Community Forums

Country Road · 07-19-2022, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbircky

They certainly exist, here’s proof:

You’ve got to be kidding me! I thought these posters were from California.

Cloud Dancer · 07-21-2022, 08:48 AM

Retired high-altitude, high-time, retired ATP here. Regarding all the one's I've seen, I made sure I identified them. I've yet to conceptualize the universe.

Orrin · 07-21-2022, 09:02 AM

Science fiction writers have novel ways of getting around the distance problem. "Take her to warp 10 Scotty!"

To travel at 50 percent the speed of light takes an unimaginable amount of energy. The physics here are the same as any other planet in the universe.

I know many want to believe in interstellar transportation, but it is not possible.

bigb56 · 07-21-2022, 09:10 AM

There are two different things being discussed here, the poll asks if you think UFOs exist and are extra-terrestrial. I voted no because I don't believe there are UFOs piloted by extra-terrestrials but that doesn't mean I don't believe there is other life out there, I just don't believe that life has visited us.

MSHappyCampers · 07-21-2022, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigb56

There are two different things being discussed here, the poll asks if you think UFOs exist and are extra-terrestrial. I voted no because I don't believe there are UFOs piloted by extra-terrestrials but that doesn't mean I don't believe there is other life out there, I just don't believe that life has visited us.

You're right Brian! I should have offered that option!

baraff · 07-21-2022, 09:44 AM

Statistically it is impossible for us to be alone in the Universe. But aliens on earth flying craft that defy all known laws of physics? Not likely.
I'm leaning toward some not-so-friendly country or countries using some type of hologram technology and radar system to create incidents of things that aren't really there.
However, my opinion is worth what you paid for it.

Mr.Mark · 07-21-2022, 09:46 AM

I believe that there is a good chance that there is life out there somewhere as the Universe is SO vast.

I don't think alien life would actually make a personal visit.... why? If they have the technology to travel the distance from other solar systems, they don't need to come in person.

Their spaceship would be so small and packed full of electronics that we can only imagine or haven't even thought of yet. It could be the size of a pea and travel at a zillion light years a second.

If they could do that, we probably would be very uninteresting to them. We would be just another rock with 'ants' on it! LOL!

Hopefully, in the 'ever-after', all of this will make sense to us.

Safe travels (at a snails pace)
Mark

Mudfrog · 07-21-2022, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigb56

There are two different things being discussed here, the poll asks if you think UFOs exist and are extra-terrestrial. I voted no because I don't believe there are UFOs piloted by extra-terrestrials but that doesn't mean I don't believe there is other life out there, I just don't believe that life has visited us.

I'm going to vote no for almost the same reasoning. With the vastness of space, the millions of stars and galaxies, I have no doubt there are other life forms out there. However, I haven't a clue as to whether our planet has ever been visited by any of them.

The UFOs that we read about seem to always have bright lights which, imo, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless he's/she's/it's just messing with us, an extraterrestrial would either turn the lights off to keep from being seen or leave them on and come on down to hear one of our big wigs say, "greetings, welcome to earth".

MSHappyCampers · 07-21-2022, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mudfrog

I'm going to vote no for almost the same reasoning. With the vastness of space, the millions of stars and galaxies, I have no doubt there are other life forms out there. However, I haven't a clue as to whether our planet has ever been visited by any of them.

The UFOs that we read about seem to always have bright lights which, imo, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless he's/she's/it's just messing with us, an extraterrestrial would either turn the lights off to keep from being seen or leave them on and come on down to hear one of our big wigs say, "greetings, welcome to earth".

What about the radar contacts by our military pilots?

Mudfrog · 07-21-2022, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSHappyCampers

What about the radar contacts by our military pilots?

Who knows, could be something to these. I do believe it's possible we've been visited but just don't know for sure.

I was just stating my opinion that easy to spot brightly lit up UFOs may be indeed unidentified, but are likely not extraterrestrial in origin.

UFO Pilot · 07-21-2022, 10:57 AM

AJMike · 07-21-2022, 11:37 AM

Personally I would not be surprised if we are the only intelligent self-aware life in the Universe, but I would not be surprised if we are not the only ones either. There is pretty much no way to know. However I am influenced by the Fermi paradox. If there are other intelligent self-aware lives in the Universe, where are they?

As for UFOs, I believe in them in the sense that they are Unidentified Flying Objects. We don't know what they are, so they are, by definition, unidentified. My guess is that they are either natural phenomena or vehicles built and being tested by local government or scientific groups. If they are really aliens in the sense of not-of-this-planet, then I hope we never meet them. The record of lower technology societies surviving contact with higher technology societies is not comforting.

As for the Drake equation, which some believe "proves" that there must be other intelligent life in the Universe, I have always considered that to be a meaningless mathematical equation because we have no knowledge of what many of the coefficients are. The percent that intelligent life would evolve on a planet is a value that we just don't know, so the entire structure of the Drake equation is meaningless.

Just my opinion. But what I think is a much more interesting question is what effect would first contact with an alien race have on most of the world's religions? Would any survive? Would they all survive, but be changed? Would any one be more likely to survive unchanged than others?

tetranz · 07-21-2022, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baraff

Statistically it is impossible for us to be alone in the Universe.

That's not true. It might be very unlikely but it is not impossible.

I remember a TED talk where someone went through a calculation of probabilities. I don't recall it all but he started with an estimate of the number of habitable planets which of course is a mind blowing huge number. Then he came up with the probabilities of all the steps that needed to happen like DNA or whatever forming randomly etc. When you start multiplying the extremely large numbers with some extremely small probabilities you can quickly get down to some quite small numbers.

Of course it's all guesswork to a degree and I think I read some rebuttals so ... who knows.

I suspect primitive life, bacteria etc, might be quite common but intelligent life very rare.

tetranz · 07-21-2022, 12:05 PM

One of the issues with making contact is that we not only somehow need to connect in space but also in time.

There are certainly theories that civilizations come and go. They eventually destroy themselves. I think we might be on track to do that.

If civilizations come and go in the blink of an eye on cosmic terms then even if we managed to travel to or somehow connect with an inhabitable planet, whoever lived there might have been very advanced but destroyed themselves a million years ago.

I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson I heard saying that it might not be a great idea to advertise that we're here. Others could easily see us as tasty worms to eat.