Do you believe Earth has been visited by intelligent extraterrestrial alien life?
Displaying poll results.13709 total votes.
Most Votes
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on February 28th, 2024 | 8481 votes
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 8236 votes
Most Comments
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 68 comments
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 20 comments
Although... (Score:2)
... there should be a third option: epoche.
If you do incline to "Yes", I strongly recommend Larry Niven's Pak scenario.
Of course. We are the aliens. (Score:3)
My reasoning is simple: within centuries, maybe even decades, we will head for the stars, and start colonizing other planets gradually. Technologically it's feasible. We're already possible candidates. We might send of `robots` first, and then other lifeforms like plants or animals to test the waters, but eventually humans will travel to other stars.
If we can do that, it's possible. If we can do that, chances are it has already been done before. If it already has been done before, chances are that is exactly how we got here on this planet in the first place.
Interestingly enough, a lot of civilizations and religions have stories very similar to Noah's arch. It's very likely Noah's arch was in fact a spaceship. And we are the aliens.
Re:Of course. We are the aliens. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but...
Interstellar travel is "technologically feasible" in the sense that is is currently possible to send a probe in the direction of Proxima Centauri (a "mere" 4 light years away). With massive advances in propulsion technology, in 100 years or so, the probe would whip by the star in a matter of weeks and head back out into interstellar space. Actually entering the orbit of the star traveling at such speeds would require an enormous additional amount of fuel to slow down and an engine that would work reliably after a century in interstellar space, which might be technologically possible, but would be an insanely expensive project the results of which would never be seen by the people who launched the probe. Alternatively, you could send a probe travelling at Voyager speeds launched with current technology (which, by the way, has not materially advanced since the 1960s) and a somewhat reasonable budget and it would get there in around 70,000 years. All that's just to get to Proxima Centauri. If the one rocky planet we know of on Proxima Centauri ends up being no more habitable than Mars, then you are looking at hundreds more years of travel time (or hundreds of thousands with current technology) to get to the next known rocky planet at around 13 light years away.
Long story short, the distances between stars are simply mind-boggling. Slower than light travel is not feasible within human lifespans, and faster than light travel is likely physically impossible. Unless we find some glaring exception to relativity, humans are never leaving the solar system.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, no.
Us being the descendants of some aliens landing here in prehistoric times makes zero sense. We would have started as a civilization advanced enough to build interstellar space ships and then land on this planet to become stone age tribes again, forget all technology and start from scratch? Name one scenario where this makes even remotely sense.
Then, next, where are those space ships? Ships of that size cannot burn up in reentry. Not to mention that our ancient stories would talk about it. But asid
Time Makes Fools of Us All (Score:5, Insightful)
Earth's approximate age: 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years
Humanity's age: ~200,000 years
Written history has existed for approximately 6,000 years (Creationists probably love that one).
I defaulted to Yes, since there's about 4,535,000,000 years of planetary history unaccounted for.
Re: (Score:2)
And assuming that space travel is limited to below the speed of light, it would take significant time to travel to another planet with inte
Re: (Score:2)
You make a lot of assumptions.
Re: (Score:2)
In a universe that is at least 13.something billion lightyears across (because that's what we can actually observe), 4.5 billion years is nothing. All you could do in that time is move across a third of it. Provided you travel at light speed, see jack shit and never stop.
I see no evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Calvin and Hobbes said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
~Calvin
I'd be impressed (Score:3)
I'd be impressed if Earth showed signs of any intelligent terrestrial life.
We do not know. (Score:3)
option missing
Re: (Score:2)
It was a question of belief, if you dont know what you believe, dont answer.
I believe my answer is a definite "Maybe".
Re: (Score:2)
It was a question of belief, if you dont know what you believe, dont answer.
Even if it is an answer of belief, "I don't have enough information to answer that" is a valid option.
Do I believe in butt-probing aliens? Aliens that break into your room and watch you at night? Aliens that make pretty patterns in corn fields? Aliens that ride circular pimp-mobile flyingsaucers with pretty flashing coloured lights?
Of course not.
Could there be some alien using some technology to remain hidden and watching us?
That's possible, but I have no evidence.
I hate to say there are no aliens on ear
They're made out of meat? (Score:5, Interesting)
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"So ... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yours
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points, this was great.
no, but (Score:3)
No, I don't believe that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial life. I don't believe there's evidence. But I'm open to the possibility - I just think it's unlikely.
The universe is big, and we haven't yet found evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. If it does exist, it's probably very far away. So far, we're not aware of any way to travel faster than the speed of light, so any interstellar travel will take a very long time. Additionally, they'd have to decide that Earth is a worthwhile destination. Perhaps they would be able to detect that Earth has the qualities that make life possible, and could have sent an expedition. But if they were looking for signs of intelligent life, those signs were probably not detectable until quite recently relatively speaking. Depending on how far away intelligent life might be, those signs might still not yet have met them.
Is it possible we've been visited? Sure. Is it likely? It's impossible to answer without having more information, but I lean towards saying no, on account of how big space is, and how really far away things are.
It doesn't really matter. (Score:2)
No, really. Seriously. It doesn't matter.
If a civilisation is advanced enough to have developed feasible interstellar travel, a planet with intelligent life to them is probably about as interesting as a culture of common bacteria is to us.
If you meet an alien and he/she/it thinks it worthwhile to have any sort of meaningful interaction with you, consider yourself lucky. Think our yourself as a gorilla being examined by a Nobel prize scientist. At best.
Otherwise it really doesn't make that much of a differen
Visited (Score:2)
Of course not (Score:3)
While it is very likely there is life out there, the distances are vast and there's little chance that they could come visit us, much less have that visit be a secret rather than a colony. Hopefully we are the first intelligent life in our galaxy and will get a nice headstart colonizing the galaxy in the next few million years.
Yes, and they immediately turned around (Score:2)
Yes, they are called politicians! (Score:2)
Clearly, politicians in Washington DC have to be from some other world, if they think their actions are rational!
Yes and no (Score:2)
Yes, I think craft from other civilizations have visited earth.
But I think the odds that those craft carried living biological entities is diminishingly small.
By the time any civilization obtains the technology capable of successfully crossing cosmological distances, it will also have developed the technology required to leave their biological bodies behind.
If you follow Abrahamic faith, then Yes (Score:3)
If you're a Christian/Jew/Muslim, then the answer is a definite yes; since man's first step on this planet, we've been (and are being) constantly visited by angels.
For us Muslims, Angels aren't intelligent beings, as they never ask "why", instead simply follow God's command directly.
But for us Muslims in Islam, there is another thinking being, namely al jinn (or Genie in English), who exist in an alternative dimension and they appear to be free from the restrictions of time and space. Thus, they are able to travel freely over vast distances in very short time (or no time), and they can occupy humans if they choose to do so, especially those who call upon them (black magicians). And from some of them, they are good (and even Muslims), while others are helpers of the devil/satan; Satan himself is from this "Genie" (al jinn) entity.
Yes (Score:2)
And it's probing time [youtube.com]
Missing 3rd option: Cowboy Neal (Score:2)
'Nuff said.
And yet I add that the polls have gotten rather lame of late. If Slashdot had a financial model driven by features the members want to support, it would be time to let this one die. In the spirit of suggesting new polls, how about a poll on what to replace the polls with? A sports section? The weather? Maybe a crossword puzzle? Cowboy Neal's favorite porn star?
It depends upon "intelligence" and "life" (Score:2)
But when I see people writing software in basic, I think we haven't been visited yet.
Life is very competitive (Score:2)
Ignoring for a moment the vast energy expenditure and time needed to cross the vast distances we have another reason it is very unlikely:
Life itself is very competitive.
The chances of meeting a somewhat compatible alien in the flesh and either of us surviving the ordeal are slim to none. They will get sick and die from our microbes and vice versa. The same would likely happen if a group of us left and was isolated from the rest of us, like an interstellar trip, and came back a ten thousand or so years later
Belief (Score:2)
In order for me to "believe" something, I would need to see evidence. There is no evidence, other than anecdotal, that I know of.
I could certainly "have faith" in it if I were inclined. I'm not.
So do I think it *could* have happened over the Earth's entire lifespan? Sure. But I don't believe it for a second and won't until I see some hard evidence.
English major: Words are an important thing to me.
Sorry (Score:2)
I gotta tell you ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Anybody with an IQ above 120 who is willing to spend 100+ hours researching this topic from *credible sources* (not 99% of garbage appearing on youtube or tabloids), would have a hard time saying 'no'.
Yet two of your sources are Youtube.
Hour and forty seven minute videos (Score:3, Insightful)
I have better things to do than sit through an hour and forty seven minute video produced by the UFOTV (*snicker*) and some guy witnessing - I don't care who he works for or used to work for. He's a human and easily fooled and people love to jump to conclusions. ALL people are basically irrational unless they work very hard at it.
You have pretty low standards for credibility.
See, I was flying one time and saw this object fly straight up at least Mach 12. Then down while still keeping pace with our plane.
Re:Hour and forty seven minute videos (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hour and forty seven minute videos (Score:5, Insightful)
One can statistically make the case there is very likely other intelligent life, maybe a lot of it but spread very thin amongst the starts.
We're alone in the universe. The other intelligent life? They're alone too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I could claim it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hour and forty seven minute videos (Score:5, Informative)
For all practical purposes, this is the case. Even if 'they' were at the nearest star (and they are not), any conversation by electromagnetic means is a round trip of around 9 years.
There is no tolling bell; at least, not yet. And, we as a collective civilisation have travelled just beyond the Moon, and as electromagnetic beings have radiated, very weakly, for only around 120 years so our bubble of influence is small in stellar distances. As John Donne said....
"No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too much "statistics" here. You can't statistically make the case there is very likely other intelligent life. You can just make a really strong (IMHO) common sense / intuitive case for it. It's a faith that I happen to share. But you don't get to call it statistics. The only statistics we have, involve what happened (and almost didn't happen [gizmodo.com]) on Earth, and that fact that we have briefly looked for signs of life out there but haven't spotted anything so far. There's just nothing to work with, which is why t
Re: (Score:2)
Too much "statistics" here. You can't statistically make the case there is very likely other intelligent life.
Sure you can, and its been done more than once;
https://www.airspacemag.com/da... [airspacemag.com]
Re: (Score:2)
And what if the chance is less than 1/(10^24)? The assumption that it's at least that much, is totally made up without anything to support it, exce
Fermi's paradox (Score:2, Interesting)
Fermi's paradox is essentially equivalent to the statement that infinity times zero equals one: the number of places where intelligent life could've arisen is very large (so tends to infinity) while the probability of life arising in a given place is close to zero; multiply them both to find the probability of intelligent life in the universe, and Fermi's claim is that the result is 1, that is, almost-certainty of its existence. However there is no reason for this product to give 1; any calculus student kno
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I thought it was the cake that was a lie...
No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Eyewitness testimony is mostly unreliable. People jump to conclusions, are easily fooled (see every magician and con artists that has every lived) and we evolved to put 2 and 2 together to get 5 (see every religion) and believe in super natural things when there are logical reasons for things.
There was one story in the early days of spaceflight where an astronaut saw these golden "fireflies" out his window and thought they were some sort of space bugs.
It was his frozen urine that was released from a previo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Theory: Thousands or even millions of instances of advanced intelligent lifeforms have developed in our universe. Many, maybe even most, of them have developed mechanical artificial intelligence which went on to explore the universe. For mechanical intelligence, the journey of millions of years between stars isn't really a big deal. What they need now, is diversity to continue their own existence more efficiently. If they intervene overtly with developing biological intelligent organisms, they reduce the po
Re: (Score:3)
1. You don't have to ignore the Fermi paradox. It is currently unknown how often a life-sustaining planet forms in the universe. Under the "rare earth" hypothesis, it could be that the chances of intelligent life are one in a billion. Even though such odds would still produce other planets with intelligent life, the odds would be that they are extraordinarily far away from earth- perhaps even in galaxies that are causally disconnected from our own due to the expansion of the universe.
2. There are also 100s
Re: (Score:2)
*faster than light travel...
Re: (Score:2)
*faster than light travel...
Before faster than light travel we should be experimenting in ways that might determine if signals can travel faster than light. If indeed the cosmic speed limit cannot be broken we then need to prove it either way. For one emr might not be the medium to examine, instead experiments to see if anomalies in emr signal(s) can be found to occur in relative distance to expected time to travel from a known source to a known point in space might be a good place to start. Essentially a spacial antenna built over l
Re: (Score:2)
There has been extensive research on faster than light communication. So far, no evidence that faster than light communication is possible has been found. Remember, faster that light travel (be it communication or physical travel) implies time travel under relativity. Faster than light communication therefore presents paradoxes for which there is no known explanation.
But the scientific method can never prove a negative, so we can never definitively prove faster than light communication is impossible, merely
Re: (Score:2)
There has been extensive research on faster than light communication. So far, no evidence that faster than light communication is possible has been found. Remember, faster that light travel (be it communication or physical travel) implies time travel under relativity. Faster than light communication therefore presents paradoxes for which there is no known explanation.
But the scientific method can never prove a negative, so we can never definitively prove faster than light communication is impossible, merely continue to validate existing hypotheses that it is not.
This is precisely why we need to think of means to detect differences to known time over distance values when it comes to signals. If a signal is being broadcast at speeds much greater than light it may very well be receive as a strong simple static on a short length antenna. But be picked up as a a wave over much longer distances. Seti is a flop so far only because it has not been lucky enough to pick up signals from a primitive civilization like our own and is seeking signals only from civilization duri
Re: (Score:2)
Before we can start talking about correct reception methods for FTL communication, we will need to figure out a solution to how a message can be received before it was sent- which is what would happen if we could send/recieve FTL communication. Also, it's pretty well established that no amount of additional energy can cause a particle to exceed light speed. E=Mc2 (which has held up extremely well to testing) posits that accelerating a massive object to light speed requires an infinite amount of energy. Like
Re: To all the people who said no... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The whole point of the Fermi Paradox is that, for all the people claiming that aliens must be widespread, the evidence starkly contradicts it.
"The Fermi paradox is a conflict between arguments of scale and probability that seem to favor intelligent life being common in the universe, and a total lack of evidence of intelligent life having ever arisen anywhere other than on the Earth... Some examples of possible resolutions are that intelligent life is rarer than we think, that our assumptions about the gener
Re:To all the people who said no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not ignoring those. The question was about alien life visiting our solar system, not about alien probes.
Astronomical distances are vast, and so are travel times, even at light-speed. It would be folly for an alien life-form to travel here itself if it has any sense of self-preservation, friendships or other reasons for living a full life in its native environment. If it is anything like life-forms on Earth, it would die before a small fraction of the journey has transpired.
Re: (Score:2)
I want my USB ports back, you son of a bitch!
The Aliens invaded Redmond and Cupertino and took them all with them in their space ships. They needed them to connect all the primitive digital intelligence devices that they saved from death in the slave labor recycling sweat shops. They did however accidentally dump some of them in the Pacific Ocean when they overloaded a few of their space ships.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you...
1. Ignore Fermi's Paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. Ignore 100's of first person witness testimonies from high ranking NASA, US Military & Government officials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
3. Ignore 1000's of airforce pilots from around the world who witnessed and reported (often with recorded radar data as evidence) very large objects that could move faster than any aircraft, and do right angle turns that would easily crush any human? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Anybody with an IQ above 120 who is willing to spend 100+ hours researching this topic from *credible sources* (not 99% of garbage appearing on youtube or tabloids), would have a hard time saying 'no'.
I think you're the one ignoring the theory. Fermi's Paradox recognizes that there is no credible evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations despite the high probability that they exist. So those who answer "no" to this poll aren't ignoring the theory, in fact, it's exactly the opposite. Part of the reason for this belief in a lack evidence in extraterrestrial civilizations, and by extension visits to Earth, is that the vast majority of it is based on eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testim
Re: (Score:2)
UFO's are one thing, Intelligent alien life, quite another.
Have aliens visited this planet? Nope. How would they get here and why would they suspect this place was someplace worthy of visiting?
Remember, Relativity pretty much guarantees that if you assume intelligent life exists outside of our solar system, they'd not know we are here, yet. And if you look at the universe, we are on a remote backwater solar system that has no interesting features to attract attention. Relativity also makes it impossibl
Re:To all the people who said no... (Score:4, Interesting)
The James Webb space telescope [wikipedia.org] we humans are about to launch is designed to, among other things, image exo-planets and detect the composition of their atmospheres. If we discover a planet with a strong Oxygen component in the atmosphere, only Life could cause that, and in the short term that planet would go to the top of the list for more intense scrutiny. In the long term, when we begin exploring beyond our solar system that planet will be at the top of our list of destinations.
The Earth has been sending a strong Oxygen signal [wikipedia.org] to the cosmos for 2 Billion Years. If intelligent life exists outside our solar system, as soon as they have technology where humans are now they will know the Earth has life and Earth would go to the top of the list of places to visit.
If extraterrestrial intelligent life exists, there is no doubt in my mind they know we are here. Pretty soon, we will know if they are there.
Re: (Score:2)
At most we have shreds of evidence of a visible phenomena that reflects radar waves. Certainly something that warrants further investigation, but it's ridiculous and unscientific to jump straight to "we've been visited by ALIENS."
Re: (Score:2)
1 - Because the high number of starts/planets/etc says nothing about their distribution. The number of civilisations could follow a normal distribution or any other. We have no idea. Maybe we are in the far end of the tail of that distribution, there's loads of star systems with 10 different civilisations and a whole lot of nothingness around _us_ for many light years, making it unlikely we'll ever meet anyone else who can't travel at Warp 9.975.
2 and 3 - People like attention. People make mistakes. People
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are really only a couple of reasons to visit another planet scientific study, colonization, or for natural resources. If we had indeed been visited by intelligent aliens they would most likely have either shown themselves or attacked by now.
Re: (Score:2)
Tourism.
I can't recall where I read it - it may have been an essay by an SF author; maybe an old board/forum posting, but it noted that a planet with a moon of exactly the right diameter, at exactly the right distance to nearly perfectly occlude the primary star seems rare.
If intelligent life exists, look for oddly dressed 'people' at eclipses ... hang on, wait a minute ...
Re: (Score:2)
1. Fermi's Paradox has a few flaws. Mostly that he assumes, in my opinion without reason to do so, that civilizations exist long enough to develop interstellar travel. Life on this planet has come SO many times to extinction that it just ain't funny no more, and every single time it set it back by a few million years. And should we ever decide that the people on the other end of the planet have the wrong imaginary friend and that pisses us off enough, we, too, have the ability to set it back another few mil
Re: (Score:2)
that should have been "close to extinction", of course. Where's my coffee...
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you...
1. Ignore Fermi's Paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. Ignore 100's of first person witness testimonies from high ranking NASA, US Military & Government officials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Ignore? No. Discount, or see alternate motivations. Absolutely. With billions of people on this planet right now, many with high quality cell phones, the only evidence is still blurry shots of street lights.
3. Ignore 1000's of airforce pilots from around the world who witnessed and reported (often with recorded radar data as evidence) very large objects that could move faster than any aircraft, and do right angle turns that would easily crush any human? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Scientists once thought riding on a train would be hazardous to the human body. Fighter pilots already have to be outfitted to survive conventional jets. Not knowing what an airborn object is does not make it an alien visitor.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Anybody with an IQ above 120 who is willing to spend 100+ hours researching this topic from *credible sources* (not 99% of garbage appearing on youtube or tabloids), would have a hard time saying 'no'.
See, and that just sounds foolish. "Credible Sources"? 100 hours of it?
Re: (Score:2)
The answer would be Yes, because the question asks if alien species have visited Earth, not whether or not they met and interacted with humans.
Re: (Score:2)
Just so. Time is long.
The dangerous assumption is that they are still keeping tabs on us. If so, I'm certain that their technology is sufficiently advanced that we would never detect them unless there was some data that they wanted to collect really badly that required them to get too close.
However another one of my personal beliefs is that naturally evolved UTMs like humans go extinct quickly. The long-term UTMs are scientifically designed AIs. I strongly suspect their development converges and most of the
Re: (Score:2)
Just so. Time is long.
The dangerous assumption is that they are still keeping tabs on us. If so, I'm certain that their technology is sufficiently advanced that we would never detect them unless there was some data that they wanted to collect really badly that required them to get too close.
I answered "no" but I did wish there was an alternate choice. I believe that if they have visited earth, it wasn't in some shiny disk with pointless flashing lights around the outside. If ET came here, we don't know about it. They don't go into fields and anal probe drunk rednecks or make pretty patterns in fields.
Do I believe there is 0% chance aliens have ever visited earth. Absolutely not. Do I think it's probable and believe all the drunk stories about greys sticking something up Bubba's pooper?
Re: (Score:2)
It's probable but since there is no evidence and we can't even estimate how probable it is I voted "No."
Re: (Score:2)
Politeness counts (Score:2)
Your reply was NOT a polite request for clarification or additional information, so I will respond in kind. Here are your options:
(1) It's intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.
(2) The context makes it sufficiently clear.
(3) Look it up. I confess it did take longer than typing "WTF".
(4) Perhaps you aren't part of the intended audience?
(5) I'm not writing for a proudly ignorant dweeb. Nothing personal?
"Go away, son, ya bother me." -- Foghorn Leghorn
Hint time: WTF is a WTF?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll count that as sufficiently polite and recommend Acronym Finder for that kind of problem. It's the second definition under IT terms.
However, I'll save you the extra effort and answer that UTM = Universal Turing Machine.
Don't rely too much on the google. Even with my use of extra context (and negative context) I could not coax the google into ranking the answer near the top of the hits. With Wikipedia, it doesn't appear until the third entry under Computing, but at least it's on the first page.
Of course,
Re: (Score:2)
Re:To all the people who said no... (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer would be Yes, because the question asks if alien species have visited Earth, not whether or not they met and interacted with humans.
Like Mulder, I want to believe, but I voted "No" based on a lack of strong empirical evidences supporting the alternative. OTOH, where did all of the cow lips go?
Re: (Score:2)
Probability says that life outside this planet is very likely to exist. That does not mean AT ALL that said life is interested or even capable of visiting this planet. Our current knowledge says that traveling faster than the speed of light (actually traveling at speeds close to the speed of light as long as you have mass) is impossible. So anyone wanting to send anything here, even if just a probe that zips by at relativistic speed, would have to wait for years, decades or even centuries until it reaches o
Re: (Score:2)
Judging from the tool you used to post this message I agree, yes, you're being carefully watched. Whether that's aliens though...
Re: (Score:2)
Ohhh, now do Jesus sightings, I bet you can come up with even more!
Re: (Score:3)
some cases everyone should be aware of:
100 AD Early history cases
https://theportalist.com/7-mys... [theportalist.com]
1492- Columbus first voyage sightings recorded in ship logs (Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocS... [swarthmore.edu]
http://www.historydisclosure.c... [historydisclosure.com]
1561 Nuremberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
OK... OK... let me stop you right there. 1st. Nuremberg lights were fireworks. Italians started creating fireworks and selling them in Nuremberg starting in... 1561. You're also missing out that there were other "space battles" all across Europe that same decade. Each one coincided with fireworks being introduced to that city.
The whole Columbus's crew saw lights issue is likewise ridiculous. They were sailing past inhabited islands in the dark. A light in the distance was almost some native dweller l
Re: (Score:3)
Why do they always fly away so fast and leave no trace?
They act just like bigfoot.
My favourite part is they always have brightly coloured flashing lights...
Like, lights will be useful when you're traveling between star systems... they haven't evolved far enough to use better systems to visualize the world outside their craft than headlights... and brightly muli-coloured flashing ones at that. Why do aircraft have lights? So OTHERS can see them.
If UFOs have lights, it's because they want to be seen. If they want to be seen, we would see them, it wouldn't just be kooks in tinfoil hats t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think the illumination isn't a result of whatever propulsion system the craft is using?
I assume in order to traverse between solar systems you have to have a pretty efficient propulsion system that does not radiate waste energy in the form of flashing lights. If the light energy given off is not intended, then it is wasted energy. Their systems, to be efficient, would want to produce kinetic energy, not unwanted light, or heat, or radiowaves. etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Perfect efficiency is for theoretical frictionless spheres traveling in a vacuum, or maybe perpetual motion machines. Given the energies likely involved with interstellar vehicles, I would expect at least some wasted energy. Without having any knowledge of how such systems even work, I see no reason to rule out that waste energy could appear in the visible EM spectrum. And If not propulsion, then perhaps a form of scanning technology. Maybe the machine intelligence of the Pleiades Star Cluster Alliance don'
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sitting at around 50% at this point.
What has convinced you from your (presumably) neutral position, to the point where you are, now?
People like degrass Tyson who seem to shame the idea aren't keeping an open mind
At a certain point, the evidence for, say, earth being an oblate spheroid makes 'keeping an open mind' about earth being flat a sign that you are a crank.
"Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft"
The original phrase was 'Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM' and predates Microsoft. Modern versions like yours started as conscious imitations that referenced the original. As the original is forgotten, only the imitation, shorn of some of its meaning remains
Re: (Score:2)
"Arrogance" is among the stupidest pieces of rhetoric that anyone can employ, because it always cuts both ways.
A is arrogant for thinking that humans are unique in being alone is the universe.
B is arrogant for thinking humans are so central to the universe as to have beings like them throughout.
It's an argument that never goes anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, earth is one of the few planets where you can witness a solar eclipse with a moon juuuust big enough to cover the sun from its surface. That makes it a pretty sweet holiday resort.
The natives are a bit strange, but you're not supposed to interact with them anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You call current science "faith", but why do you have faith that the problem of faster than light travel is solvable? Committed problem solvers can do incredible things, but that doesn't mean every problem is solvable.
Re: (Score:2)
Negative. There is strong evidence that if we can figure out how to accelerate in an inertial frame of reference faster than the speed of light then that implies time travel. You have to literally travel faster than something's causality wave through the causality wave. This may always be impossible. The strongest theories of FTL that we currently have do not have any real time travel implications. Sur
Re: (Score:2)
Now, for FTL. We know that something, if it's not information, then at least something, travels FTL. We know that now. We know it today. ... We can't get information from it, but you one of those particles certainly does. And we haven't the foggiest idea of the mechanism. You want your flying bird for us to see to tell us it's possible, there it is. One of every entangled pair gets information faster than light. We can't get information from it because we don't know how it's done. No one has the foggiest.
Well, that is one possibility.
A far simpler explanation is that the act of entanglement is itself a (partial) measurement. The fact that we are not witness to the results of that measurement until we perform a fuller one on one of the entangled entities doesn't necessarily imply that information has suddenly traveled faster than light. As a simple example: two people agree (in private) that, when questioned, one will say 'Marco' and the other 'Polo'. They then separate. When one is questioned the questioner
Re: (Score:2)
Plant like, probably not. But we'd likely be considered like some primitive stone age tribe that our anthropologists like to visit, show them some of our "civilization" tools and belittle them for not knowing what to do with the magical artifacts.
If life on other planets is like us, the very last thing I'd want to be is discovered.
Re: (Score:2)
You talk too much, can opener. Now clean my kitty litter!
Re: (Score:3)
I guess it depends on how you define "intelligent extraterrestrial alien life." I answered yes, but probably not in the scope that the questioner intended. I believe that an omnisapient being, not of this world; in whom is life, became flesh and dwelt among us. Intelligent, yes. Extraterrestrial, yes, even celestial. Life, yes. Alien, I guess that's the part that might not fit the best.
Hey, I'm in the same boat, I voted yes because I believe in fairies and talking unicorns from the 25th dimension.