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Hi Sonia
Thought I would give you my oppinion on the subject and points you raised. I also thought this was a good topic of conversation and worth some thought.
I do believe that there is other life out there. And if I had to put money on it I would say that there is significant life out there (both in numbers and diversity). And I would also say that I dont believe in any of the so called UFO sightings or abductions (not a single one).
My thoughts run along these lines. Life on Earth is in abundance, it addapts to seek out every possible corner, and take advantage of any change thrown at it. I dont see why this isnt so for other planets elsewhere. Some of it will be intelligent, some of it not so, but it will be there and one day will be found.
So why havent we heard from them yet (as I said before I dont believe in sightings / abductions from the US etc)? Why dont they reply to SETTI or similar. Its an interesting question, and if you look around the answers might already be there in front of us.
Take the ant for example, it builds civilisations, it has been around for millions of years, I understands its environment and clearly adapts to survive. This could be taken as intelligence of a sort. We however are far more advanced in our abilities and thinking (or so one would believe). Does the ant realise we even exist, does it try to make contact, do we know, do we respond? No, in general we look at ants as insignificant and not worth out attention in any respect. I believe that any extra terrestrial life that can visit us (has the capability) is going to be so far advanced that it will be the same situation, we will look like little more than dumb animals and of only a cursory interest. For the same reasons I dont believe in the sightings or abductions, any race capable of crossing the inter stellar distances is surely going to be advanced enough not to be seen by people, or need to abduct them, and if they did feel inclined they would be capable of doing so without or realising it.
In terms of SETTI, I feel inclined to believe it will fail to detect anything (but it is worth trying anyway). Only civilisations dawning into the computer age would be capable of generating messages that are recognisable over the ambiant noise as a signal. Today every effort is made to compress messages, make them as small as possible, which effectively means make them as random as possible. Imagine how capable we will be in doing this in say 100 years, would they be distinguishable over the ambient noise, I would say not. Would the be using the same frequency, or even same techniques, probably not. It would be like the ants listening for a signal from people, we are so disparate in our capabilities and technologies that it just wouldnt occur.
But have they visited us before? This was another of your questions, why is there no evidence of it? Again I suspect if they can get here they can also disguise themselves so we dont notice. But then again maybe there are other references if you look, in history there are multiple references in the Bible to people doing amazing things maybe someone did part the Red Sea, Walk on Water, cure the sick, calm the masses, or produce food from thin air, maybe they just werent the miracles we were lead to believe but rather some form of replication or advanced technology (such as in Star Trek), note this is not my belief I am religious, but it could be an explination....
In short I do believe that life is out there and that we have not made meaningful contact, and I dont expect to be proven wrong in my lifetime....
Cheers
Michael
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