Thread: Tell me about your take on UFOs and alien life

Yes, yes, and yes.

Sorry about the vague response, if you want to know why, then PM me.

i think the aliens look like this

1. Never had a credible UFO sighting for myself, but I think that there's something to the flood of witness reports, and a small handful of the videos look pretty credible. The evidence regarding Roswell and a couple other specific events is also pretty compelling.

2. I'm pretty certain aliens are out there. With as many stars in the galaxy as grains of sand on the earth, the conditions for life may be extremely rare but it's not doubt repeated itself, if not in this galaxy then another one.

3. Not sure if they've visited earth, if they have I doubt they went the long way, they've probably got some understanding of physics and physical reality we don't which grants them a short cut.

I think most UFO sightings are just random lights from airplanes and strange reflections from all the lights we have all across the world. I think a lot of ghosts and stuff are just from lights from random cars driving by and reflecting on objects and stuff. There is so much stuff out and about today, that chances are if you see something strange it is caused by another human. You just are not aware of it.

I think alien abductions and stuff is caused by people suffering sleep paralysis and not knowing what sleep paralysis is.

I also agree that much of the chaff of UFO sightings are unreliable witness accounts, but I don't think Roswell qualifies, it was quite a bit more than a light in the sky. You should look up a documentary about it, it's pretty crazy. Either a bunch of otherwise unconnected people got together and decided to pull off a mass hoax, or something happened.

Do I not just absolutely love this topic!!
UFO's per definition are "Unidentified" - so - as much as I wish, we had contact with aliens already - up to now, none of these has been identified as an alien space- or aircraft - if you don't subscribe to government conspiracies.
If these were true - we would see a huge and probably sudden technological advance of - say America - and we don't.
Besides - I would find it highly unlikely that extraterrestrials are here and have nothing better to do than fly about for decades and irritate random people. Being vastly more advanced than us, as shown merely by being able to get here in the first place..

But there is life out there - knowing, one can never be ultimately sure of anything whatsoever - and having to deal with the Fermi paradox - I anyway firmly believe in alien life and also intelligence and I very much hope for first contact in my lifetime.
Of course I love good science fiction with aliens, too!!


I made a thread a while ago:
http://www.dreamviews.com/science-ma...%B4t-know.html
In it are many posts and links and videos on aliens - but also other fascinating topics..
I love the video series of Astronomer Royal and Cosmologist Martin Rees, titled like the thread - and here is the one on topic:



Enjoy!

I really like that video, it has a lot of interesting points. I think there is probably life all over the place but we just don't have the tools to find stuff. Our technology is barely able to make out planets. There is so many places to search, that the amount makes it hard but even if we got lucky and looked at a solar system that had advanced life, we might not be able to tell there is advanced life there. Trying to spot a satellite or space ship half a million light years away is pretty hard.

Unless they are using planet sized space ships that have their own gravity fields as large as planets and capable of blocking out light from suns, it is going to be pretty hard to spot them. There isn't any real reason to think they will make ships that big, so that might be the reason we don't see alien life. Might just be a question of technology on our part.

I would guess that alien life is not only possible, but likely.

Spoiler for big long babble:

Given what we know about the diversity of life on our own planet and how it evolves and adapts to it's environment...it would make sense to me that similar principles could apply elsewhere, just shaped instead by a different kind of environment.

Also I find it unusual, the way so many people find it most interesting to consider only the extraterrestrial life that would be comparable to humans...either matching or exceeding our own capabilities. To me, the less advanced forms of potential life seem more fascinating. What could an alien plant look like, and how could it function?

On Earth we find mind-boggling, seemingly never-ending varieties of life. We have an ocean, and for some reason all kinds of things can live in its depths. Even in the deepest darkest nether regions...where there is no light, intense pressure, immense heat spewing out from essentially cracks in the rock we live on...

In places we humans have trouble observing, and its at least on our own freakin' planet.

Maybe the life that's wayyyy out there looks/functions nothing like what we have here, and that's one of the many reasons it would be difficult (but awesome!) to observe?

I find it frustrating when people disregard the idea of life beyond Earth as impossible or ridiculous. To me it is far more ridiculous to assume we are even capable of knowing so beyond a doubt.

Completely agree, acatalephobic!

There might even be life in our direct neighbourhood - Saturn moon Enceladus has a subsurface ocean and hydrothermal effects - it spits out geysers at it's south pole, otherwise it's covered in water-ice and has a rocky core:



The energy - the heat - seems to come from tensions in the crust because Enceladus has such an eccentric orbit and gets tidal stresses from Saturn's mass.
If I understood that correctly.

Many have said Enceladus is one of the best places in the Solar System to look for life. Noted scientist Carolyn Porco and Chris McKay have a recent paper out titled, “Follow the Plume: The Habitability of Enceladus,” where they say that since analysis of the plume by the Cassini mission indicates that the “steady plume derives from a subsurface liquid water reservoir that contains organic carbon, biologically available nitrogen, redox energy sources, and inorganic salts” that
samples from the plume jetting out into space are accessible with a low-cost flyby mission.

“No other world has such well-studied indications of habitable conditions.”
These latest findings by Cassini make a mission to Enceladus even more enticing.

Read more: Cassini Spacecraft Confirms Subsurface Ocean on Enceladus

Hopefully they do this flyby soon and catch some sort of beautiful alien algae maybe? They'll have a hard time looking more spacey than our earthly diatoms...
It would be so fantastic to find somebody out there - while I don't expect it to be somebody we could talk to - it would answer the question once and for all - yepp - we are not alone.
Here's the plume (false colour):

If UFOs were real they'd be here.

I do not doubt that there are other forms of life in the universe; however, if there are, they are nowhere nearby.

Why not algae on Enceladus?
And concerning UFOs - see my earlier post.

Originally Posted by StephL

Why not algae on Enceladus?

Whoops, I really should have been more specific. I really meant sentient/intelligent life.

If you consider, that life on our planet came from deep within the ocean, without light, using hydrothermal vents for it's energy needs - it could have happened there in exactly the same way. And it would have been around for roughly the same time as ours, too.

There are higher organisms around these white and black smokers here - partly they do it by incorporating the bacteria, which are able to make use of the energy of the vents, like the famous tube-worms. But also something as complex as crabs lives round there - the more you have - the more there is to eat and the more variety.
On earth it was logical for life to migrate towards the light - esp. after photosynthesis provided the plants with a way to live and be food in their turn and so forth.
Enceladus might have not only a small ocean under it's ice-crust at the south pole - this ocean might be covering the whole moon, scientists say. That would be quite a lot of living space for complex ecosystems.
So why should not something higher than crabs have evolved there - over millions and millions of years?
Whoever they are - they won't be prone to space-flight for a while - not so nice to visit the surface in the first place, but they might be big and complex and with something equivalent to our earthly brains, and such sentient like our higher animals. And why not some sort of under-water-brethren of ours with intelligence either, then??

Using energy in some inconspicuous way - hunting and gathering in the ocean - but maybe they even farming something - algae, animals.. Tools? Language? Maths? Maybe there are under-water cities and cathedrals dedicated to some watery deity?

I would certainly not bet money on it - but I also wouldn't bet money on the contrary!
We will be thoroughly surprised by the ubiquity of life in the universe, I hope.
Everywhere, where there can be life - there will be, I guess. If it's agreeable somewhere - somebody will be home.

1. I don't think that all UFO sightings are credible. There may be a few here and there that have a potential to be true, but a lot videos/pictures seem pretty phony to me.

2. I definitely think aliens exist or have existed. The Universe is an enormous place, and to think that one planet alone in its entirety is the only one that supports life just seems kind of ridiculous, in my point of view anyway.

3. It's possible that other beings have visited earth. I find it unlikely that all life would start at the same time everywhere, so I'm sure there is a more advanced society than ours out there.

Of course they're all credible. Why would anyone--no more importantly--HOW could anyone fake a UFO sighting? This isn't The Invention of Lying

With a universe that is this vast, and the number of stars that are out there, there is most definitely other worlds full of life; a handful of them being to intelligent sentient beings like us, who have established a civilization of some sort. When it comes to if we've been visited, I'd say it's a possible yes. The Earth is over four billion years old, and with there being an estimated three hundred billion stars in our galaxy, I'd say it's a possibility that our planet has been visited by beings/craft; this could have been over a billion years ago, but either way I'm sure such an event may have occurred in Earth's history. Hell, there may even be artifacts within our solar system; scrap metal left behind on the moon, for example.

When talking about UFO sightings, however, I'm leaning more towards a no. Many objects people see in the sky most likely have an explanation that is of Earth origin, and a large number of people who share photos and videos of UFOs that they know aren't real. However, I said that I'm LEANING towards a no; I'm not denying it fully. It's still a possibility that a handful of these sightings we hear about could possibly be of extra-terrestrial origin. But until I have solid proof of this, I'll remain skeptic when a new story of a UFO pops up.

I don't believe we know how life on earth started. We don't know how rare it is. If it is as easy as the right meteorite hitting a planet under the right conditions than the universe should be loaded with life. If it is insanely rare, then the universe will still have quite some life in it. To think that it has only happened once, doesn't seem logical. Though it is possible. All in all I would say, yes to life.

I can even see sentient life evolving. But they would probably be very far away. Perhaps at the other end of the galaxy. Perhaps in a different galaxy. Now if you have the technology to travel over a galaxy, why would you want to visit earth? By then they will probably have found loads of places with life, perhaps even some places with sentient life. We will probably not be the first ones they see. At some point it's just not that interesting anymore. It's not like they can really get anything from us. There's billions of planets to gather resources from.

There is also the argument that once you become adapt enough at harvesting energy and forming matter precisely as you want to, there is nothing left to fight over. I imagine an alien race to be peaceful. At most they may have been watching us, though again, I doubt we are interesting enough for them. It's like us studying ants. Sure some of us as crazy enough to observe them. Some even want to kill them. But the vast majority of ants just go by, unnoticed. Because, unless they are annoying you, they really aren't interesting enough to waste time on. I imagine aliens finding us quite boring.

You might be right, MrPriority - but I hope you are not - I hope some interstellar "ant"-crazy scientists will take a closer look at us from plain curiosity.
I rather think, we haven't been noticed (yet?) by somebody able to take up contact.

Our human scientists crawl all over the rainforests to find new kinds of insects as well after all - and once in a while they find an extraordinary and unheard of critter and are overjoyed!

But then - there might really be more interesting civilisations out there to go spend your resources on discovering.
Whatever the reasons though - it unfortunately doesn't look as if the galaxy was teeming with life and sapient life.
Other suns are billions of years older than ours - even with sub-light-speed propulsion - where is everybody?? It is still a valid question, I believe.
I had the impression lately, though, that this desperate question has been watered down somewhat in it's impact on minds. I didn't hear about the Fermi paradox lately in the way, I remember it being wielded as an argument with sub-arguments against any life in the universe. It seems to have lost prominence - but I missed out on how and why...
Maybe because of the exo-planet enthusiasm?

Something completely different and rather just a fancy idea: Maybe there are certain stages in the development of sentience and sapience and so forth, and once in a long while we will by and large give up on warfare, paranoia/xenophobia and other unhealthy, aggressive endeavours in the natural course of evolution, when we'll have found a solution to energy and resources scarcity.
Maybe somebody out there is patient enough to wait up for us becoming more inviting and enjoyable to contact and conduct science on us and with us.
Having seen it all before and been through it themselves?
I could imagine some green heads shaking in exasperation, or whatever they might do to express such a thing, looking on how we treat each other and the rest of our biosphere.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

If UFOs were real they'd be here.

They are.

Well - one thing we all can agree on - there are and will always be unidentified flying objects gracing our skies.
So yes - UFOs are real!
But are there unidentifiable ones - or ones identified as alien space-craft? Not that I know of.

Not one of them on display in a museum - no country, under suspicion of harbouring one, has produced suspiciously singular quantum-leaps in science either.
After supposed decades of hands-on research and flying about visibly in our skies - saying hello to a lot of regular Joes and Janes - I would really expect them to have taken up some sort of wider acknowledgeable contact by now - announced themselves to the world - especially the world of science.

But as per usual - one can't prove a negative and absence of evidence* is not evidence of absence and so forth.
One can only speculate and decide on what one finds reasonable and probable and what not.
Hach - I would so love to be able to come to a different conclusion - but I'll have to wait up for what the future might bring, me thinks!




* I mean evidence which is verifiable beyond a doubt...