UFOs and Extra-Terrestrial Life.

[OutrightOJ]

Program I was watching yesterday brought this to mind. Obviously it depends entirely on your own opinions. Some of the evidence on the show was pretty damn conceivable.

Post your thoughts.

[squibbles]

I believe that there is other life in the universe. I mean, it is monumentally unlikely that there isn't really...what are the chances that there is only one planet in all that space that is capable of forming beings?

I am however somewhat sceptical of UFO claims, although there are a few that have interested me somewhat.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Chances are arbitrarily large that there is / has been life in the universe somewhere other than Earth.
Chances are arbitrarily small that any life capable of space travel will ever meet any other life capable of the same.

Intelligent life influencing Earth will be such a stupendously public and noticeable event that I won't believe today's UFO-chasing nutjobs while alleged UFO sightings and alien abductions are outnumbered by sightings of Bigfoot, jackalopes, and Elvis.

[Spawn of Yanni]

I don't think we've ever come into contact with extra-terrestrial life.

[Aldaric]

The universe is ifinitely large. So if anything has a small chance, multiply that by infinity and you get the probabilty that that thing exsists. So in theory there are infinite number of exact yous out there. O_0 Creepy. Doo do do do

[Broghan]

Aye, there is every chance that life exists outside of Earth, but the likelihood of a civilisation being advanced enough to master intergalactic space travel and somehow stumbling upon us is extraordinarily remote. It's kind of sad, when you think about it. I mean, there is even a possibility that we are the most advanced civilisation in the universe. That makes me laugh a little bit.
You never know, though. There could be something that we haven't discovered yet that will allow us to travel across galaxies and such successfully, that is without time dilation etc.

[SkyPanda]

The universe is ifinitely large. So if anything has a small chance, multiply that by infinity and you get the probabilty that that thing exsists. So in theory there are infinite number of exact yous out there. O_0 Creepy. Doo do do do

I don't think the universe has infinite material though, unless God makes DLC packs.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

The universe is ifinitely large. So if anything has a small chance, multiply that by infinity and you get the probabilty that that thing exsists. So in theory there are infinite number of exact yous out there. O_0 Creepy. Doo do do do

I don't think the universe has infinite material though, unless God makes DLC packs.

How would we pay for them? Virgin sacrifice?

[T3chno]

Obligatory Area 51 post.

[noops]

Yes, Suki, as well as burnt offerings of lamb.

Anyway. I agree with mostly everyone else, that the universe is so huge that anyone saying that we're alone is remarkably stupid.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that we have any alien neighbors around. Anyway, if some strange race actually did come here, it would most likely be for the cause of world domination, or maybe because, say, or livers make a good aphrodisiac for their women.

At least, that's what I think would happen.

[blackson]

Anyway, if some strange race actually did come here, it would most likely be for the cause of world domination, or maybe because, say, or livers make a good aphrodisiac for their women.

Oh don't be so cliche'.

[smartalco]

Oh no, you found me out.

[bobaganuesh_2]

Ask Whitley Streiber

[EdoI]

Here!
And this is a copy-paste of my almost one year old opinion:

I believe that there are bacterias in our solar system. I have heard couple of days ago that life on Earth possibly came from Mars, transported by a piece of Mars ripped off by a meteor. Weak Mars' gravity couldn't hold it. Then again, maybe there are some animals in some systems, or possibly cavemans. Or even some race closely intelligent to ours. I don't think there are some super intelligent beings in the Milky Way, because they could come to Earth that way. It's completely possible that there are some super intelligent races out of Milky Way, maybe even in our neighbor, Andromeda. That civilization could never contact us. It's because it's not possible to travel faster than light. Even Andromeda's light needs thousands of years to reach us. If there is a way to travel faster than light, actually it wouldn't be faster, they would go back in time as they race the light. So if they start now, they probably wouldn't wouldn't find us here. Then again, even if they go in this crazy mission, going back home with that speed would get back more in time, so they might even lose their own civilisation, depends how old it is. So we're possibly the most intelligent race that we'll ever meet.

[SkyPanda]

On what is the "life Elsewhere is unlikely to meet us" theory based?

[ZZ9]

The distance between solar systems. If there were an alien race on, say, the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy, (this one), it would take around 50,000 to 100,000 years for their signals to reach us, and for our signals to reach them. If they sent a signal to us the moment they discovered we existed, (with their magical telescopes that can see individuals across the span of galaxies) then we'd only discover it now. (Humanity as a species has only existed for 200,000 years)

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

(Humanity as a species has only existed for 200,000 years)

As an addendum:
And we've only started building things in the last 10,000-20,000, and broadcasting things into space in the last 50.

[capt_weasle]

Although we are getting better at advancing technology, and I believe that the rate will continue skyrocketing. Perhaps contact could come sooner than we think (but still unlikely in our life times, but who knows?).

[ZZ9]

Although it is true that technology is skyrocketing, it is impossible, as far as we know, for an object or signal to travel faster than light, under any circumstances. Also, if, by some unheard of magic, something does travel faster than light, it breaks our sense of causality. (Because the FTL object appears to travel back in time from certain reference frames, meaning that an event can cause itself.)

[Mute Monk]

Although it is true that technology is skyrocketing, it is impossible, as far as we know, for an object or signal to travel faster than light, under any circumstances. Also, if, by some unheard of magic, something does travel faster than light, it breaks our sense of causality. (Because the FTL object appears to travel back in time from certain reference frames, meaning that an event can cause itself.)

No matter what we think is possible today, in 1000 years half of it will be day-to-day. Just think of people in the Renaissance...the Internet would completely blow their minds, with near-instantaneous communication half-way around the world. I mean, we hold palm-sized devices in our hands that can send information into space and then get stuff back with equal speed. We have no clue what we'll be doing even 100 years from now, so there's really no use saying one thing is possible and another isn't.

There are hypothetical ways to achieve "apparent" superluminal travel, which is just as good as the real deal (even better, in fact, because you're not defying relativity). The Alcubierre drive is one such hypothetical solution.

As for the existence of life outside the Earth, it is statistically extremely likely. But since I have no direct way of either proving or disproving the existence of alien life forms, I won't bother giving a straight yes or no. "Probably"...I'll leave it at that.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

As for the existence of life outside the Earth, it is statistically extremely likely.

Do you mean concurrently, or ever?

[Mute Monk]

Ever. At some point either in the past, present or future, it's very likely that life will exist somewhere without having originated here.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Ever. At some point either in the past, present or future, it's very likely that life will exist somewhere without having originated here.

Well then I disagree with that completely. I think it's very likely that there has been life somewhere in the universe at some point in its entire history before us.
It only took a few hundred million years for life to form here after Earth formed. I think the misconception of the need for extremely specific circumstances for life to form is a silly byproduct of the Fine Tuning Argument for Creationism. How do we keep forgetting how frequently NASA talks about the total possibility of life on Mars or various moons of Saturn and Jupiter? Shit, the only reason we've ruled out life on Venus is the stupidly hostile atmosphere; if it didn't have that, we'd be sending probes there, too.
But y'know what? Even if a life-supporting planet needed to be in a position nearly identical to Earth, what makes you think that such circumstances couldn't possibly have existed at any point in the universe's history? There are an estimated 3x10^21 planets in our universe. You name a distance, there's probably quadrillions of planets in the universe that are exactly that distance away from their nearest star. Maybe only mere billions of them have conditions pretty much exactly as we have them on Earth. And I'll bet you damned near anything that within a few hundred million years, life developed on at least one of them. And that's simply right now; this ridiculously large chance of life originating somewhere in the universe doesn't even take into account that the universe has had 14 billion years try, with God knows how many planets in past years, or future.
Consider also that we only know of these restrictions to apply to carbon-based life.

[otters~1]

Ever. At some point either in the past, present or future, it's very likely that life will exist somewhere without having originated here.

Well then I disagree with that completely. I think it's very likely that there has been life somewhere in the universe at some point in its entire history before us.
It only took a few hundred million years for life to form here after Earth formed. I think the misconception of the need for extremely specific circumstances for life to form is a silly byproduct of the Fine Tuning Argument for Creationism. How do we keep forgetting how frequently NASA talks about the total possibility of life on Mars or various moons of Saturn and Jupiter? Shit, the only reason we've ruled out life on Venus is the stupidly hostile atmosphere; if it didn't have that, we'd be sending probes there, too.
But y'know what? Even if a life-supporting planet needed to be in a position nearly identical to Earth, what makes you think that such circumstances couldn't possibly have existed at any point in the universe's history? There are an estimated 3x10^21 planets in our universe. You name a distance, there's probably quadrillions of planets in the universe that are exactly that distance away from their nearest star. Maybe only mere billions of them have conditions pretty much exactly as we have them on Earth. And I'll bet you damned near anything that within a few hundred million years, life developed on at least one of them. And that's simply right now; this ridiculously large chance of life originating somewhere in the universe doesn't even take into account that the universe has had 14 billion years try, with God knows how many planets in past years, or future.
Consider also that we only know of these restrictions to apply to carbon-based life.

Wait, wait, wait. Didn't you just viciously agree with Mute_Monk? You're both arguing that there will be/has been/is life out there somewhere. Which is correct, incidentally.

[squibbles]

How do you know that? Are you an alien? Does this mean that Baba Yanga shit is right?