Should Humanity Try to Contact Alien Civilisations?

[5ash (Philip)]

I must admit the search for intelligent life elsewhere does seem a waste of time. The Drake equation is difficult to prove without any solid supporting evidence , the names Stephen hawking and others may give it credence but don't prove it.. However just like the space race there will be spin offs that benefit us all , but let's suppose there is intelligent life out there , would it not follow the same self interested path as us and eventually pollute and multiply its self out of existence ?
I honestly believe that life abounds in the universe but doubt that it necessarily results in creative intelligent life .
Philip

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Interesting Reading Clive ......

What ever happened to the ' closed group of the 12 ' ...called Majestic Twelve.

Not much has been mentioned about this lot ( I'm not suggesting here ) but for a long time indeed in the open media.

Personally ...I don't know what to make of all of this .....

Col....

[Baddad (Marty)]

Good one James,

That is quite an eye opener. It is what I believed and Neil has put it in simple terms. Fantastic.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by FlashDrive

[I][SIZE=2]Interesting Reading Clive ......

What ever happened to the ' closed group of the 12 ' ...called Majestic Twelve.

Col, I can't say I had ever heard of them before you directed my attention to them.

fwiw) I remain sceptical, especially when it comes to former politicians.
Paul Hellyer is an fine example. Anyone who claims to be aware of alien civilisations from the Pleiades is most likely a charlatan or is consciously disseminating disinformation, which is interesting in itself.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

Col, I can't say I had ever heard of them before you directed my attention to them.

fwiw) I remain sceptical, especially when it comes to former politicians.
Paul Hellyer is an fine example. Anyone who claims to be aware of alien civilisations from the Pleiades is most likely a charlatan or is consciously disseminating disinformation, which is interesting in itself.

I decided to ' Google ' the name ' who were the Majestic 12 '

This is what I got ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_12

An extract......


In UFO conspiracy theories, Majestic 12 (or MJ-12) is the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. The concept originated in a series of supposedly "leaked" secret government documents first circulated by ufologists in 1984. Upon examination, the FBI declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate hoax.[1][2] Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film, and literature.

The concept of "Majestic Twelve" emerged during a period in the 1980s when ufologists believed there had been a cover-up of the Roswell UFO incident and speculated some secretive upper tier of the US government was responsible.[3] Their suppositions appeared to be confirmed in 1984 when ufologist Jaime Shandera received an envelope containing film which, when developed, showed images of eight pages of documents that appeared to be briefing papers describing "Operation Majestic Twelve".[3] The documents purported to reveal a secret committee of twelve supposedly authorized by US president Harry Truman in 1952, and explain how the crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell in 1947 had been concealed, how the recovered alien technology could be exploited, and how the US should engage with extraterrestrial life in future.[3][4]
Shandera and his ufologist colleagues Stanton T. Friedman and Bill Moore say they later received a series of anonymous messages that led them to find what has been called the "Cutler/Twining memo" in 1985 while searching declassified files in the National Archives. Purporting to be written by General Nathan Twining to President Eisenhower's assistant Robert Cutler and containing a reference to Majestic 12, the memo is widely held to be a forgery, likely planted as part of a hoax.[5] Historian Robert Goldberg wrote that the ufologists came to believe the story despite the documents being "obviously planted to bolster the legitimacy of the briefing papers".[3]
Claiming to be connected to the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations, a man named Richard Doty told filmmaker Linda Moulton Howe that the MJ-12 story was true, and showed Howe unspecified documents purporting to prove the existence of small, grey humanoid aliens originating from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Doty reportedly promised to supply Howe with film footage of UFOs and an interview with an alien being, although no footage ever materialized.[3]
Soon, distrust and suspicion led to disagreements within the ufology community over the authenticity of the MJ-12 documents, and Moore was accused of taking part in an elaborate hoax, while other ufologists and debunkers such as Philip Klass were accused of being "disinformation agents".[4]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation began its own investigation of the supposed "secret" documents and quickly formed doubts as to their authenticity. The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations stated that no such committee had ever been authorized or formed, and that the documents were “bogus.” The FBI subsequently declared the MJ-12 documents to be "completely bogus.”[2]
Later in 1996, a document called the MJ-12 "Special Operations Manual" circulated among ufologists. It is also widely considered to be a fake and "a continuation of the MJ-12 myth

Col.

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

But they would say that wouldn't they! "Nothing to see here, Move along!"

[Suzy]

Originally Posted by rally

Its an interesting question Suzy.

My initial thoughts :

If an alien race was so sophisticated to be capable of galactic or intergalactic travel for the puposes of "raiding" planets or seeding new homes for the expansion of new satellite civilisations or even relocation (ie interests that are detrimental to mankind) - then their access to the near unlimited resources to build and manage a vast number of unmanned intergalactic research drones would mean they wouldn't be needing to wait for us to identify ourselves, they would have already have a drone on its way to investigate or perhaps already been and gone.
All of this on time scales well beyond our ordinary imagination.

If their ambition was driven by need, then they wont simply be waiting around for an accidental contact - they'll be proactively using whatever technological means they have to seek out targets that meet their needs.

Or on the other hand - Its already happened and mankind is merely a product of their previous visit ! . . . so we only need to fear ourselves.

As for the broadcasts - on the one hand I think advertising ourselves leaves us vulnerable since we have no idea of the intentions of some other race wanting to come here, assuming that any exist or are likely to detect us given the huge spatial and temporal ranges involved.

But would one of our broadcasts be likely to be heard above the much stronger signals that a technologically advanced race might be capable of measuring now at a planetary level that might potentially be capable of detecting advanced lifeforms, habitabilities, mineral reosurces etc etc from afar.

Eg it was barely more than a decade ago that extraplanetary detection was pipe dream and now we are able to detect planets down to quite small sizes and even determine many of their basic qualities.
So who knows what detection capabilities might be possible if someone had optical and radio telescopes in space that equated to earth size or better yet earth orbit size !
Surely that would be as feasible as interstellar travel.

So if their interest was driven by a real need for resources then they could probably sense that remotely or just infer that from our stars signature, so our broadcasts would possibly be irrelevant.
If their interest was making contact with another advanced civilisation (or a remnant of their own ?) then maybe our broadcasts could be beneficial.

So to some degree I am ambivalent, mainly because I dont really think it will make any difference.
Whatever happens - its all part of the evolutionary process ! and evolution is not necessarily kind to any specific species - just ask the dinosaurs !

As was stated we know so little about everything in this field so I am guessing there can be as many arguments as there are debaters.

That's a lot of good food for thought, Rally, thank you.

And Clive, that article was a super read .

It's been an interesting thread reading everyone's thoughts on the subject, thank you all.

[Suzy]

This is what Stephen Hawking had to say on the subject:

Stephen Hawking: Alien Contact Could Be Risky

April 26, 2010
By KI MAE HEUSSNER via World News



Alien encounters may seem like sure-fire winners to Hollywood, but one of the world's most famous scientists thinks they may be "too risky" be be worth seeking.
In a new Discovery Channel documentary, which premiered Sunday night, British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said that communicating with aliens could be a threat to Earth.
Hawking said it is likely that alien life exists, but a visit from extraterrestrials might be similar to Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."
In the new program, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking," he speculated that aliens' capabilities "would be only limited by how much power they could harness and control, and that could be far more than we might first imagine."
He said it might even be possible for aliens to harvest the energy from an entire star.
"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach," Hawking said.



Humans Only Recently 'Tapped Into Our Cosmic Neighborhood'

But don't start worrying quite yet. It's unlikely that those traveling troublemakers will visit us anytime soon, said space watchers.
Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) Research at the SETI Institute, said that her center uses radio telescopes and optical telescopes to listen for signals of technology from extraterrestrial life. So far, after more than 40 years, there has not been a peep.
She said SETI's technology is advanced enough that it can detect signals from up to 1,000 light-years away. There are about one million stars in that zone. A signal could have been sent 1,000 years ago, before that civilization had any knowledge of Earth.



Scientists Search for Extraterrestrial Life

But she said that as humans have leaked radio and television broadcasts into space over the past 100 years, it's possible that other planets could be monitoring Earth.
"It's quite reasonable that we might be on someone's transmission list," she said.
She emphasized, however, that though it's an effort worth considering, SETI doesn't actively transmit messages to space. So far, it has only listened.
"The question of whether or not we should transmit is a question that deserves a global conversation, and we're trying to figure out how to have that," Tarter said.

Ian O'Neill, space producer for Discovery News, an ABC News partner, said that humans didn't start leaking transmissions into space until the first radio broadcasts about 100 years ago. Given that our galaxy alone is 100,000 light years across, relatively speaking, he said, those signals haven't traveled too far.
"We've only tapped into our cosmic neighborhood recently," he said."That time scale is huge."
He also said that though scientists believe that life exists across the universe, there's no actual evidence of it yet. It could be hundreds, if not thousands, of years, he said, before human messages get an extraterrestrial response.
And if aliens do visit Earth, who knows what they would be like, he said.



Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Spa...ry?id=10478157

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

We all like to have a go at the UFO followers. But it should be acknowledged that there are some unsolved UFO mysteries out there with no good rational explanation. It's fine to be a sceptic. But important to be "Sceptically Open Minded" on what the possible explanations may be.
We can only hope that their ARE civilisations out there that do have benign intent, who ARE willing to help us & prepared to make contact.
If not & if we keep on our current exponential path of population growth, our future will not be a bright one. Perhaps we will join the other 99% of species that have existed on this planet and ...............

[Kunama]

Given that there are likely billions of Earth-like planets, I think it would be rather Earthling-like to believe that here, on this 3rd rock from the rather ordinary star, Sol, is the only place where 'life' took hold and progressed in its evolution to what we rather egotistically like to call 'intelligent' life.

We are failing to deal with the basics of survival, that is, the careful rationing of our supplies to ensure our existence. At the rate we are consuming the precious resources of 'Mother Earth' and polluting the very air that sustains us, we need not be concerned that life 'alien to us' is going to be a threat for our existence.

We are our own worst enemy .............

In answer to Suzy's thread title, Yes, I think we do need to 'risk it' and try to contact a more intelligent 'species' as, on our own, we are not going to survive ...........

[astro_nutt]

I'll have to say no to this one. It's like sending out invitations to everyone and not knowing anything about them.
Our own existence, (as the result of evolutionary/circumstantial events), is unique to our Planet.
Consider other forms of life not of this planet, which may have evolved and exist beyond our level of reasoning/understanding.
If you want to reduce the risk of harm, don't send out invitations!

[Zaps]

The scale of the universe is such that any species capable of traversing it within practical spans of time would likely regard us at most the way we do bacteria.

It's not really a question worth worrying about considering even the most powerful and focused of signals yet sent into space by humanity will become indistinguishable from background noise long before encountering any E.T. receiver.

[sil (Steve)]

Not sure I should respond. We are Nothing in the universe, we are so selfish it has become background noise we ignore.it is so egotistical that any other species could experience reality in a way that makes sense to us. If we made irrefutable contact with an "alien civilization" our own governments would mess things up and regardless become a new excuse to tax us even more and remove a few more freedoms in the guise of protecting us. So many are already comfortable at losing so much in the past decade or two.

Searching I think is a good thing, it contributes to the sum of human knowledge and improving technologies. Spamming out messages we are already doing, doing more i see is a waste of time and just additional "noise" to non-optical forms of astronomy. Plus of course the legal wrangles over copyright ownership of the information being sent (pharmaceutical companies "own" portions of DNA already, preventing rivals from producing medications even when medical science has little to offer so many existing afflictions), then there are the broadcast licensing fees for whatever spectra the information is broadcast. The project would be a mess of people trying to profit.

I for one would love humanity to find complex life elsewhere: a plant, pond scum, critters. That alone will answer so many questions and pose so many more. The implications of finding lifeforms that are or are not carbon based. Have or don't have DNA. Have recognisable physical characteristics. We know nothing really. And its sad we don't value the nothing we do know.

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

If our Sun for no particular reason went Super Nova tonight, do you think anyone in the universe would give a rats! Earth....where's that?

[deanm (Dean)]

Well Doug, as long as the SN event happened during Australia/NZ's night-time, at least we'd be ok...!
Dean

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by gaa_ian

We all like to have a go at the UFO followers. But it should be acknowledged that there are some unsolved UFO mysteries out there with no good rational explanation. It's fine to be a sceptic. But important to be "Sceptically Open Minded" on what the possible explanations may be.

Well said!
I don't have a position in the debate because I simply don't have enough information to form an opinion. And like yourself, I don't make the mistake of presuming that the pro-UFO argument is completely lacking in credibility as a priori. Whilst there are many charlatans and flakes to be found on that side of the fence it is also true that the political establishment and the global mainstream media are disingenuous and self serving with few exceptions. It is also true that some of our scientific institutions have been corrupted. NIST for example, are guilty of the most egregious scientific fraud and the rot in that organisation goes right to the top. It is telling that Fox CNN, ABC etc) are wilfully complicit in deflecting public attention away from NIST's criminality.

I wouldn't rely on them to form my opinion anymore than I would rely on charlatans and frauds of the ilk of ALex Jones or David Icke.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

I pity the Alien's,, we are a violent race .......

Brian.

[xelasnave]

If we observed a planet we could Reach with resourses we need inhabited by life we consider inferior, do you think we would plunder or trade.
Trying to make contact is great for driving technology irrespective of results.
And anything that occupies humans time and resources is good for our market economy.
It is inconceivable but a Borg like species could be out there and so we really must deploy battle stars to patrol the solar syst em outter regions.
Jobs for everyone.

[Zaps]

SETI is an insignificant economic and technology driver. The likelihood of success is ridiculously small due to the very nature of fundamental physics: The universe is too large and everything is too far away. This is not a mere engineering challenge.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

If we observed a planet we could Reach with resourses we need inhabited by life we consider inferior, do you think we would plunder or trade.
Trying to make contact is great for driving technology irrespective of results.
And anything that occupies humans time and resources is good for our market economy.
It is inconceivable but a Borg like species could be out there and so we really must deploy battle stars to patrol the solar syst em outter regions.
Jobs for everyone.

[xelasnave]

I suppose you are right.
Should we still deploy death stars.