Aliens

[Lain]

I find the results of this poll uncomfortable. I fail to see how the majority people can so emphatically vote "yes" there is extraterrestrial life when there is no evidence for it. It's like asking "Is there a Santa Claus?" It seems too close to religious faith, that is to say, to believe without evidence.

What there is is a statistical probability, the balance of probability that life, even if it's only microbial life, exists somewhere. The balance of probability is that Santa does not exist. But its still not proof. The best that can be said is "maybe" or "probably" but not to categorically state it exists.

Seriously? Because people certainly are emphatically voting "yes alien life exists"... it's not something like the poll not offerring a "yes I think alien life probably exists".

The only option the poll gives besides several "Abslolutely yes!" and one "Absolutely not!" option is a complete middle-of-the-road "Maybe". There's no poll option for expressing that you think that alien life almost certainly exists, so people are just voting for the option that most closely resembles their beliefs, which happens to be "alien life definitely exists".

In other words, people aren't actually saying that they're absolutely certain that there is alien life out there. Most of them are actually saying that, based on statistical probability, they believe that there's probably extraterrestrial life out there. So don't feel "uncomfortable" about the results of this poll, it's just a poorly written poll.

 

[Dean]

Planes can be close to things. Did it at least look odd, and by UFO, do you mean UFO or UFO?

It was not a plane; a plane wouldn't go that close to buildings, nor the ground. It was like a deep, flipped, sorcerer with flashing lights and windows. It must have been +75 meters in diameter, and +10 meters high. I recall it having blue- and greenish lights, and that it was turning clockwise at 50-250 meters above the ground. I'm pretty sure it was an UFO. And since there was no one out near it, it couldn't have been remote controlled (too big to be controlled too). There was no beam on the ground, only those to the side. It stayed there for at least 5 minutes, in the exact same spot too; no movement at all.

 

[Badger-X-]

I found this interesting article recently on iO9 about some very strange and eerily plausible solutions to the Fermi paradox.

My favourite was this one, if just for the laugh. It's from a short story appropriately titled "They're Made Out Of Meat" by Terry Bisson which I think I'm going to try and track down now.

~

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?'


~

 

[Ealirendur]

I found this interesting article recently on iO9 about some very strange and eerily plausible solutions to the Fermi paradox.

My favourite was this one, if just for the laugh. It's from a short story appropriately titled "They're Made Out Of Meat" by Terry Bisson which I think I'm going to try and track down now.

~

It is a very good one - I posted it to the thread a while back. The full text was linked, IIRC. Nifty article, though ( I also mentioned the Simulation Argument ).

 

[Monatsende]

I think there is life out there.

Most likely it`s green/red/blue slime. Stars need time to build up elements beside hydrogen and helium which were built after a short time (aprox. 400,000 years after the Big Bang) when "the universe was thrown into existence".

More time is needed to build structures like galaxies and solar systems with planets with conditions to make life possible... People say: billions of years. Having im mind that the univers is about 13,7 billions of years old (common sense at the moment).

So now that you have a place where it`s possible to create life, it`s doesnt have to happen... It takes some more time to create life on a planet.

Experts say that life on earth could be possibly the first lifeforms in the univers in terms of time. And we had all the luck not being extinguished by meteroids/asteroids or nearby Super Novae and stuff.

Alien encounters - my bet is not before billions of years...

 

[Carbonox]

This thread should be locked because CodeName says aliens don't exist.

 

[Dotini]

For enthusiasts of Dr Steven Greer, aliens and other anomalies, we present the "6-inch alien".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/sirius-documentary-dna-re_n_3135628.html
"I can say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human -- closer to human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight. Obviously, it was breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big the thing might have been when it was born,"said Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...mentary.html?ITO=socialnet-facebook-dailymail <--- Daily Mail coverage, with good pictures and video

http://siriusdisclosure.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Chile-Specimen_GPN-Summary.pdf <--- Report of Dr. Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University

Sceptically,
Steve

 

[Dean]

Now that's kind of creepy, to be honest. I would, though, believe it was a "mutated" human, and not an alien.

 

[PeterJB]

Looks like a fetus to me.

 

[Dotini]

Looks like a fetus to me.

It does looks very creepy, but supposedly is a deceased human being, or humanoid freak, who lived to be 8 years old and grew 6 inches tall. Not an alien, but extremely unusual unique to say the very least.

 

[Nicktune]

"There was no alien. The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."

 

[MisterWhiskers]

There are aliens out there, but billions and billions of stars away. If they have the technology, they can come to Earth. The closest alien encounter was the Aurora, Texas crash. What's strange is that one guy by the name of Brawley Oates had gotten arthritis from this well where the material was supposedly of the UFO. The alien was supposedly buried in the ground, but was unfortunately unmarked. This happened around 1896-1897. More info? Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident

 

[Touring Mars]

I reckon that 'aliens' are much, much closer than that... given how 'advanced' we are, we have done nothing to advertise our presence to the rest of the universe beyond a 100 light year radius, it would not be surprising if there were equally advanced civilisations right on our cosmic doorstep, but they cannot see us and we (as yet) cannot see them... but it's surely only a matter of time!

 

[Dotini]

There are aliens out there, but billions and billions of stars away. If they have the technology, they can come to Earth.

My opinion is that there are likely very few biological alien beings, and even if there were, they could very likely not come here. However, I accept the likelihood of an inorganic form of sentient life which lives all over the universe, including near, or on, the Earth. "It's life Jim, but not as we know it."

 

[Nicktune]

There are aliens....

Sorry I couldn't resist posting that men in black quote.

 

[Dotini]

...a matter of time!

What is time? Many scientists and philosophers actually say it is an illusion, and not fundamental to physics or reality. I'm thinking that time is real.

 

[MisterWhiskers]

Sorry I couldn't resist posting that men in black quote.

You got me!

 

[Dotini]

Looks like a fetus to me.

Not a fetus, but the smallest human who ever lived, by far. Astoundingly only 6 inches tall, the son of a Chilean Indian mother.

"Dr. Nolan says, &#8220;As to it being a fetus, I would trust the examination done by my colleague, a known expert in pediatric bone disorders, who came to the surprising conclusion that it was 6-8 years old.&#8221;

Although, this claim is astounding, the colleague Nolan is referring to is someone whose opinion should not be taken lightly. He is Dr. Ralph Lachman, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the International Skeletal Dysplasia Registry at Cedars-Sinai. He is also the author of the textbook, Radiology Of Syndromes, Metabolic Disorders And Skeletal Dysplasias, a book referenced by students and practitioners."

http://www.openminds.tv/scientist-says-atacama-humanoid-is-human-but-still-a-mystery-988/ <-- click to see X-rays of boy and photos, credentials of the doctors

 

[MrSulu]

There absolutely must be something out there.

If they are aware of us or are even interested is another question entirely, with all the rather dodgy telly programmes/broadcasts we have been blasting out into the cosmos for the last 70 odd years, I would give us a wide berth personally

That or they invade because they weren't satisfied with the final episode of last of the summer wine.

 

[Dean]

The "6-inch alien".

Apparently, it has been confirmed that it is a human (if it hadn't already).

This bizarre looking thing is "Ata the humanoid", a mummified corpse found in the Atacama Desert ten years ago. It's strange appearance led to many calling it an "alien", claiming it as proof that extraterrestrials have visited Earth.

Well, it's finally been submitted to a battery of tests and the results show it to be fully human. DNA analysis has even managed to pinpoint the location and nationality of its mother. The results do suggest that it was once alive and human, not a hoax, and so asks more questions than they answer.

The bone analysis suggests that this is not a fetus, but a child between the ages of 6-8. The specimen has just ten ribs (as opposed to 12), is just six inches long and has severe facial deformities. These symptoms do not match up to any known genetic disorder and experts have no idea how such a severely deformed and tiny child could have lived to age six.

- Science Channel's (almost) saying the exact same.

This is not an alien, it's a "humanoid."

But the remains, found in the Atacama Desert a decade ago, do make for quite a medical mystery.

DNA and other tests suggest the individual was a human and was 6 to 8 years of age when he or she died. Even so, the remains were just 6 inches long.

Apparently when the mummified specimen was discovered, some had suggested the possibility it was an alien that had somehow landed on Earth, though the researchers involved never suggested this otherworldly origin.

Scientists analyzed the specimen in the fall of 2012 with high-resolution photography, X-rays and computed tomography scans, as well as DNA sequencing. The researchers wanted to find out whether some rare disorder could explain the anomalous skeleton -- for instance it had just 10 ribs as opposed to 12 in a healthy human.

 

[kikie]

Reviving this thread.

The last couple of months, there are a lot of UFO's spotted in Woerden, The Netherlands. Dutch ufologist, Anton Teuben says that these UFO's spotted in Woerden are technological test with terrestrial crafts using earths gravity. According to him, there is a lot of natural energy coming from the earth because Woerden is situated on crossings of lines exactly teh same as where the piramides are build on.
With this technology, it won't be necessary anymore to use fossil fuel or nuclear energy anymore, he says.

He also said that some UFO's are from non terrestrial origin.

 

[Dotini]

No doubt there are at times spikes in UFO sightings. No doubt that a growing proportion of these sightings are artful digital hoaxes, misidentified drones and other prosaic and mundane objects. More interesting are ball lightning and "earthquake lights" which are now scientifically accepted phenomena, but ill-explained.

As always, rock-solid evidence for UFO sightings is very hard to produce.

If you run across a good sighting report from multiple credible witnesses accompanied by radar and/or photographic data, please go ahead and post it.

For example, some top quality unexplained sightings include:
Tehran, 1976
Rendlesham Forest, 1980
Belgium, '89-'90
Phoenix, 1997
Stephenville, 2008

Aside from the usual aerial lights aspect of UFO's, there exists a darker corner of UFOlogy which embraces religious phenomena such as Virgin Mary sightings (most famously Fatima, Portugal, 1917), encounters with unusual beings such as angels, devils and Mothman (West Virginia, 1966,'67), and finally occult and psi phenomena such as poltergeists and remote viewing. Feel free to post on any of these, as long as multiple credible witnesses are referenced.

 

[Rage Racer]

Aliens probably exist but it's veeery unlikely that they can visit our planet.

 

[kikie]

Why wouldn't they be able to visit out planet? What if they have the technology to travel vast distances is a short amount of time?

 

[Dotini]

Why wouldn't they be able to visit out planet? What if they have the technology to travel vast distances is a short amount of time?

At our present stage of technology and science, we do not know how to travel at lightspeeds or faster to other star systems. It is only in our imagination, hopes or fears that we or more advanced aliens might do this. No alien beings or vehicles have even been proven to have visited Earth.

Time travel, travel through wormholes or higher dimensions have been postulated, but remain pure speculation. Some professional researchers with scientific credentials have claimed to have witnessed terrifying alien beings materializing through a portal or wormhole on the Skinwalker Ranch, Utah.

Consciousness is not scientifically understood or explained. It is conceivable that by exploiting some kind of universal or telepathic consciousness physics that we don't currently understand, alien entities are able to communicate with us, implant memories and visions, carry out abductions and such. Much has been written about this, but nothing is proven. Such alien entities may be neither organic, nor even corporeal.

In many famous, celebrated UFO cases, and also in many unreported ones, consciousness alteration or distortion effects are noted. At the minimum, this may indicate UFO's sometimes have very powerful electromagnetic effects, which may be a clue as to their origin and nature.

 

[Rage Racer]

@kikie
A chance to find Earth in the Space (or even in our Milky Way galaxy only) without exactly known coordinates is much less than a chance to find a certain ant in a forest: ~1:150 billion. And this is just the top of the problems iceberg.
Besides, there are many other factors that make it impossible for life forms from different systems to meet (in case of using a vehicle): time (life is short; although the time slows for accelerated objects, it stays the same for static ones, in other words: before anything reaches us, the humankind will possibly end its existence already), speed is limited by the lightspeed (increasing the speed will cause the mass to increase, and the conditions may become unsuitable for living creatures), plenty of dangerous objects and forces in the Space - meteors, comets, debris, dust, hydrogen atoms (that can wipe everything flying close to lightspeed like a sandblast), gravitational fields that can blast an incredibly fast object in atoms (if the Earth gravity is pretty strong, then we can say only one thing about massive stars (or, say, the Galaxy) - their gravities are VERY strong, and the aliens will have to calculate their route to avoid being caught in a gravitational field of some massive star, and there are 150 billions of those stars, so they are just planning their route yet (won't they fly at random?), and they've made only 0,1% if they begun when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.

Generally, the only thing that can really "fly" in the Space is electromagnetic radiation. The rest just dangle around gravitational fields. The UFOs are definetly not vehicles. Something different? Maybe, but we can't really suppose "flying plates".

The deeper we are in physics, the less abilities of travelling in the Space we can suppose (curse you Einstein and your theory of relativity! ). But... there may be some dirty hacks like whole different kinds of energy, different means of movement in space, teleportation or plasma generators...

 

[PeterJB]

I find it very interesting that there have been more UFO sightings in the US during 1945-1965 than all other places and time periods. Which, given the political situation at the time is hardly surprising.

 

[Dotini]

I find it very interesting that there have been more UFO sightings in the US during 1945-1965 than all other places and time periods. Which, given the political situation at the time is hardly surprising.

What is your source for these years? Project Blue Book? There has been no long term, consistent private, commercial or governmental reporting on UFO sightings that I know of. The years that you cite have a remarkable correspondence to high yield above-ground nuclear testing, ending in 1963 with the limited test ban treaty. Some ufologists propose aliens were interested in our A-bomb explosions. Others say that Cold War jitters cued Americans, already paranoid about Communism, to autonomically see flying saucers in the sky.

"The first above-ground nuclear weapon test was conducted by the U.S. in southeastern New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Between 1945 and 1963, hundreds of above-ground blasts took place around the world. The number and size (yield) of blasts increased, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Following the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 by the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Great Britain, most above-ground blasts ceased. (Some above-ground weapons testing by other countries continued until 1980.)" http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/nuclearblast.html

 

[PeterJB]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UFO_sightings

I was referring more to that fact that what most people saw was probably experimental aircraft and/or weapons. I'm more convinced by Americans being paranoid about Communists than aliens actually visiting Earth, spending most of their exploring at night out in the middle of nowhere in the mid-west and then disappearing without a trace.

 

[kikie]

I'm not saying that we have been visited by aliens, I'm only saying that we can't possible know what kind of technology they have if they exist at all. We are all thinking in our limited way about e.g. space travel.

I repeat; for all we know, they have some kind of technology to travel vast distances in a short amount of time.

As Dotini said; "At our present stage of technology and science, we do not know how to travel at lightspeeds or faster to other star systems".

What if there are aliens that found a way to travel faster than lightspeeds? I'm just saying.

My personal opinion is that there are things that travel faster than the speed of light and maybe one day we find a way to do so.