Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: tony6789 on 30/01/2006 14:46:40
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Does any one besides me belive they are real?
(for those of u who dont i am going to laugh my head off at u when they come in the near future)[:D]
- Big T
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Unidentified Flying Objects are real, but the fact that they are unidentified means we do not know what they are, but that does not mean they are unreal.
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of course they are real,it gets on my nerves when people say they dont beleive in UFOs.the simple fact is when you say ufo,people immediately assume exta-terrestrial,NO its just an object,flying,and un-identified,if the other guys turn up,we will all know in a very short space of time,independenceday got it about right.
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Always after a curry I do a UFO in the loo !!
I have no doubt that Alien spacecraft exist...can't believe that in the entire cosmos it's just us that are capable of spaceflight.
Because of the timescale of things it's possible (probable) that there have been many space bearing civilisations before we came along...and I am sure they are out there somewhere.
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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quote:
Originally posted by neilep
Always after a curry I do a UFO in the loo !!
I have no doubt that Alien spacecraft exist...can't believe that in the entire cosmos it's just us that are capable of spaceflight.
Because of the timescale of things it's possible (probable) that there have been many space bearing civilisations before we came along...and I am sure they are out there somewhere.
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
To say that we have the capability to travel to our moon, and send unmanned spacecraft to periphery of our solar system, scarcely amounts to space travel, on the scale of interstellar, let alone inter galactic, space travel.
Whether or not there are others in the universe who can leave the surface of their planet, but that is very different from assuming from assuming someone out there has the capability to leave their own planet and reach our planet.
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It would be pure arrogance on our part to beleive we are the only life in the universe,but if a race has the capability to travel across the vast distances of space,they are not going to come here just to say hi and be nice,they will enslave us,eat us or just eradicate us from what will very quickly become their planet.
I know it sounds a bit grim,but what are the chances of us meeting a race of nice and lovey dovey aliens,cat in hells chance i think.
every village has one !
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quote:
Originally posted by another_someone
To say that we have the capability to travel to our moon, and send unmanned spacecraft to periphery of our solar system, scarcely amounts to space travel, on the scale of interstellar, let alone inter galactic, space travel.
I was only generalising...besides...yes, it is space travel.
You misunderstood ... I was not citing our capabilities as an example of another space bearing civilisations capabilities...I was , as mentioned, generalising......I am sure there are others out there who enjoy space travel...be it to their local moon, or galaxy hopping !!
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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Ok the question i mean is could aliens be real and are they amoung us?
- Big T
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Well, I for one believe in alien civilisations from other planets...and I would not be surprised if they have been amongst us...I would be astonished but would be quck to accept it....I mean look at UKMICKY !!!!...enuff said !!....[:D]
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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Damn you Neil.. how could you. you promised, it was a secret. It just goes to show, you should never trust a man who's jealous.
It's not my fault my ships bigger than yours[:)]
Michael HAPPY NEW YEAR (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa186%2Fukmicky%2Fparty-smiley-012.gif&hash=844994fd61764508c533537d6874634d)
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
Damn you Neil.. how could you. you promised, it was a secret. It just goes to show, you should never trust a man who's jealous.
It's not my fault my ships bigger than yours[:)]
Michael HAPPY NEW YEAR (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa186%2Fukmicky%2Fparty-smiley-012.gif&hash=844994fd61764508c533537d6874634d)
[:D]...true....but yours is called The Titanic !! [:D]
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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Bit of topic but okay
- Big T
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Sorry Tony...it was off topic a bit.
Well People...what is your stance on other world people/aliens/things ?
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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quote:
Originally posted by tony6789
Ok the question i mean is could aliens be real and are they amoung us?
OK, UFO's and aliens are slightly different things.
What I mean is that a UFO is merely a flying object – maybe an alien flying object – but it's up there, not down here.
An alien amongst us is something down here, however it got here.
Even if extraterrestrial aliens were to exist, and even if they could somehow travel the vast distances from their home planet, it would seem incredibly unlikely that they would look anything like us.
Could one of the life forms that exist on this planet have originated on another planet – it is theoretically possible (whether plausible is another matter). The more primitive life forms could probably have survived the journey easier (e.g. just as we have already launched unmanned space craft to our nearest neighbouring star, so maybe some unmanned spacecraft landed here, and hitching a ride aboard may have been some primitive single cellular life form). It could even be that the primitive life did not arrive here about a specially constructed space craft, but on an interstellar meteor that somehow got ejected from its own solar system.
In fact, one of the questions I had often wondered is, if we do find primitive life on Mars, can we be sure that it is native to Mars, or could it have arrived as a contaminant aboard some earlier unmanned mission to Mars?
Could there be higher order life that is regularly visiting this planet?
Unless it has found a way to travel faster than the speed of light, then either the visits would have to be very infrequent, or they must have a home planet that is very close. If it takes a million years to travel each way, then clearly a single space ship could not have made even a single round trip in all the time that homo sapiens have inhabited this planet.
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What i mean is aliens are THEY amoung us?
- Big T
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No
Michael HAPPY NEW YEAR (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa186%2Fukmicky%2Fparty-smiley-012.gif&hash=844994fd61764508c533537d6874634d)
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Puh-leeeze! Aliens dont exist. If they did God would tell us in the bible.
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Besides if they are smart enough to travel through space why would they bother with us stupid humans
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so what about astronauts!!
smart or stupid human?
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anyone that puts on a suit that contains a fart when it is released has got to be stupid, or very brave x
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they are probley observing our progress. to see how we progress
- Big T
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quote:
Originally posted by BigBen
Besides if they are smart enough to travel through space why would they bother with us stupid humans
I wonder what stupid humans the Aliens may be referring to ?.....perhaps the humans who appear closed minded and not open to flexibility of thought and consideration...hmmmm !!
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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they are probley observing our progress. to see how we progress
You're making a pretty huge set of assumptions... that life is out there seems perfectly possible, but then it has to get to us whilst we're "in" (we haven't been here long in intergalactic terms, and at the current rate of progress we won't be here much longer (again in intergalactic terms), then it has to be interested in what we're up to.
People are pretty remarkable, really. We have this apparently inbuilt drive to knowing things for their own sake (rather than solely for survival). Before you go looking for intergalactic space-hopping aliens, have a look at the ones all around us, dogs, cats, swans, goldfish... they're all life-forms, they're pretty damn similar to us in the grand scheme of things, and yet they show precious little interest in researching the habits of species living right alongside them (except insofar as the eating-and-killing game goes, up and down the food chain).
So, well, it strikes me as pretty unlikely that there are aliens living amonst us researching our little ways and watching our progress.
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quote:
Originally posted by another_someone
quote:
Originally posted by tony6789
Ok the question i mean is could aliens be real and are they amoung us?
OK, UFO's and aliens are slightly different things.
What I mean is that a UFO is merely a flying object – maybe an alien flying object – but it's up there, not down here.
An alien amongst us is something down here, however it got here.
Even if extraterrestrial aliens were to exist, and even if they could somehow travel the vast distances from their home planet, it would seem incredibly unlikely that they would look anything like us.
Could one of the life forms that exist on this planet have originated on another planet – it is theoretically possible (whether plausible is another matter). The more primitive life forms could probably have survived the journey easier (e.g. just as we have already launched unmanned space craft to our nearest neighbouring star, so maybe some unmanned spacecraft landed here, and hitching a ride aboard may have been some primitive single cellular life form). It could even be that the primitive life did not arrive here about a specially constructed space craft, but on an interstellar meteor that somehow got ejected from its own solar system.
In fact, one of the questions I had often wondered is, if we do find primitive life on Mars, can we be sure that it is native to Mars, or could it have arrived as a contaminant aboard some earlier unmanned mission to Mars?
Could there be higher order life that is regularly visiting this planet?
Unless it has found a way to travel faster than the speed of light, then either the visits would have to be very infrequent, or they must have a home planet that is very close. If it takes a million years to travel each way, then clearly a single space ship could not have made even a single round trip in all the time that homo sapiens have inhabited this planet.
well...
as to your comment about how they would likely not look very much like us...
Convergent evolution would say that in a similar enviroment, they would evolve similar features, because these helped us survive they would help them as well.
If they were a water planet and they were mercreatures then of course theyd be different.
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quote:
Originally posted by tony6789
Does any one besides me belive they are real?
As a couple of other posters have noted, in the sense that there are objects seen in the sky that appear to be flying and are unidentified, then, yes, UFO's do exist.
Are these alien spacecraft? The vast majority of such sightings can be readily explained by one one of the following:
Natural Causes
a)Meteors
b)Venus
c)Lightning
d)Marsh gas
e)Birds
f)Ball lightning
g)etc
Artifical Causes
a)Commercial, military, or private aircraft on scheduled flights or missions.
b)Satellites
c)Re-entering satellites
d)Military or experimental craft on secret flights
e)Weather balloons
f)Airships
g)Flares
h)etc
Human Causes
a)Hallucination from drugs, mental illnees, sleep deprivation, or injury
b)Hoax, perpetrated on the observer.
c)Hoax, perpetraed by the observer.
d)etc
The list is not comprehensive, but is just some of the more obvious possibilities, off the top of my head.
There remain a few sightings that are not readily explained. However, it would be presumptuous and unscientific to then state that the only explanation is that they are alien craft. It is worth remembering the phrase popularised by Carl Sagan: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have yet to see any such extraordinary evidence for UFOs being alien craft.
Note, this does not mean a very small number of UFOs are not alien craft, only that we have no evidence that they are. Equally, if none of the UFOs are alien craft, this does not mean that we are not being visited or watched by aliens. [It strikes me that if they have the technology to reach us, they would likely have the technology to remain unseen.]
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Originally posted by tony6789
What i mean is aliens are THEY amoung us?
They could be. It is also possible that Tony Blair wears Cherie's dresses in private, however there is no convincing evidence for either.
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Originally posted by tony6789
they are probley observing our progress. to see how we progress
If intelligent, spacefaring aliens exist (and I concede that they might) and they are anything like humanity in physical and mental character, then I doubt that they are directly observing. Would you wish to spend a few hundred years in deep freeze, braving the perils of interstellar space, to then live for years limited to the confines of your spacecraft while you observed a strange planet, before undergoing more deep freeze to return to a world where everyone you had known was either dead, or several hundred years your senior?
If we are being observed it is more likely to be by highly sophisticated robotic probes, concealed within the solar system. Any SETI program should not only be scanning for signals from others stars, but checking the solar system for signals to other stars, from such probes.
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We only have to wait six years more. In 2012 we will be invaded from aliens. (Do you remember X-Files?)
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i heard it waz 2015...
NEVER! underestimate youth
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I heard it was 2011 ... so there you go ...
But seriously ...
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Originally posted by another_someone
Could there be higher order life that is regularly visiting this planet?
Unless it has found a way to travel faster than the speed of light, then either the visits would have to be very infrequent, or they must have a home planet that is very close. If it takes a million years to travel each way, then clearly a single space ship could not have made even a single round trip in all the time that homo sapiens have inhabited this planet.
If they ... whoever 'they' are ... are in a craft travelling at 98 to 99% of the speed of light, due to time dilation their ship time factor will be a lot shorter than their port time factor ...
They could get here well within their own lifetime ... if their starting point was, say, from 4 to 35 lightyears from here ...
Of course they could only make one trip, because during the port time it would take to get back to their home world, their own civilisation will have passed away long since ...
Here's another idea ... what if they came here once only ... long ago ... and their original craft is orbiting one of the moons of Saturn, for example ... and serves as a habitat for subsequent generations of their kind ...
Could be they are closer than we think, living in a habitat right here in our own solar system ...
Regular trips into Earth orbit, probes into our atmosphere, would then be plausable ....
But there is also the factor of advanced civilisations existing in our galaxy or even neighbouring galaxies at the SAME TIME as ours here ...
There is not much chance of that ... perhaps intelligent species once existed somewhere, but are extinct now ... or perhaps another intelligent species will evolve again somewhere, after we ourselves are gone ...
... given enough time ... there is a problem with that too ... planetary systems of such type as ours come from matter left over after supernovae of very hot first generation stars ... and the process takes a lot of time ... billions of years of it ...
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quote:
Originally posted by nannham
If they ... whoever 'they' are ... are in a craft travelling at 98 to 99% of the speed of light, due to time dilation their ship time factor will be a lot shorter than their port time factor ...
There perception of time would be shorter, but it still holds true that within the lifetime of the homo sapien species, they could not have done a round trip, even if in their own perception the journey only took a brief instance.
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They could get here well within their own lifetime ... if their starting point was, say, from 4 to 35 lightyears from here ...
Indeed – but what is the probability that they are that close – how many stars of the right type are within that short a distance of us? Ofcourse, low probability is no more an impossibility than a high probability is a certainty.
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Here's another idea ... what if they came here once only ... long ago ... and their original craft is orbiting one of the moons of Saturn, for example ... and serves as a habitat for subsequent generations of their kind ...
Why so close – why not place them beyond Pluto?
Certainly, they could be there – but what are they doing there – why are they there? Are they there by choice, or marooned – I suspect that if it were me, I would feel very marooned?
What do you mean by generations? Do they reproduce in a manner that we would identify as generational?
If they are indeed orbiting in a very small, highly isolated, island community – what are the evolutionary consequences for them (such a community on Earth would probably be in evolutionary regression)?
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Regular trips into Earth orbit, probes into our atmosphere, would then be plausable ....
To what purpose? The only reasonable purpose I could see would be to obtain raw materials for their own sustenance – but although the Earth has a rich variety of resources, and is still much smaller than the giant planets, it would still be an expensive trip to make. If they could obtain the same from small comets and asteroids, it would be a great deal cheaper in terms of energy usage. It is clear that if they are capable of traversing the vast interstellar voids without requiring external resources, they will not need to obtain external resources very frequently once they get here (they must be the equivalent of interstellar camels, only occasionally needing to find a planetary oasis).
Ofcourse, going back to my earlier statement of evolutionary regression – it is possible that having reached our solar system with the capacity to be self sustaining, they have regressed to where they need to make landfall more frequently, and are now unable to go far from our solar system because they have lost the ability to survive extensive periods away from a planetary resource.
It still leaves the question as to why they set out upon their journey in the first place? Were they exiled here, or did they choose to come here (knowing that they were unlikely to ever return, or at least to return to the same world and the same civilisation that they left), or did they drift off course? Why did the civilisation from which they came even develop the technology to transport their life forms over such large distances when they clearly could not come home again?
Ofcourse, if we are talking about robots, entities that are considered disposable (even maybe slaves), then it may be that they would send these out on one way exploratory missions even if they were never going to come back, because they are considered of sufficiently low worth to the civilisation that sent them that it matters not if they return or not.
But there still remains the underlying problem of the evolution of the technology that brought them here. One does not simply design and build a ship that can travel interstellar distances – the technology has to evolve, step by step, with ships that can get ever more capable with each generation, until one day one makes that final step to have a ship with interstellar capability. What were those intermediate steps, and why were they undertaken, and how was there success demonstrated? You cannot demonstrate a success unless you can see the end result – but how did they view the end results of the intermediate designs if those intermediate designs already had capabilities only slightly less than the capability of the ship that brought these aliens to our solar system?
George
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i dnt believe in ufos because evryone is lyk ooo derr alien ufos just because they dont kno what it is
kiefer
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The extra-terrestrials, aliens, batmans ,vampires are personages of movies and fairy tales...
The stories are fairy tales for children.. In real life of the Earth you do not find any extra-terrestrials,vampires
and werewolves..
The most part of the "Unknown .Flying Objects" it is military machines of the Earth's countries...
The military "UFOs" fly to observe with military goals any terrestrial objects of any foreign countries....
The military machines can stop itselves in an atmosphere "to stand" in an air..
The military machines can fly in atmosphere in any directions, horizontally or vertically towards to up and towards to down.
But in the Earth and in the Solar system there are not any extra-terrestrial machines and there are not any live organisms of extra-terrestrial origine.
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A friend of mine mentioned that it seems like claims of UFO sightings, especially close up encounters, have significantly decreased as the popularity of cell phones with camaras has increased.
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A friend of mine mentioned that it seems like claims of UFO sightings, especially close up encounters, have significantly decreased as the popularity of cell phones with camaras has increased.
Interesting observation, especially since people now have better access to cameras as well as the internet.
I think the military used to claim that some of their experimental airplanes were UFO's to avoid talking about them. Perhaps there is more transparency now.
There have also been so many hoaxes that people have just gotten tired of the whole concept of UFO's.
Interstellar travel is great for movies... but it is quite improbable that aliens would spend the extraordinary effort to travel to Earth, just to buzz our atmosphere and put on pretty light shows.
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Besides if they are smart enough to travel through space why would they bother with us stupid humans
Why do we stupid humans keep animals in a zoo? ;)
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A friend of mine mentioned that it seems like claims of UFO sightings, especially close up encounters, have significantly decreased as the popularity of cell phones with camaras has increased.
A very good point. Additionally the quality of consumer priced cameras has increased massively. I carry a camera most of the time - sometimes it's my nikon slr and other times its a little coolpix. 20 years ago I also carried a camera most of the time - mostly my minolta slr and the rest of the time a crappy instamatic. The quality of pictures from the two slrs are broadly comparable, in usability the nikon wins but the minolta wins on fine detail; both can take beautiful pictures capable of serious englargement. But the quality from the small cameras are not comparable, fixed focus, shoddy optics, tiny cartridge film, and single shutter speed meant that anything in distance was blurred and mostly unrecognizable - the coolpix which cost about the same has autofocus, optical zoom, sophisticated optics and electronics and a decent ccd - and will take video. People nearly always have access nowadays to sophisticated and quality recording devices - and that is in addition to the near ubiquitous nature of mobile phone cameras as you mentioned. we should be seeing a marked increase in well recorded sightings but we are not! whilst absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, even the english courts now allow inferences to be drawn from the lack of evidence/response.
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The aliens know we have a lot more cameras. They can see the ads on the telly too. Now, they only land their UFOs at night in Loch Ness.
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I don't believe that ufos are a physical phenomenon. They appear to be small glowing balls of light. They appear out of nowhere, fly around apparently under intelligent control, and then vanish again. I suspect they are spiritual in nature. I don't believe in aliens. And even if there were aliens there is no reason for them to hide and not show themselves. Why travel that far just to look? That is like driving across country only to arrive, peek into the window and then go home. Seems silly.
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I suspect [ball lightning, etc] are spiritual in nature. I don't believe in aliens .... Seems silly.
So you consider Voyeuristic L.G.M. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men) to be silly [no disagreement here].
But a spiritual explanation comes with the ring of veracity for you? - Surely these odds would be several trillion times longer (even for a theist).
Whether this is real phenomenon or not (that's still yet to be proven), surely a meteorological explanation would be by far the most likely cause, no?
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The aliens know we have a lot more cameras. They can see the ads on the telly too. Now, they only land their UFOs at night in Loch Ness.
Damn & curse you sir! Now you've given the game away. They are watching this forum, you know. I was just packing my Boy's Own Super Slueth camera and tripod with 5000mm hyper telephoto, super low light lens to get a few good shots of ET dipping his toes in Loch Ness and talking to the monster.
Dawg gone it! Guess I'll put my 'Supersaver' rail ticket on eBay now.
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...... I suspect they are spiritual in nature........
Hmmmm..... Sorry, but I think that suggestion is as bonkers as flying saucers, cigars and doughnuts, except that I would agree if you mean , 'they are all in the mind'.
BTW - Anyone noticed, this has been posted on 'Non life Sciences' board. Sounds about right to me.
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...claims of UFO sightings...
Again as usual the requirement to look at the data heading for the graph.
What about both ghosts-> point to life as alive, and , UFO's point to evolution somewhere else where it is prime in the universe to be alive, e.g. maybe they take a look and fly away because its too cold to have life here because its often below 500 Centigrade, or maybe their physiology disallows it because its too hot and require this to at least be in ice age.
Personally i believe of Vogon destroyers , keep blowing up things in space or back blasting some propulsion system and they'll pull the yanks over sometime because of the debris.
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If aliens are capable of visiting us then they are more advanced technologically than we are. I would theorize that, like us, some of them are nicer than others. So the goal of some could be to collectively problem solve so that everyone benefits. The goal of others could be less benevolent.
I heard a theory that primitive man was genetically spliced with aliens long ago, and that's why we had sudden technological leaps. It would also explain why the "missing link" is missing.
Yes, I believe there are UFOs from other planets bringing visitors, some of whom become resident aliens.
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Are UFOs alien spacecraft visiting earth? Almost certainly not!
Is there life out there in the universe. Almost certainly SO.
Is there intelligent life out there in the universe. Most probably so.
Is that life at least as scientifically advanced or more so than us RIGHT NOW? Big maybe!
Is that advanced civilization by happen chance anywhere near our neighborhood of the galaxy? Most probably not.
Would that advanced civilization have any useful reason to spend the enormous amount of time and energy required to travel across all those light years to get here. Almost certainly not.
Are UFOs then simply objects unidentified? Almost certainly!
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Would that advanced civilization have any useful reason to spend the enormous amount of time and energy required to travel across all those light years to get here. Almost certainly not.
Perhaps...
If we identified an "earth-like" planet in a "habitable-zone", 100 lightyears from Earth, perhaps we would choose to send an egg&seed ship there. Or, at least send some long distance probes that hopefully would reawaken 100,000 years from now, after they made the passage.
If we could detect water at the planet, all the better. However, detecting high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere would be attractive, but a a sign that the planet was already "taken"... which would add to our curiosity, but perhaps make it unattractive for a colony ship.
Anyway, yes, someday we might choose to send a ship 100+ light years to the right planet. However, undoubtedly we would not be content with just buzzing the atmosphere of the destination, although there might be a brief planning period before "first contact", which could involve a communication delay back to our home planet.
However, even with a 200 year communication delay, one would still be forced to ask "why now"?
Anyway, I have no doubt that many of the past "UFO sightings" were weather balloons, mirages, and perhaps top-secret military devices that the military chose not to admit that they were testing.
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I remain doubtful. Supposing we could find out that such a planet exists, and supposing we could determine that it could sustain human life, would we send a ship there? More to the point, would we send a manned ship there (as the analogy of UFOs is that there are aliens coming here). I cannot imagine it happening. Not even a government would have the resources to pull this off.
Would a worldwide coalition do it? Well, who? I am not aware of any such coalition who would be wiling to spend the resources. Particularly, as you rightly point out, it would take 200 years to find out whether it was worthwhile.
We tend to be an impatient species........
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Given the age of the galaxy and two assumptions:
1. Intelligent life is not a phenomenon unique to the earth
2. Interstellar travel is practical (requires some new physics)
Then there will be very many intelligent species out there many millions of years in advance of us (evolution, genetic engineering, technology etc.) and they would certainly have earth on their maps. It is hard to comprehend such a species given the limited existence of humans and the very limited time we have had in trying to utilise technology but, suffice it to say, if they did not want to be detected, they would not be detected. They certainly could be observing us, controlling our development or maybe doing neither. We are not going to know.
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2. Interstellar travel is practical (requires some new physics)
That seems like an awfully big assumption.
I have no doubt that we will learn more about basic principles of gravity, and the fabric of space in the future. However, I am doubtful that it will bring a huge revolution in interstellar travel.
Everything that I have calculated, we will never be standing on the bridge of the "Enterprise", and jumping halfway across the galaxy in a few moments, hardly noticing that we have even moved. And, communicating back to Earth in real-time.
With onboard engines, energy requirements will be enormous to reach a high fraction of the speed of light. And, even with that, it will take years to reach the nearest stars.
Land based electromagnetic acceleration would be preferable, but it would still require essentially a lethal dose of acceleration, and an extraordinary amount of energy to reach abysmally slow speeds. Quick course reversals won't happen, and maneuvers such as aerobraking, while important for energy conservation, will be extraordinary dangerous.
I have no doubt that humans will eventually attempt to reach the nearest stars, and may slowly spread with local hops from star to star across the galaxy, but it will not be something to be taken lightly.
Telescopes, on the other hand, will be something that can be improved over time, with better cameras, and just sheer brute force. I can imagine a 1-mile diameter lunar based telescope in the future, or even much larger. Also arrays of dozens, or hundreds of sparsely spaced telescopes functioning together as one. Even so, observations of all 300 billion stars, and perhaps a few trillion planets in the Milky Way will take time.
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Given the age of the galaxy and two assumptions:
1. Intelligent life is not a phenomenon unique to the earth
You may be right about intelligent life in the universe. In fact you are probably right. The sticking point for me is, is that intelligent life of an advanced enough technology Right At This Time? Because if they were at their height, say, even a hundred years ago, we could not have "talked" with them across space.
Likewise if they are now about where we were circa 1900, they could be right across the galactic street and we would never know as they would have no way to hear us. The timing of intelligent life as advanced as us or more advanced as us is pointless unless they coincide with our technology level at this time, right now.
The other reason I am not optimistic about intelligent life is the fact that in all the 4 and a half billion years the earth has been around, the biological throw of the intelligent life dice has only been rolled (as far as we know) once. Right now! That means that for 99.999% of the age of the earth, this planet got along fine without an intelligent, self aware species. Think about that for a minute. I'm not at all sure intelligent life is a common outcome of evolution on other planets. Life itself - sure! But intelligent life. The odds seem very, very tiny.
2. Interstellar travel is practical (requires some new physics)
Like someone mentioned above, this is a HUGE leap. I would be thrilled to be able to stand on the bridge of the Enterprise. According to everything we know about science at the moment though, that is never going to happen. To wish it is true is not logical (pun intended).
So we have to deal with the immensely big problem of distance. A super advanced society that is a million light years away is almost pointless. Not only could we not ever meet them, by the time we got a message and sent one back they could be long extinct, or we could go extinct waiting for the return message.
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As far as longevity of the society.
If our sun was any bigger than it is, then it would have burnt out before the 4 billion years that it took for humans to evolve.
Smaller stars have a lot longer time period, but apparently often have a lot more variable output, potentially making the growth of life difficult.
There are some predictions that the environment on Earth will become unstable (without human influence) in the next billion or so years.
The other factor in the equation is metallicity. While our universe is estimated to be about 14 billion years old, it is quite possible that the first life could not have evolved before 5 billion years ago or so due to insufficient metallicity.
Actually, I'm having troubles finding the metallicity data, but it should be possible to find. If we assume the metallicity of our sun (or thereabouts) is the minimal metallicity for intelligence life, then there should be a distance in lightyears where few stars pass the threshold.
Anyway, there may be multiple factors that have led to humans to evolve NOW, HERE, ON EARTH.
Obviously the universe is big, but it may be that all intelligent life is actually evolving right now, with all civilizations synchronized +/- a few billion years.
And, if a society doesn't evolve to the point where they can escape the parent star, then the society will die with the parent star.
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CliffordK wrote "Anyway, there may be multiple factors that have led to humans to evolve NOW, HERE, ON EARTH."
I'm curious. Are you suggesting that it may not have been totally random that a self aware organism appeared on earth at this point in the life of the universe. That was the implication I had from your statements.
If so would you go into that a bit more? I have always thought it was a totally random occurrence.
This is one of those questions that has intrigued me for a long time. Why sentience now? In all the billions of years of life on the planet. Why now, if it was not a totally random event.
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Ok.
With the "Big Bang" theory (which is the current theory for the creation of the universe).
At first there was nothing.
Then there was a Big Bang
Then there were ions and Energy
Then there was HYDROGEN.
The first stars would have been Population III stars. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity#Population_III_stars). They would have started with essentially 100% Hydrogen. Any planets would also have been made up of 100% hydrogen, and unable to support life.
As the first generation of stars went supernova or otherwise were extinguished, a second generation of metal poor stars, Population II Stars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity#Population_II_stars) were formed. Perhaps not all stars go through supernova, but it is believed that most of the heavier than lead elements are actually formed during the supernova, and there must be a mechanism to spread the heavy minerals through space to become planets. Anyway, the second generation (Population II) stars probably would not have supported life either. Even though we are made up of primarily Carbon and Hydrogen, we require heavier elements such as Iron (for hemoglobin), as well as all the stuff rocks are made out of. An advanced civilization also requires many other elements to make our tools.
So, as the second generation went supernova, a third generation, Population I stars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity#Population_I_stars), was born, including our sun. These would have had the necessary minerals around them for planets like Earth to form. There is also a set of Extreme Population I stars, I'm not sure if these are considered a 4th generation, or a continuum of the same generation of the Population I stars.
I'm not finding a good timeline. Here in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reionization) is a discussion of the early period after the Big Bang.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F2%2F29%2FReion_diagram.jpg%2F480px-Reion_diagram.jpg&hash=ffc34e9880567fcdda0ec56cf4c70d0a)
Anyway, sometime around the time of the formation of our sun was the time when life, or "intelligent" life would have first been possible in the universe. Then, assuming Earth was "average", 4 or 5 billion years later, Humans came along.
Thus, one would conclude that while there may be some advanced societies that are a few billion years old, there are no advanced societies that are more than a few billion years old. There would be a point in the Universe where the light has not arrived yet from stars with sufficient metallicity to support an advanced civilization.
Stars lifetimes vary tremendously. For example Canis Majoris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VY_Canis_Majoris) is simply HUGE. Yet, it is believed to be around 200 million years old, and is predicted to go hypernova in about 100,000 more years. If there was life on a planet around the star, it would be snuffed out before an advanced civilization could form.
Escaping our solar system will be the biggest task our civilization (and our progeny) will ever face. Yet, in 4 billion years, our solar system (and several other nearby stars) may become inhospitable to life. Predictions are that our sun won't go through a supernova phase, but rather will become a red giant followed by a white dwarf. Any remaining civilization will likely become vagrants in our solar system, jumping from Earth to outer moons, then returning to as close as possible to the future cooling remnants of the sun.
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My point is that whether you accept that there is practical interstellar travel and that we are not unique, or whether you think that insterstellar travel is confined by physics to be impractical, then the conclusion would be that alien UFO's would not be ever seen in either case. Either they would be too advanced and way beyond our technology, or that they would not exist.
Clifford, I did some calculations for a post a while ago which is why I gave a cautious estimate that alien races would be "only" many millions of years in advance rather than billions. The spread of when development of life (and/or intelligent life) would occur is very large indeed and this is added to the large spread of time for the development of a solar system with a habitable planet. Of course, maybe humans have been the lucky first ones, but again there would then be no alien UFO's then either.
Personally, I think our knowledge of the structure of space-time is at its infancy. Everything we know is probably wrong, so I would not like to predict that there will never be practical interstellar travel. This may be wishful thinking on my part but it would be a great shame, with all these stars, that we could never practically get to any of them. In any case, it won't be happening any time soon.
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........ with all these stars, that we could never practically get to any of them. In any case, it won't be happening any time soon.
Should I unpack my suitcase then?
The fact remains that the vast majority of UFO sightings can be explained. German scientists were working on the development of many odd shaped aircraft during WWII, including a 'flying saucer'. Many of these scientists, at the end of the war, found themselves working in a top secret base in New Mexico, where so many of these sightings took place.
That aside, I am still of the opinion that if any civilisation has managed to achieve inerstella travel, upon finding other life (such as us), they would try to make contact, not hide.
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That aside, I am still of the opinion that if any civilisation has managed to achieve inerstella travel, upon finding other life (such as us), they would try to make contact, not hide.
I'm intrigued why you think this. We are speaking of beings likely to be very much ahead of us, intellectually and technologically. What benefit would it be to them to make contact? They could simply observe us or, I expect, if they so wished, live among us ingognito. That is if they are even interested. Our own history suggests that contact between disparate cultures is often highly destructive of the less "advanced" society. This may be something that benevolent aliens would wish to avoid and, even if they did interfere to our advantage, it would be highly controlled and totally invisible.
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I think the question is what would bring the Aliens to choose to come to Earth at all. Tourism? Curiosity? Mining biological organisms? Conquest and colonization? Minerals?
I think intellectual curiosity is one of the things that will drive humans to attempt interstellar travel one day. Observing, but not meeting the new species would only satisfy half one's curiosity.
Part of the ultimate decision to contact or not would be dependent on whether it is a relatively easy trip, or a grueling multi-generation trip. And, it will also depend on how many alien species one would be meeting. Aliens might be content to observe Earth if there were multitudes of other alien species, but might choose "first contact" if we were the first aliens they ever encountered.
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My assumptions are based on intelligent life being fairly prolific and, therefore, being also very advanced or, alternatively, being essentially confined by physics to their own locale. In the last post here I was just considering the former case and then it is likely that there would be some hierarchy of capabilities (but all much superior to our own) and some organisational agreement on how to treat a non-spacefaring planet. But it would seem very unlikely that, if life is very rare, the species that found us and that had the capability to get here, would gain anything much by making themselves known. They would still be likely to be much in advance of us (just based on statistics) and would be aware that it may be seriously disrupting to our society as it stands today, even to the point of destroying it.
I dont think colonisation, conquest, mining for minerals or organisms are likely because by the same statistics there would be plenty of planets they could look at without intelligent life. That is if they wanted anything they could not synthesise. Curiosity/tourism I like though - this could be benign and non-damaging to us and, I imagine, would be of some interest to such beings.
Of course this is all slightly speculative :-)
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Thank you, Clifford. I appreciate the explanation!
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i would have to say yes aliens, and UFOs exist to your question are they among us? probably not; then again its a big world. lest we forget what Steven hawking said "we would naive to think that this is the only place in the universe that things come together perfectly to support life we only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet,"
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I for one don't believe it till I see it. ^
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I for one don't believe it till I see it. ^
Why would seeing it make you believe it? Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. People see patterns where none exist. Hallucinations are not uncommon. I should require considerably more than a personal observation to establish belief in any disputed concept.
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I saw a UFO at a KOA campground in Yuma Arizona in 1978. I believe it to be a military experimental craft, since I'm told there is a base nearby. It looked like clear glass tubes connected in a framework roughly the shape of the Concord. Each joint had a pinpoint of light. I theorize this was a prototype, since it was not much bigger than a Cessna, but similar models seen in subsequent years were much larger. It was completely silent and seemed to be traveling with us along the road at a walking pace. It was across the road and about two pole lengths higher than the telephone poles.
Has anyone else been lucky enough to see something unexplained?
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Back in the 70's, my dad and I thought we saw a UFO flying around Creswell, OR, I think. It looked like a low flying craft with windows or something. We followed it with the car for a bit, and later determined that it was likely an airplane towing a banner just beyond the range where we could make out the letters.
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I believe that unidentified flying objects exist. When I was in the hospital in February of this year, while I was watching TV in the TV room I looked out the window and say three whie lighs flying in a triangle formation. No plane has such a configuration of lights. Other people sitting in the room also saw them and that was before I exlained what I saw to them. All I said was "Did you see that?"
There was another sight that three of us saw when we were driving down the road at night in a van in New Mexico. The sky was blck as black could get! More after I get more sleep.
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Of course UFOs exist, Pmb, it was a flying object and you clearly did not identify it :-) Why do you think a sophisticated alien spacecraft, with an aim to be hidden, would have navigation lights, or have any external lights?
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Of course UFOs exist, Pmb, it was a flying object and you clearly did not identify it :-) Why do you think a sophisticated alien spacecraft, with an aim to be hidden, would have navigation lights, or have any external lights?
It's not that simple. When the aircraft lights are all of one color then they can't act as navigation lights. So a craft that has only three white lights has no navigation lights at all. If there were three small crafts each with one single landing light pointing forward then that would describe what I saw since such a light would have a rather large arc. The length if time I saw the group was not enough to determine of there was any relative motion between the lights and there was thus no way to determine of that was the case. But if it was summer then it would make sense. The hospital was near a landing field.
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This conclusion is not really one of the more likely ones. If you read my earlier posts you will know my view: if there are alien civilisations, which I think likely, then they will be very, very advanced technologically. Assuming they have found a way to overcome what our current physics would suggest and are, at least observing us, we would simply not know. They would not display lights: navigation, landing or otherwise and could probably remain completely undetectable with our less sophisticated technology. Of course if there is no way around the physics, or if intelligent life is a very rare event, then there would be no alien UFOs either. So, at least in my view, it is very unlikely that anyone is really observing alien spacecraft in the many "sightings" that occur every year. I think a more prosaic explanation is much more likely. In fact most UFO sightings that get investigated are explained, though there have been some that remain unexplained. It looks like the balance of probabilities suggests a simpler explanation. I have yet to see any incontrovertible evidence for alien craft and given the number of claimed sightings this would be unlikely unless it is the case that world governments, and their civil and armed forces, are all involved in a cover-up (as, it seems, some people believe), which is also very unlikely.
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If the laws of physics as we currently understand them prove accurate, there simply is no way an advanced civilization would take the enormous power, time, and resources just to come and visit us. I would go so far as to say it is the height of hubris to think we humans are worth a visit!
If it turns out that there is some way past the speed of light limitation, a civilization advanced enough to have that technology, once again, would desire to come to earth why? If they are that advanced they certainly do not need anything we have to offer.
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I think the "speed of light limitation" is similar to the old "speed of sound limitation". I also think there are both government (and some privately funded) UFOs as well as alien visitors.
Why would aliens allow us to see them? It brings to mind the way I train wild horses. Since they are fearful (like most people are of aliens), I let them gradually get used to my presence until a trust bond is formed. They may want to visit us as part of the course of their explorations, or because they want or need something, or maybe to guide us. Who knows? I think if they we're going to do something nasty it would have been done by now. That said, I'm sure I would have great trepidation if a craft or alien came very close. I suspect my curious nature would win out though.
Why do you suppose some people have multiple sightings? Do you think humans can communicate with aliens through mental telepathy?
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I think the "speed of light limitation" is similar to the old "speed of sound limitation".
Then you are simply ignoring a vast amount of scientific evidence.
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Then you are simply ignoring a vast amount of scientific evidence
What if someone does discover a way to travel faster than light ? would this be unacceptable to science, after all, science is there to discover these things and not shoot them down ( unless your a ballistics scientist of course ), im not the sharpest tool in the box (ask Neillep ) but i do wonder about a lot of things, and what would stop us going faster than light ? :o
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If someone does discover a way to travel faster than light of course this would not be unacceptable to science. It would completely turn our current understanding of physics upside down but I do not know any scientist who would deny the existence of something palpably and demonstrably true. That would be a totally mad thing to do.
At present the laws of physics do not allow anything to travel beyond lightspeed. They may be wrong, and probably are, but they are consistant with observations and experiments to date. Until it is demonstrated that something is behaving in a way that is inconsistant with these laws, and therefore proves them wrong, they are the best, and only realistic, guide to predicting how the universe behaves and how to guide our engineering.
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At present the laws of physics do not allow anything to travel beyond lightspeed.
Except space itself, of course. Which I find very intriguing. In an annoying kinda way........
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At present the laws of physics do not allow anything to travel beyond lightspeed.
Except space itself, of course. Which I find very intriguing. In an annoying kinda way........
OT - But no space does not travel at light speed. there is no causal connection, no information transmission, no ability to measure that happening. Things get further apart at a rate that not even light could cross the distance - but there is no evidence or theory that has anything moving at greater than light speed as far as we know
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It is my understanding that anything within space is limited to the speed of light, but that space itself is not. That space expanded much faster than the speed of light just after the Big Bang. Of course, my understanding has been known to be confused at times!
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Getting back on point. My earlier query:
If it turns out that there is some way past the speed of light limitation, a civilization that advanced certainly does not need anything we have to offer. So why would they bother to come here?
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If it turns out that there is some way past the speed of light limitation, a civilization that advanced certainly does not need anything we have to offer. So why would they bother to come here?
If superluminal speed is possible, it may not take thousands or millions of years of additional research, but such a discovery could come at any time. Perhaps Star Trek's Zefram Cochrane is alive now.
If humans choose to explore new stars, there will be many reasons.
Curiosity.
Expansion & colonization.
Possibly resources, but at this point, it would seem unlikely, as cost of transport would likely be far more than the value of the resources, unless, for example, we could reach a solar system made entirely of antimatter, or something similar of critical value, but otherwise unavailable anywhere in our solar system.
I think humanity in general would be thrilled to find someone new to talk to.
Ideally one would select uninhabited goldilocks planets for colonization. However, with our current technology, one might not know what to expect until we get there. Or, if interstellar travel takes thousands or millions of years, the target planets could change while we're on the trip.
And, if the goal is to find new friends, then one would wish to choose planets with advanced civilizations.
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I think it's more likely someone will discover a way around the second law of thermodynamics before anyone figures out how to transport mass faster than light speed. If there is a way to get there faster, it will likely involve a shortcut through spacetime.
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There is now work being done on transporting objects via entanglement, which is instantaneous.