@Arcane - Please do yourself a favor and see this --- Definition of "woo-woo" --- Stay away from the Woo other than for mere entertainment value. It's literally designed as a scam to deceive.

Example - It is valid to assume there is some connection between why so many cultures constructed pyramids and that connection is Physics. When all you have is stone and wood the ONLY way to build tall in Earth's gravity is... yup, getting progressively smaller area as you go up. You can test this by letting sand fall from your palm. The result is always conical in shape.

@sevendogsbsd - I don't think any reasonably educated person thinks "There is NO Life in the Universe but here". Anyone with any brains and education recognizes that the odds are pretty high that somewhere, at some time, other lifeforms are likely to have existed or will exist. It may even turn out to be utterly commonplace. However it also stands to reason, based on what we know so far, that what we consider to be Intelligence is likely substantially more rare. The next step down is Intelligence leading to Technology which our own (admittedly limited) experience shows simple lifeforms vastly outweigh Intelligent ones and of those only extremely few even use tools.

That is likely in our view because we see it all around us, including the building blocks of Life essentially everywhere we look, so that's pretty solid reasoning. Beyond that is mere speculation because anything more, including interstellar travel, we have yet to see at all. We don't even yet know if Interstellar Travel is actually and physically possible especially if other intelligent beings measure their lifespans in a few hundred years or less. It is glorious and exciting to imagine it but it is only that - Imagination, so far.

Absolutely. Also, just because it hasn't been officially announced that another lifeform hasn't got the necessary technology to reach this planet, it doesn't mean there is no other lifeform that does have such technology.

There HAVE been a number of incidents in many countries that really put a lot of doubt on the ideas that; a) we are all alone in the universe, and b) that no other intelligent lifeform has the technology to get to this planet from very far away. And to me personally it's VERY small minded thinking that particularly the first idea there is actually true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westall_UFO

...just to name a few.

of course (alien) life exists somewhere in the universe!
i cannot say anything about it being intelligent, because i am intelligent enough to recognize that i would be unable to assess their intelligence.

claiming anything else is tantamount to saying things like "our religion is the only true religion" or "the human race has been favored by god and is, therefore, god-like" or things like that.

i recently listened to an interview with 4 scientists specialising in finding extra-terrestrial life, and surprisingly only 2 of them said "i believe 100%, there is life somewhere out there". weird. but i guess that's a scientist's mind in a nutshell for you.

Maybe the other two set their threshold for "belief" higher than those two.

One of my school chemistry teachers taught us that atomic theory would only ever be a theory because the nature of our senses meant we could never have primary evidence of the existence of atoms. (Some impressive images of 'atoms' were already published, but they were sufficiently removed from direct observation to be considered secondary.) I'll stick my neck out and say I think most chemists believe in atoms, but you could probably find some who'll tell you they don't.


Hmm, I thought I'd posted this before, but can't find it:

but this is fundamentally different from "believing in aliens".
imo, it would be incredibly self-centered to believe that we are the only ones who succeedded with life etc. - esp. given the vastness of the universe.
or are you disputing that what we are seeing through all those telescopes might not be other planets, suns, star systems, galaxies?

or maybe they are trying all the time, and we're just too stupid to recognize it?

on topic: Laurie Anderson - Mach 20

Just found a VERY interesting video in the following link below. It doesn't just talk about witness accounts, but Police Officers that have witnessed UFO's, in multiple countries. This police officer was also testifying at National Press Club. It's the first video in that same link below.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/en...18183457766317

^ just for the record, this is NOT what I'm talking about when I say "belive in aliens".
For me there's a huuuuge difference between believing that (intelligent) life exists elsewhere in the universe, and believing that they visited planet earth (and usually the story then continues "but nobody believes me and the XYZ and ZYX are trying to shut me up").

And nobody is saying that they are one of the same thing - I'm sure there is a big difference between the two. But it certainly (and as said before) is very possible that aliens do indeed have the technology to reach this planet. And once again, there HAVE been a number of incidents all over the world that strongly suggest at least some aliens do indeed have such technology.

But like there are some very small minded people that believe nonsense like "we are the only intelligent life in the entire universe", there are people that seem to think that another intelligent lifeform could not possibly be more technologically advanced that us humans. Not to mention people that seem to think that we know all there is to know about science, even some that admit themselves that science is a constant process of learning new things, improving our knowledge, and re-evaluating what we THINK we already know.

The other point of course is that it also depends on how you define "intelligent". You could consider a dog to be "intelligent", in that: you can teach a dog to sit, understand words like it's name, etc, but good luck teaching it to program a computer, it's just not going to happen. But I certainly would think (and at least hope) that their WOULD alien races somewhere out there in the universe that WOULD be far more advanced than us humans - probably in every way imaginable - well, if they are smart enough not to get too close to us, then I think that proves they have at least some brains/intelligence.

Actually we don't really know if "it is very possible" that ANY mass, let alone lifeforms can even achieve let alone survive the speeds (or other energy requirements) necessary to travel interstellar distances. We know from particle accelerators that even material as small as protons at relativistic speeds tend to annihilate each other upon chance collision.

The fasted manned craft built by humans, Apollo 10, managed 0.004% (that's 0.00004 of light speed). Do the math. Just to reach 10% light speed (assuming not only the energy required to get there but that microscopic debris wouldn't turn it instantly into Swiss cheese) is going 2500 times as fast.

At 10% (0.1) Light Speed our very nearest stellar neighbor would require a 40 year trip utterly discounting the time and other requirements to slow back down. Considering that, it could be as much as 80 years. There are other life risks we don't even know about yet but the ones we do know about are daunting enough that anyone actually in the know does not know if it even can be possible, ever, at least for anything more complex than sub-atomic particles. We've been capable of survivable atmospheric flight of almost 18,000 mph with returning Space Shuttle Columbia but that is at the limits of what not only we, but what materials can manage. There is in fact a limit to how fast mass can travel in an atmosphere without disintegrating and we don't know for certain that does not also exist in Space. Space is not empty.

Speculation is fun but it is just that... speculation. Regarding "intelligent alien" speculation I think it is extremely speculative to imagine we can understand each other. The recent film Arrival plays a bit with this concept. Closer to home, Dr. Lilly spent years trying to develop communication with dolphins who are possibly more intelligent, in their own adapted way, than humans, but still "born and bred" loosely on the same planetary conditions as we. He failed. Some pretty spectacular results with apes and chimps have been accomplished but all of them are less successful than communicating with a 4 year old human. Consider that there is only 1% difference in DNA between humans and chimps and then consider aliens may not even have DNA, may not even be carbon-based.

The best speculation I have ever come across regarding alien life forms is this novel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1551277.Sounding where the protagonist is an old sperm whale who ponders the difference between the intelligence of Orcas, Dolphins, other Whales, and Homo Sapiens. It's a great book and a real shame it's not more widely read.

I haven't read the whole of this thread (tl;dr) so I may be duplicating someone else's post, but what we now know about the early stages of evolution makes complex life forms rather less likely than we used to think.

Intelligent life has to be multicellular and multicellular life has to be eukaryotic. Prokaryotes (bacteria and the like) are not going to produce intelligence. But we know now that eukaryotes evolved through two rather unlikely events:

1) An archaian (not a bacterium but something outwardly rather similar) shucked off its outer capsule, enabling it to grow to amoeba size. Some modern bacteria do this too, but they don't grow any bigger, probably because the "amoeba" ecological slot is already taken. This entity could now feed on other archaeans and bacteria in the same way that amoebas do: by putting out "fingers" of protoplasm and grabbing them.

2) This archaean grabbed and ate a bacterium which had learned to cope with high oxygen levels. It carried an atom of iron with which it reduced the oxygen to water, in the process liberating the solar energy that had been used to create it from water in the first place. Instead of digesting this bacterium, the archaean host kept it alive as an internal symbiont. It multiplied within its host and the host's offspring inherited these symbionts. Result: free energy supplies and the ability to survive oxygen poisoning. Huge success! Eventually host and symbionts integrated and became eukaryotic cells with a nucleus and mitochondria. And later these gave rise to multicellular life.

Prokaryotic life in the universe may be common enough; the organic building materials are certainly common. It might not be that rare for a prokaryote to lose its capsule and start living an amoeba-like life. But the second stage is so unlikely that I doubt if has happened twice in the same galaxy. Unless of course there is a God who brings about such things.

enorbet, with all respect, if we are going to continue to debate based on the bubble of "what we currently know as far science is concerned", then there is not much point in even discussing it.

So a couple of points;

1) We once again DON'T know all there is to know.

2) If you are telling me that I should ignore any and all eyewitness accounts that describe things that "what we currently know about science" cannot explain, then I'm really sorry, but no, it's with all respect (and I'm not calling yourself a fool), a fool's argument to say "based on the limited amount of information we currently know, it's not possible or is unlikely to be possible", so you can keep talking about "light speed" all you want. It's still does not mean "it's not possible or is unlikely to be possible". I'd suggest you have a look at this, as that video seems to say very different, and bear in mind the person in that video does in fact explain why "light speed" has nothing to do with it when one has the right technology.

3) If you expect me to ignore what credible people have said, from all walks of life and government, at some point or another, including serving police officers who have no reason to lie about such things, and every reason NOT to say anything at all, then I'm sorry, but no, I cannot, and will not. Let alone what I've seen with my own two eyes, particularly when it would be far easier if I was actually just imagining it - I wish I was, but it was no imagination, that I can promise you if I can promise you nothing else.

So keep ignoring what would be called evidence in a court of law, I'm not fooled.

Well, hazel, Even at a billion to one odds that could be hundreds or even thousands of higher forms just in this one galaxy of hundreds of billions. The truly huge factor is Time. At most "humans" (including rather distant ancestors) walked around now for 8 million years. Simple sponges have been around relatively unchanged for roughly 600 million years hile Cyanobacteria has managed 2,800 million years. Obviously we have no evidence that higher forms last longer or that intelligence is necessarily an attribute important to longevity. It may well be that species tend not to survive technology... or combine with it and evolve beyond recognition and our understanding.

I love this grand perspective https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Calendar . It's quite humbling and triumphant all at the same time, as well as a mind boggling vision of "the Vast Ocean of Time" .

Hello jsbjsb001. I should make it clear that I am in no way doubting that you have seen something you can't explain, but those last three words should be emboldened capitalized italics, assuming you're not trying to tell me you actually met alien creatures from some other world, let alone abducted and probed. As you have stated, people see Unidentified Flying Objects with some regularity so I have no problem with that as far as that goes. In the latter case, NOT unidentified or unidentifiable but absolutely identified such as actual physical meetings with extraterrestrials I would question your state of mind leading up to that event. Most such accounts are from people abruptly awakened from sleep, not a particularly good time for perception, let alone critical thinking. The odds and the evidence are not good at all.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson does a good job on this subject... entertaining but also quite accurate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69qYusZyLrs

If there was any aliens involved, I certainly don't recall that part, so I can therefore only assume that I did not see any. But for one thing, it does not mean that the craft I saw did not have any aboard it, and without restating my account that I already have stated in the UFO thread I started, given it most certainly was not any human built aircraft, let alone a "weather balloon" or other such things, then I do however find it to be a reasonable assumption that what I did in fact see could well have and probably did have aliens on-board it - just because as far as I know, I didn't see any, this does not mean there wasn't any on-board. It most certainly would have had occupants on-board it, and I doubt they would have been human based on what I did see.

Also, it doesn't mean you're "crazy" if one honestly did see a real alien. Just because one see's something unusual and/or strange, this does not make them "crazy". I've been almost asleep and still been able to install stuff on my computer, and alike, no problem, even learn stuff too. So I would be very careful about calling someone "crazy", or saying something to the effect of "well you weren't awake enough to know what you saw or didn't see". I was wide awake at the time I saw what I did, for the record, hadn't even had a pain killer that night, let alone anything stronger than that.

You really should watch the video I linked above for you, as it certainly does explain why what you're saying about "light speed" and such doesn't matter, and it is science based, not just someone saying "they've seen a UFO". So unless you can provide good reason as to why the science mentioned in that video is somehow flawed, well I think it explains why we don't have the required technology to be able to travel vast distances in space. It also explains that space is not indeed empty, anymore than the air we breathe here on Earth, and alike.

i forgot to add one term to my 2 previous posts:
anthropocentric.
how can we apply scientific rules, our human ways of looking at things, to determine how to define intelligence and how likely it is subsequently that such exists elsewhere?
yet scientists do exactly that all the time.
science, by definition, cannot look up from its perpetual navel gazing.

and my views are, by definition, unscientific.

i hope you listened to the video i linked earlier! it includes sperm whales