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UFO's

citybythesea said:
But it would more foolish to assume our destructive tendencies are universal throughout the cosmos
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I’m not assuming that. It is possible though and since the only species we know that has enough intelligence and technology to fly in space is a horrible, selfish and destructive species then surely it is fair to consider that in our estimates.
 

skullmeister said:
They main here is the acceptance that hey exist. They've been seen by expert witnesses, they've been videoed, they've been tracked by radar and the US govt confirms there is no known technology on earth that can replicate what they do and are confident it's no a Russian or Chinese secret weapon.

I suppose its back to the same questions again, what are they and where do they come from.
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Eye witnesses can be mistaken, hallucinating or lying, radar can be faulty, reading a radar is subject to human error, and conclusions can be jumped to by people all along the chain of information without knowing all the facts. That's a lot of things that should keep us skeptical about these reports.

Take that report with the jet and the radar and the object that apparently dropped from high altitude to sea level then seemingly travelled 60km in a second. If the thing had no visible markings on it, then how do they know that the one 60km away was THE SAME ONE?

What if the military (ours or China's) was testing out some new kind of bouncing bomb, spy drone or missile that could be launched stealthily, possibly even from crazy high altitudes or from space, which then would travel at super-high speeds towards the earth, level off or bounce on water, before disappearing under the water?

Now what if they decided they'd launch two of them for the test, 30 seconds apart from each other, targetted 60km away from each other and the pilots just didn't spot the second one until the first one disappeared? If we assume that there's only one object then "whoah it travelled 60km in a second.... nothing on Earth could do that!" but if there were actually two in the first place then, oh, no big deal, another one 60km away and no unearthly speed is necessary to get it there.
 
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As I always say about extraterrestrial life, I’m open to the thought of it being a possibility.

The thought that we are the only ‘intelligent’ life in the universe is such a depressing prospect tbh and makes me want to launch myself into the abyss of space myself.

I prefer to pretend we are a Truman show style experiment by a race of highly evolved interplanetary beings.
 
Gentwo said:
As I always say about extraterrestrial life, I’m open to the thought of it being a possibility.

The thought that we are the only ‘intelligent’ life in the universe is such a depressing prospect tbh and makes me want to launch myself into the abyss of space myself.

I prefer to pretend we are a Truman show style experiment by a race of highly evolved interplanetary beings.
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Absolutely. I wouldn’t be surprised if it exists. Neither would I be surprised if we detect signals from far away to show us that intelligent life existed millions of years ago. They may well have died out long ago and the radio waves could reach us long after they are gone.

Same as us. Aliens millions of years in the future might pick up our radio waves and watch Lassie, Gentle Ben and Free Willy. They might have get them wrong idea about life on this planet.

They’d better be quick though…. I can’t see many humans being around in 100 years let alone 100,000. Our window of being “radio active” (not radioactive) will be incredibly small.

I think the odds of intelligent life ever making it to this planet are tiny.
 
Steve H said:
The way I see it, if the universe is almost limitless, there must be almost limitless numbers of civilisations out there
That does not mean, of course, that they have been visiting us in their funny little flying saucers
Used to love 'My Favourite Martian' when I was a kid
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There are infinite numbers between the number zero and the number 1. None of them are 2.

It seems quite likely that, given the miniscule chance after miniscule chance that led to life forming, becoming more complex and eventually forming one species (seeningly) in the entire history of the planet which has what we would call intelligence, the chances of it occuring are that small that it will only happen once per universe. Or if it happens morw than once then they will be that far away in space and time that they will never meet for the entire lifetime of the universe.

Given the vastness of the universe, even if intelligent life were to form and evolve at a rate of 1 per galaxy, then it is unlikely that any of them will come across evidence of each other.
citybythesea said:
When you consider the estimates of the Drake equation just for our own galaxy, there could be 100sof millions civilisations
That’s just for the milkyway, multiple that by the 100s of billions galaxies and you’d have to be fairly close minded, with geocentric views to believe we are the only civilisation. I know someone will quote the Fermi paradox, but I think this is negated with the vastness of the universe. Which is beyond most peoples comprehension. It’s a particularly close minded view, that we’ve managed space flight in less than 100 hundred years, and others wouldn’t especially when the solar system is very young in astronomical terms.
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The drake equation doesnt really prove or estimate anything. It is merely a vehicle for conjecture which scientists occassionally roll out to convince politicians that they shpuld be spending more money on space technology.


It is a list of variables with no absolute constants and as such can show that there ar extra terrestials livong on every planet in the universe or that the universe is empty.

Its akin to guesswork really.
 
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Kent_Mackem said:
Same as us. Aliens millions of years in the future might pick up our radio waves and watch Lassie, Gentle Ben and Free Willy. They might have get them wrong idea about life on this planet.
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A great scene from Contact where they first decode the signal sent back to us from the visitors. Imagine! :eek: :lol:

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Far Tibetan Mountain said:
There are infinite numbers between the number zero and the number 1. None of them are 2.

It seems quite likely that, given the miniscule chance after miniscule chance that led to life forming, becoming more complex and eventually forming one species (seeningly) in the entire history of the planet which has what we would call intelligence, the chances of it occuring are that small that it will only happen once per universe.
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I'm interested in the once per universe odds of intelligent life forming.

Is that based on any scientific data at all?
 
fyl2u said:
Eye witnesses can be mistaken, hallucinating or lying, radar can be faulty, reading a radar is subject to human error, and conclusions can be jumped to by people all along the chain of information without knowing all the facts. That's a lot of things that should keep us skeptical about these reports.

Take that report with the jet and the radar and the object that apparently dropped from high altitude to sea level then seemingly travelled 60km in a second. If the thing had no visible markings on it, then how do they know that the one 60km away was THE SAME ONE?

What if the military (ours or China's) was testing out some new kind of bouncing bomb, spy drone or missile that could be launched stealthily, possibly even from crazy high altitudes or from space, which then would travel at super-high speeds towards the earth, level off or bounce on water, before disappearing under the water?

Now what if they decided they'd launch two of them for the test, 30 seconds apart from each other, targetted 60km away from each other and the pilots just didn't spot the second one until the first one disappeared? If we assume that there's only one object then "whoah it travelled 60km in a second.... nothing on Earth could do that!" but if there were actually two in the first place then, oh, no big deal, another one 60km away and no unearthly speed is necessary to get it there.
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“Lying” seems a much more plausible argument than two such objects. The object itself might be relatively stealthy (wait, no, pretty unlikely) but there is no reasonable way a launch vehicle for multiple such objects would go undetected.
 
KathyBatesHammer said:
My general understanding is:

In an infinite universe/infinite possibilies.

If life is possible. (It is, us) then there will be an infinite amount of life.

If intelligent life is possible. (It is, us) then there will be an infinite amount of intelligent life.

If something is possible, in an infinite universe then it must have happened an infinite number of time.

Or something like that.
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skullmeister said:
So no then
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On thw contrary. I have applied everything currently known about the universe to the drake equation and thats the answer that it gives. I will admit that there is some margin for error, but probably not enough of one that there will be any evidence to the contrary within our lifelimes which os essentially the same thing.
 
Kent_Mackem said:
Absolutely. I wouldn’t be surprised if it exists. Neither would I be surprised if we detect signals from far away to show us that intelligent life existed millions of years ago. They may well have died out long ago and the radio waves could reach us long after they are gone.

Same as us. Aliens millions of years in the future might pick up our radio waves and watch Lassie, Gentle Ben and Free Willy. They might have get them wrong idea about life on this planet.

They’d better be quick though…. I can’t see many humans being around in 100 years let alone 100,000. Our window of being “radio active” (not radioactive) will be incredibly small.

I think the odds of intelligent life ever making it to this planet are tiny.
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I would have hoped that they would get to watch Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo, and The Banana Splits as well! ;)
 
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