Need to know about UFO’s!!

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Maybe we are a remote destination in a desolate area visited occasionally by some space tourists seeking a thrill. A bit like Antarctica is on Earth but even more out of the way.

But then again maybe not

[Clarry (Clayton)]

Originally Posted by jungle11

Without speculation how would science progress? Would it have even begun in the first place? Wormholes may not exist, but if nobody theorises or speculates about the possibility, then we will never know either way. If the first astronomers didn't speculate we wouldn't have astronomy today...

(perish the thought!)

I've got no problem with speculation, sure there's always the possibility that these things exist. I just don't understand when people say "I believe" with absolutely no hard evidence at all. Why not say "I believe there's a chance of them existing". Now that makes sense.

[jungle11 (Greg)]

Yeah that's fair enough and i guess that's about where I stand on UFOs. As I mentioned earlier - you'll never know for sure if their real unless you see one yourself. Even then, it would have to be a pretty definitive sighting ( like close enough to see your reflection on the hull)

I fully agree with Ian Robinson's list below, and I can see a vast majority of reports fitting into one or more of those catagories.

But with the sheer number of reports (they go back several hundred years - recorded anyway) I find it hard to go past the possibility that perhaps a few of them may have been the real deal.

cheers

[xelasnave]

Well of course "they" are out there...they are getting ready to invade..thats why they try remain a myth... so we need to build battle stars and post them at the boundaries to our solar system...and of course later when we have removed all threats locally can post more battle stars at the edge of our galaxy...

Now I am sure we can get some believers on board for the new battel star industry...

I can understand how folk can "see" things...only yesterday I caught a reflection from a jet which came to me thru slight cloud.. well it looked 100 times larger than it was and caused a flatish sphere image...the jet passed the cloud and disappeared as it was now only a mere dot in the distance.. one could interpret that one had seen a ufo that disappeared...

Still we really need to get onto the battle stars move all the military to the edge of the solar system with the world united to fight a common foe... gee everyone has seen the movies funding should be a snap.

alex

[Jeffrey]

This has always been a topic of discussion for many people. Many people go on the verge of searching the truth, but have not been able to verify the real truth about UFO’s. There have been projects launched by authorities but did not seem to gather any significant evidence on them or may be that the evidence is just hard to digest. One can say that whatever done is less known in public. To help you in your search further more, there are http://www.ufo-sightings-evidence.com that you can check out.

[Ian Robinson]

Just a few wee additional comments :

1) I have no doubt there are other technological species out there, the universe and our galaxy is probably swarming with them.
2) I have never seen any convincing evidence that they are currently visiting us - much as I would like to have them do so providing they don't see us as potential slaves, or a good source of food, or as an inconvenient infestation that needs to exterminated to allow them to use the earth's resources.
3) have they visited earth in the past ? - well the past is very long time - earth has been a visitable destination for over 4,000.000,000 years , so I'll concede they might have dropped by some time , perhaps even frequently , in the geological past (millions , or billions of years ago , even if they are limited to travelling at subluminary velocities, plenty of time to do that since the earth formed) - no evidence of such visits exists that I have heard off.

[Ian Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

This has always been a topic of discussion for many people. Many people go on the verge of searching the truth, but have not been able to verify the real truth about UFO’s. There have been projects launched by authorities but did not seem to gather any significant evidence on them or may be that the evidence is just hard to digest. One can say that whatever done is less known in public. To help you in your search further more, there are http://www.ufo-sightings-evidence.com that you can check out.

No thanks - got better things to do .

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Ian Robinson

Just a few wee additional comments :

1) I have no doubt there are other technological species out there, the universe and our galaxy is probably swarming with them.
2) I have never seen any convincing evidence that they are currently visiting us - much as I would like to have them do so providing they don't see us as potential slaves, or a good source of food, or as an inconvenient infestation that needs to exterminated to allow them to use the earth's resources.
3) have they visited earth in the past ? - well the past is very long time - earth has been a visitable destination for over 4,000.000,000 years , so I'll concede they might have dropped by some time , perhaps even frequently , in the geological past (millions , or billions of years ago , even if they are limited to travelling at subluminary velocities, plenty of time to do that since the earth formed) - no evidence of such visits exists that I have heard off.

Its worse than I thought ...they could have been planning for all that time... and I reckon if you leave aliens to their own devices for 4 billion years they will get up to no good...

And they are clever enough not to be discovered so they are not to be trusted.

We need more folk to keep a look out ... but first we need T shirts... mmm a new cult..planet gardians...

yes wet here...

alex

[Ian Robinson]

Ha! I was under the impression such specified cult already exists - they are called amateur astronomers and go by the code name of stargazers ....

There are millions of us , yet , by some perverse circumstance , stargazers don't seem to ever see UFO's .... why is that ?

[AlexN]

Thats a nice theory... But by said calculation, there is no life in the universe, hence, we dont exist.

I think whilst there may or may not be other life, I would imagine that it would be a LOT less likely that there is no life, and that we reside on the ONLY life supporting planet in the universe. In the galaxy, yes, definitely. but in the Universe... Infinite stars, each with the possibility of having orbiting planets, some of those planets being in the right conditions to support life..


The chances are there. as is the possibility... Im not saying "intelligent life capable of traveling faster than C, or capable of navigating wormholes in order to come here, abduct humans for probing purposes etc.. or doing flybys of populated areas." Im saying, Life. Germs growing and forming... Over time, evolution, etc. maybe more life, multi celled organisims.. in time maybe human like intelligence, maybe even human like form..

There is no way of saying "There is NO life in the universe appart from on Earth" Unless you've been there, you have absolutely NO idea. Nobody does.

Any answers in this thread are purely speculation. Chances/theories/possibilities etc. None of these can ever prove or disprove the existance of something that we can not possibly observe... It can give us a set of numbers with varying accuracy on which to make our hypothisis. But at the end of the day this will always be exactly that. A hypothesis.

I THINK its very unlikely that we are the only life to have ever lived in the entire universe, or that we are the only current living life in the universe. I do doubt that any other life has ever visited us (the chances of finding something the size of earth in an infinite universe would have to be statistically insignificant) however I do think that it is very narrow minded to assume that there is no chance of life, let alone no life out there somewhere.

Originally Posted by rat156

There is no life in the universe.

It can be proved mathematically.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams...

Space is infinite. There are an infinite number of stars, many of which have planets, so there are an infinite number of planets. We know of a few which don't have life, therefore there is a finite number of planets with life. If you divide any finite number by infinity the result is zero. So the probability that there is life on any planet is zero.

Seen plenty of UFO's, no aliens though. I'm sure someone can identify them, but to me they're UFO's.

Cheers
Stuart

[Davros (Lauren)]

As was said in Carl Sagans book ............it would be an awful waste of space if we were the only ones.

[deadsimple (Ash)]

While many people point to Drake's equation when discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial civilisations, I find the Fermi paradox just as important - worth a read if you're still hung up on the idea of "UFOs".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake%27s_equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Personally I see the universe as a big soup of physical/chemical interactions. Intelligent life (or local pockets of 'order' to be a bit pedantic) in my view is inevitable through so many simultaneous processes, that is assuming the laws of physics making the processes possible continue to exist in a time-frame reasonable for such order to come about.

Why haven't we seen any evidence elsewhere? Apart from the huge distances involved and the other points covered in the Fermi paradox, there always has to be a 'first' civilisation. I'm sure that sounds obvious, but what if we are the first? We wouldn't see any evidence but would have to wait around for the 'second', etc.

Now I'm not saying this is what's happening, but it's a possible scenario.

What I don't believe in is 'aliens', seemingly so technologically sophisticated that they can navigate across the galaxy without effort, coming in and newbie crash-landing into Earth and/or hiding outside people's windows and/or hovering and disappearing for no reason. So silly I can't understand why there are serious UFO discussions in the first place.

[jungle11 (Greg)]

Perhaps if a chimpanzee wondered up to one of use while using our telescope to look at 'meaningless' points of light in the sky, he might find the practice silly too

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Added to what other skeptics have said, there is also the matter of timing. In a universe 13,700,000,000 years old they happen to appear in just the last 100 years. Even the 2,000,000 years of hominid history is fleeting in comparison. Unless you want to suggest they visit regularly, it's a pretty amazing coincidence for them to arrive just now.

Some may suggest that they came in response to our increase technology. Well we have been transmitting radio that 'they' might hear for 100 years (give or take). So, galactically speaking, even the neighbors have only just heard us. For them to be intelligent, but somewhat clumsy snoops is also a pretty good coincidence.

[Dog Star (Phil)]

I usually try to stay away from this subject (but I just couldn't help myself)
Somewhere in this huge sprawling continuum of time/space, intelligent life must statistically exist.
As for them visiting us in the recent past - I'd like to believe, it's just that I can't on the available evidence.
I would very much like to be proven to be wrong, however.

[xelasnave]

If we limit the size of the Universe to the size suggested by the big bang, which I think is some 160billion light years across or limit our expectations to the visable Universe some 26 billion lights years we still have a rather huge opportunity for places where we can have life along our preconceived ideas of the "perfect" region ...and that is without introducing opportunities for life maybe using systems other than carbon based.

We, the Milky Way galaxy, have maybe 300 billion suns, and we are finding planets are seemingly "normal" so the percentage of our Suns that have planets that may offer sufficient opportunity, although not determined, may favour a statistical basis for support to the belief many planets that will/may support life.

It would seem strange if we are the only life (Earths including us) to be found within our galaxy... and we are not the only galaxy... so how many opportunities exist...thats right at least 27

I think it is understandably arrogant for humans to believe there are no greater species than us... but no doubt there is. If it could be established that we are it... and there is no other life at all out there anywhere... would that make one feel unbelievably depressed ... we are charged with life and probably will screw up the planet before we get to leave it.......if we snuff it out it is then lost for all time???

AND the big question....Will they visit us?...well no based on our beliefs of what they can do (based on what we can do) but we assess the chances by what we believe to be truth... time prevents space travel we believe...but maybe there is a species that are past our stage of development and can run their folk for over a thousand years before they have to be terminated... we have folk right now on our planet who are suggesting death will not be with humans for much longer and although this seem unthinkable maybe there is a species out there who for what ever reason live to ages that enables space travell is possible...

However even if we had over a 1000 species in our galaxy travelling about the numbers suggest it would be a rare event for them to arrive at our particular point in history... and if they are smart enough to travel I would say they would be smart enough not to be noticed and perhaps have no desire to interact with us...

Still there is the chance they are there and ready to invade so lets get some battle stars ready... it matters little if they are not used in anger what matters is getting the Earth united against a common even if non existent foe... so we stop fighting umongst ourselves you see.

Imagine however the impact of a visit.. I mean like so many movies out there where they land on the lawn at the white house...

I bet our visitors would go say to the police station and be told they would have to come back when the duty guy gets in...

how would the add companies go ... ratz thats how..imagine the effort to secure rights so the visitors would endorse a particular product...

Would they be the same as us in general appearance... and that leads to the question are our bodies the most efficient generally or will other planets favour more legs or the like,,..

Would the reaction between us and them be like cat and dog ..what customs could they have that we find repulsive...maybe they eat their young and breed not only for procreation but for food...

The important thing with all this is not to let ones imagination get carried away past a gentle exploration of the posibilities and recognition of the stats that will both suggest yes there must be other life maybe smarter than us but the chances that we meet would be remote given the huge spread of time available to them and us...

alex

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Dog Star

Somewhere in this huge sprawling continuum of time/space, intelligent life must statistically exist.
As for them visiting us in the recent past - I'd like to believe, it's just that I can't on the available evidence.

Thats pretty much my position too.

As for visiting aliens making themselves obvious and making contact, well they have probably watched star trek and adopted The Prime Directive as a good idea.

" It has special implications, however, for civilizations that have not yet developed the technology for interstellar spaceflight ("pre-warp"), since no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or the existence of extraplanetary civilizations, lest this exposure alter the natural development of the civilization."

[styleman333]

I like to imagine the human race as a tiny fish living in a rock pool by the sea..... to the fish the rock pool is their world and all that exists . The fish cant contemplate the teeming oceans and world full of live outside its own environment until some situation happens to force it to see it.

[jungle11 (Greg)]

Nice analogy, it pains me sometimes to think I'll only ever see this short piece of history (a lifetime) We think life began here 3.9 billion years ago, and here I am to see our first forays into space, the massive acceleration of our science, technology and understanding of ourselves, our world, and our universe. I should consider myself 'flukishly' lucky to have come along now.
But, I complain to myself, if only I could see what takes place over the next few millennia (if we last that long!) Kind of a downer to think I'll kick the bucket without ever knowing the answers to some of the fundamental questions we all ask ourselves from time to time.

P.S. Perhaps we should hold off on the death star Alex, lest we shoot ourselves with it

[joe_smith]

It must be close to 100 years now since people apparently started seeing, photographing and reporting UFO sightings

If you look at the recored history of man it goes way, way further back than that.