Thread: NASA to Make Major Announcement About Search for Alien Life Today @ 2pm

I find microwaved cake to be quite delectable. However as for the arsenic theme I lol'd

Originally Posted by Marvo

Why would they hide it?

Why would they share it at the state of the world today?

"Yeah aliens exist, we saw them flying around in space"

Then you got people thinking they are gonna destroy the world.

It is better to keep it secret for the time being.

NASA (and other government organizations) openly promote and talk about ongoing and future missions that have every intent of finding signs of extraterrestrial life.

But if these missions are successful, they won't tell anyone?

...

Of course they wouldn't tell anyone. They're part of the evil liberal-jewish-conservative-scientist-banker-white-alien-asian-industrialist-neonazi-black-academic-communist-intellectual-capitalist conspiracy.

What, are you stupid or something?

That's why they do stuff like pay 500 dollars for toilet seats. They're actually using the money to buy virgin unicorns to feed all the extraterrestrials they have in the alien zoo at Area 51.

I'm actually under the impression that it is not something we will hear about, as soon as it happens. If it gets out, it gets out, but I firmly believe that the government takes great care to assess what they think the public "is or isn't ready for." I think proof of intelligent alien "visitors" to our planet would fall under the latter. We have been subject to fictional alien invasion movies since the dawn of television, and we still live in a society that is xenophobic toward different members of our own species. To think that there wouldn't be some kind of unrest in the street, at the sudden revelation that we are not alone in the universe (or, what's more, on this planet) would be a little naive, I'd think. And I believe it's the government's job to know this, and to anticipate it.

Hell, the general consensus is that the public is some 20 years behind, in the knowledge of classified weaponry that We Make Ourselves. Who here actually thinks that contact with a completely unknown intelligent (and, possibly, armed) race will just be blurted out to the public, without ample time to assess the risks involved?

Government oversight is a business, ya know...
...is that the way you would do business?

[Edit:]
Actually, I got off on a bit of a tangent, there. If all we find is some microbes on another planet, then that is a bit different. That is a base-level 'introduction to extra-terrestrial life' that this planet may be able to cope with. My earlier text was more along the lines of whether or not the government would hide intelligent life that we may or may not have already come into contact with. I just wanted to clear that up.

It seems as if it would be difficult to conceal alien visitors if they wanted to be known. Why would it only be the US government that they revealed themselves to and not some other government or people? I for one would want to know as soon as it happened. If the general populace couldn't cope than oh well. If nothing else it would at least give us another species to plug into the "other" role which so many of seem to need so we can quit being racist towards members of our own species.

Essentially, if I ran the government, then that is exactly how I would do business. There would be no classified information. What the government knew, the people would know.

But you're right. If contact was made with intelligent, extraterrestrial life in our solar system in such a manner that the US government could be assured that they were the only ones that knew (and that that state would continue) then they would probably keep it secret. I just don't really see how that is a feasible situation.

I still don't see why NASA would publicly promote missions with the goal of finding extraterrestrial life if they have no intention to share results.

NASA is also far from being the only space agency, you have the ESA, JAXA, CSA, whatever the ruskies use, etc. There are also a lot of private organizations like SETI that are looking for ET, this isn't something the US government has any control over.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

NASA (and other government organizations) openly promote and talk about ongoing and future missions that have every intent of finding signs of extraterrestrial life.

But if these missions are successful, they won't tell anyone?

...

They will have to share tech with the world, why would they if they can keep it for themselves right now and improve weapons and vehicles etc? the government also looks out for their intrests, and not just the peoples. Politics, yada yada yada. I'm not a conspiricy nut but i 100% believe they would rather hide this then let us know of findings. No, this is not because "movies" tell me. Sure, if some type of alien race comes to us with their ships it's impossible to keep it secret, but if the public don't know about it then keep it that way.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Hell, the general consensus is that the public is some 20 years behind, in the knowledge of classified weaponry that We Make Ourselves. Who here actually thinks that contact with a completely unknown intelligent (and, possibly, armed) race will just be blurted out to the public, without ample time to assess the risks involved?.

Isn't google earth tech like 10 years behind the military? it's no alien tech or anything but it's a secret kept from the public to help them first none the less.

Looks like some people are concerned with the quality of science done in the original article:
Microbe gets toxic response : Nature News

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

They will have to share tech with the world, why would they if they can keep it for themselves right now and improve weapons and vehicles etc? the government also looks out for their intrests, and not just the peoples. Politics, yada yada yada. I'm not a conspiricy nut but i 100% believe they would rather hide this then let us know of findings. No, this is not because "movies" tell me. Sure, if some type of alien race comes to us with their ships it's impossible to keep it secret, but if the public don't know about it then keep it that way.

If NASA discovers aliens, it won't be in the form of an alien spaceship hidden in a hangar. It'll either be primitive or in the form of a message (by radio or other means).

They didn't do mass spectrometry on the DNA??

Wow, even this let down could well turn out to be a total let down.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

If NASA discovers aliens, it won't be in the form of an alien spaceship hidden in a hangar. It'll either be primitive or in the form of a message (by radio or other means).

Well those are fine, but the other kind is the type i'm talking about. There probably is little life out there in the space ship stage right now anyway. Universe may be big but finding intelligent life is much much MUCHHHHHHH smaller.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Definitive proof that no god exists.

Just close down R/S. It's over.

That's amazing! Just the other month I was reading an article where the scientists were saying they might find life that utilises arsenic instead of phosphorous!
Crazy....

Gotta read the rest of these articles now lol

I'm among a strange group of people who believe that the idea that "mankind isn't ready for aliens, and therefore any and all discovery should be kept secret for now" is an idea created and perpetuated by the government. Kinda like the idea that Americans aren't ready to know about the truth of their own government and its involvement in other countries, therefore we need an un-free media. At least that's my evidence that government is lying about aliens, it lies about everything else.

There are 195 independent countries (and governments) in the world, the US can't speak for everybody.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

There are 195 independent countries (and governments) in the world, the US can't speak for everybody.

About 192 of those countries are members of the United Nations. It is conceivable that - if the United Nations, as a whole, decides that the general populace isn't ready for such information - the general populace would not have ample/confirmed/unquestionable knowledge of such information. The U.S., in effect, would not be speaking for everybody.

As if 192 countries (which include whacky places like Iran, North Korea and at one point the USSR) with thousands of rotating personnel could keep a secret, let alone agree on anything.

Well that all falls into the realm of assuming what any given country would/could do, given certain variables that we may or may not be privy to. I'm not going that far. I was just responding to your last statement.

But, just to play along, I don't even think North Korea would risk a total civil uprising, should its populace be introduced to the (hypothetical) fact that humans may not be the only ones "in charge" of this planet. But, who knows?

Getting into tin foil hat territory...

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Getting into tin foil hat territory...

Careful. I tend to think of statements like that as a way to get around actually responding to the point with something substantial.

But, as not to delve into a huge, speculative (and ultimately pointless) back-and-forth, we can just leave it at that.

If I wasn't into protracted pointless back and forths I would never come to extended discussion . I just think that a single government is pretty bad at keeping secrets (as has been demonstrated recently), so the idea that 192 governments can keep the same secret (keep in mind that many of these governments don't get along) is simply ludicrous. Then there's the notion of why an alien presence would only make itself known to governments, an intelligent alien might not even understand the concept of a country.

Anyways, my original point was that whenever I hear someone say "the government" is hiding aliens, it tends to be an American with an extremely US-centric view of the world, as if any spacefaring ET would magically be attracted to Area 51. I doubt most Bulgarians believe that the Bulgarian government is willing or capable of keeping the existence of extraterrestrials from the public.

Perhaps the US government wants its citizens to believe that it has secret contact with aliens so that citizens will be more afraid of said government? It's basic Art of War, confuse your enemy. In this case, the enemy is the taxpayer.

Yeah, that's probably it.