to earth. Now imagine not eight minutes but two million years traveling at the absolute fastest anything in this universe can travel to reach just the closest spiral galaxy.

Relativisitc travel... if we get near to the speed of light...then the perceived journey time could be quite short. Or just a massive multigenerational arkship (todays tech) or extended life or 'hypersleep' or just a bank of embryo's and artificial wombs... 2 million light years @ 0.1c is possible once we have the resources of an entire galaxy (still a 20 million year voyage)... and with a little more tech some of it could be a lot more possible... this is without any leaps and bounds in current physics understanding.

Intelligent life out there somewhere? Maybe. But I hope we never find any - or rather that none ever finds us.

As for UFOs? Bah - we could detect any foreign object in our solar system easily enough to find any spaceship coming at us.

We can't simultaneously track all the asteriods in the interior asteroid belt let alone the Oort cloud.

[Drunk Clown]

I just love how aliens look like; according to so called "sightings".

But what about god(s)? Are they the aliens? I mean they come from the sky, don't they.

[Montmorency]

Hey, what if we're all aliens?

You see, we arrived on this planet hundreds of eons ago, but our advanced technologies soon informed us that environmental cataclysms would annihilate our species. To save ourselves, we constructed machines that could transfer our consciousnesses into sentient receptacles that either preceded or succeeded us. As a result, some of us came to inhabit the bodies of these so-called "humans." Of course, in doing so we effectively wiped out the human race: all original human consciousnesses have been replaced (read: destroyed).

Hence the concept of liberal guilt.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Relativisitc travel... if we get near to the speed of light...then the perceived journey time could be quite short. Or just a massive multigenerational arkship (todays tech) or extended life or 'hypersleep' or just a bank of embryo's and artificial wombs... 2 million light years @ 0.1c is possible once we have the resources of an entire galaxy (still a 20 million year voyage)... and with a little more tech some of it could be a lot more possible... this is without any leaps and bounds in current physics understanding.

Ah, but perception is definitely not reality in this case. As for an ark ship - what device could we produce that could survive in the extreme void of the universe for 20,000,000 years? And how could we aim it at an inhabitable planet?

We can't simultaneously track all the asteriods in the interior asteroid belt let alone the Oort cloud.

So? I'm not talking about asteroids, but powered (and heated) spaceships - like a flare in the dark night when they travel in space.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardetect.php

The Space Shuttle's much weaker main engines could be detected past the orbit of Pluto. The Space Shuttle's manoeuvering thrusters could be seen as far as the asteroid belt. And even a puny ship using ion drive to thrust at a measly 1/1000 of a g could be spotted at one astronomical unit. [93 million miles]
...
"Well FINE!!", you say, "I'll turn off the engines and run silent like a submarine in a World War II movie. I'll be invisible." Unfortunately that won't work either. The life support for your crew emits enough heat to be detected at an exceedingly long range. The 285 Kelvin habitat module will stand out like a search-light against the three Kelvin background of outer space.

And if you are hoping to lose your tiny heat signature in the vastness of the sky, I've got some bad news for you. Current astronomical instruments can do a complete sky survey in about four hours, or less.

CR

[Ibrahim]

well, in dozens of years of observing the sky, looking for these mythical Alien spacecrafts, I've yet to find anything that couldn't (FAR) more accurately be accounted for by perfectly Earthly causes. I remember this one time, when I saw an airplane at night (lighting pattern was for a passenger plane-a Boeing 737 or 747), when I was in that one Texas county.

the next day, it was all over the news as a "UFO" sighting...

and before people say that they saw some weird object so and so ft long, moving (or hovering) so and so feet per second, my question is: how can you tell? most of these sightings make no mention of a reference point, with which to compare the object to (and even then, it is pretty difficult, if not impossible, to tell). this is important, since the object is supposedly flying in a more or less featureless sky (clouds don't work either).

and for the record: Aliens probably do exist... there's just no evidence and no known feasible means for them to get over here-assuming that there are even an ET life forms of sufficient, human-like intelligence. of course, if I see a body of an alien (or an alien prisoner?), then we can start talking

[B-Wing]

Thank you for sharing, FisherKing! Very interesting.

BTW, somewhat off-topic, but have any of you seen the X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"? It's one of the few humorous episodes of the series, and the plot revolves around several disagreeing stories about an alien encounter.