Are We Alone?

[rizon72]

Sure this question has come up, but its way far back probably, and there is a thing about not reviving new threads, soooooo.

 

Do you think mankind is alone as an intelligent being in the universe?

 

Personally, no, even if the odds of intelligent life coming to be are infinitely small, the idea that we are it in this cosmetically vast universe is almost ludicrous. Are they in our galaxy, I don't know, I would say the chances are pretty good. Is there a civilization out there more advanced than ours, probably.

 

I recall talking to a professor in college, Biology, and he did not believe in extraterrestrial life out there and that Earth was it, and man should stay here. I remember thinking what a waste. If we are all alone, even more reason to go out into the universe and explore.

 

(I'm a big believer in going into space. If our race wishes to advance, we must go.)

[SunnyDelight]

A couple of things...first of all we need to stop fighting. We need the world to come together and see that earth will one distant day unfortunately come to an end, like it or not. So we can all come together and create machines capable of going beyond...and beyond...like a space ship capable of warp drive after all light speed has been proven to be too slow...sadly. :sad: I think then we should start worrying what's out there.

 

But in answer to the original question...the answer is most likely no we are not the only ones here. A little of list of why we may not have come into contact:

1: We maybe the precursors of the universe. It is possible we are the first true ETs capable of being called...'intelligent'

2: We could be the last left. It is possible we could be the last beings left hence forth the lack of other species above our planet. One day when we have the capability of going beyond we may find other planets turned into burial grounds or nuclear wastes where they have been silly enough to let that happen to themselves.

3: There is life out there but it is not possible for either of us to communicate or see each other YET! Well it would be impossible to communicate at them distances anyway.

 

Interesting thing for you to search up. Drakes law. Suggests that there is a possibility of something like 70 intelligent civilisations other than us in our own galaxy could already exist.

 

One note though. by god I hope we never do find anything out there unless we are clever and prepared enough. If we saw another species any time soon I'm sure we would only think of destroying it especially if it is more advanced than us.

 

but yes it is a waste FOR NOW!! :D

 

Another thing...Your right..for us to advance, not become extinct and thrive we have to go elsewhere. I'm sure earth will never be forgotten though ;)

Edited March 7, 2014 by SunnyDelight

[HeyYou]

The odds of us being the *only* intelligent life in the Universe (with a capital U) are vanishingly small. Sure, the odds of life developing are pretty tiny, but, when you consider there are BILLIONS of worlds just within our galaxy alone that could support intelligent life (as we know it), denying the possibility is moronic.

 

Why haven't we seen any evidence of such? Well, some argue that we already have...... various drawings on central american murals and such, depict would could possibly be space craft, with human shaped occupants. Have they actually been here? Don't know..... Recently? Probably not. We are not advanced enough to attract any unwanted attention yet, (unless some slavers happen to come by...... but, that would imply an interstellar civilization.... that, I don't know about.)

 

Can we travel to other stars? Better hope we figure out a means to, otherwise, the human race is doomed, and will be snuffed out when our sun goes Nova. If we don't kill ourselves off long before then.

[Beriallord]

It would be absolutely impossible if humans were the only intelligent life in the universe. Sure, we're rare, probably 1 in a few billion planets has intelligent life on it, but based on the size of the universe those odds are still a frequent occurrence. We might not even be the top lifeforms in this galaxy, because there is over 100 billion stars in just this galaxy. I do think species that advanced to our level or even considerably higher level of technology are very, very few, but they're definitely out there.

 

SETI is trying to detect communications on radio frequencies from other life, which I means they're looking for civilizations out there of a similar technology to ours, give or take 100 years. One has to assume a civlization a few hundred years less advanced, and a few hundred years more advanced would not be using radio frequencies to communicate. Someone of lower tech for obvious reasons, and someone a few hundred years more advanced likely figured out a better/faster way. SETI is never going to find anything on the radio frequency. The odds are simply too low, they'd be looking for a lone grain of sand in all the world's beaches.

 

I think we've already been visited in the past. It makes sense, because planets like Earth (assuming) are exceptionally rare. And for the abundance of life and resources here, another civilization would be interested in the planet enough to at least stop and take a look before they moved onto another destination. There are plenty of remote regions on Earth they could make a base and never have contact with humans, like near the poles, and in the deepest oceans. I think the US government, and other world governments already know the answer to that question.

 

There is also the possibility that any "visitors" might actually be us from a few million years in the future. They've since evolved into something that is "humanoid", bodies possibly more suited for space travel.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Beriallord

[Thor.]

I had to bring this video up, i couldn't find the actual news broadcast.

 

 

again question its legitimacy sense the quality is so bad. If they did make contact it wouldn't hit mainstream news that's for sure.

 

i actually came across this by accident, weird side of youtube again. If you watch it you would understand how weird it really can get, especially with the titles and stuff of the video description. From that other debate the legitimacy of youtube, this kind of stuff is every where. It does have some possible valid stuff in there, like that seti possible contact thing. Again you be the judge.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Thor.

[JimboUK]

I don't think we're alone, the universe is vast and to suggest we're the only intelligent thing in it doesn't make any sense. I've not seen anything that convinces me they've paid us a visit, which is probably for the best, when a lesser civilisation meets a more advanced one we know from experience that things don't end well for the lesser one.

[bben46]

Check out the Fermi Paradox - For those who do not know, Enrico Fermi was a Nobel prize winning physicist who asked the same question.

The paradox is his answer. This is a very famous and highly technical explanation by a group of exceptionally intelligent highly qualified scientists that the ancient alien people tend to misquote a lot as some kind of "proof."

 

What he is saying is NOT that Extra terrestrial life does or does not exist, but, based on his analysis, it should. However, we have not yet found definitive proof one way or another.

 

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

 

TLDR: From Fermi and Hart themselves

 

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist.
However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.

 

Actually this is at least the third time I have seen this same topic on the forums.

[rizon72]

Of course while searching, it also helps if we're searching in the right area and way. We have no way of knowing that how we're searching for intelligent life is a way which will give us results. It would be like you wanted to count how people traveled by you. So you sat down on a hill and looked only for people using bicycles while ignoring cars, planes, people walking, horses, etc. and looking only in one direction, and when you saw nothing, concluded people must not travel. In our search, we only in the infant stage of trying to detect another civilization.

[JimboUK]

I don't buy because we can't detect it that it doesn't exist, it's been thought for many years that planets around other stars exist but it's only recently that we've been able to detect them. The lack of observational evidence for life elsewhere could easily be down to our inability to detect it, not down to it non-existence. Really advanced races would need to be able to communicate faster then the speed of light, were communication of that sort possible it's very unlikely we'd be able to detect it. We could only detect civilisations whose development was at a stage close to ours, they'd also have to be nearby, that drastically cuts down the chance of finding anything, it doesn't however rule out its existence.

[Maharg67]

Firstly, I often wonder if the universe is actually what we think it is considering that our sciences are relatively young. For example what if the speed of light is not always consistent and we have a distorted view of existence. I say this because we may be basing our ideas on finding 'aliens' on a whole lot of misinterpreted data. That is we might be falsely assuming things and seeking the wrong things in the wrong way. Just as Europeans once assumed the world was flat, we may be creating a false map of the universe.

 

Secondly, aliens may have been observing us for a long time. Why should be assume they want us to discover them. Being far more evolutionarily advanced, far smarter, they may decide to observe us or influence us in more subtle ways. They may observe us and take as a destructive, self destructive, chaotic species that is too dangerous to make open contact with or perhaps not worth the effort to do so. Or they may be so 'alien' to us that they are unable to think of an efficient way to communicate with us.

 

I suspect that it is time that we stepped back and took a good, strong, look at many of our assumptions. I do not mean that they should be done away with but just questioned more than they have been.