UFO's Yes or no

[leroy]

Fellow believers; more valuable information on the subject of extra terrestrials by that noted gimp and pseudo scientist Stephen Hawking: Link here: Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking - Times Online

Story here:

From The Sunday Times

April 25, 2010

Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking

Hawking has depicted what kinds of alien could be out there

Jonathan Leake

div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;} THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.

Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,†he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.â€

The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history.

One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.â€

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too riskyâ€. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.â€

The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease and has very limited powers of communication. The project took him and his producers three years, during which he insisted on rewriting large chunks of the script and checking the filming.

John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: “He wanted to make a programme that was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that’s a tough job, given the complexity of the ideas involved.â€

Hawking has suggested the possibility of alien life before but his views have been clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery, since 1995, of more than 450 planets orbiting distant stars, showing that planets are a common phenomenon.

So far, all the new planets found have been far larger than Earth, but only because the telescopes used to detect them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at such distances.

Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonise its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.

Hawking’s belief in aliens places him in good scientific company. In his recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as likely places to look.

Similarly, Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, warned in a lecture earlier this year that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding.

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,†he said. “Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.â€

Stephen Hawking's Universe begins on the Discovery Channel on Sunday May 9 at 9pm

Remember, they are out there and they are comming here. Dont talk to them, you may make em mad.

Watching the skys.

"Tinfoil" Leroy

[Guest Jamie]

Speaking of Ringworlds - what if the first race we contact is like the Kzin?

Then we're gonna need serious amounts of cat nip and kitty litter... along with a lot of live game ( other than us ).

Oh, and a friendly race that's the equivalent of a Great Dane scaled up would be nice too...

J.

[Doc Huckleberry]

it'd be awfully self centered for us to think we are the only life out there

[Guest Jamie]

it'd be awfully self centered for us to think we are the only life out there

Do you have any idea how pathetic the universe would have to be, for humans to be the most intelligent thing in it?

J.

[Raoul]

Do you have any idea how pathetic the universe would have to be, for humans to be the most intelligent thing in it?

J.

All I can say to that is...Vogons.

[Rightwinger]

Hawking's new show premiers tonight on Discovery

8 PM Central

Discovery Channel : Science, History, Space, Tech, Sharks, News

[wjh2657]

I voted no, but I need to qualify my vote. I do believe there are probably other intelligent life forms out there. But they are way, way out there.Our own space explorations have shown that the laws of Physics stillapply out there as well as on Earth. I don't believe that such a race of deep space explorers would waste their resources on trying to stick around and spy on us. The cost and time involved in such exploration would preclude any "fleet" activity so it would be a one time visit by one vessel at best.

SO:

Do I believe in the possibility of E.T.s? Yes.

Do I believe in a long term visit to Earth (such activity is denoted by the term UFO, which includes multiple sightings over a long period of history) by such a group? No.

[StPatrick]

The odds say that life is out there, as many have mentioned. It would certainly be a waste of space otherwise, but that doesn't mean we'll find out about it.

A major problem with the idea of interstellar travel is approaching the speed of light - ignoring the enormous amounts of energy required, space is not a vacuum. At speeds near L, the lonely Hydrogen atoms that exist in empty space would be enough to irradiate and destroy passengers and equipment. Lack of gravity may get you to your destination, but you'll be DOA.

Wormholes have been suggested; the simplest method of bending space-time back upon itself I've seen has been to create a rotating cylinder, approximately the mass of the sun, of which the outer edge is moving at near L. Creating such an object would kill anyone within millions of miles before it was ever completed, notwithstanding the impossibility of controlling it.

[-Bristol-]

Other life forms? Maybe.

Being able to make the trip? I don't believe it.

I vote "No"

[Wingshooter]

Finally, a break from politics

That's just what they want us to believe.

[Guest SUNTZU]

That's just what they want us to believe.

We just need some common sense laser control laws.

[jgm219]

Voted yes. I saw yesterday how Stephen Hawking pretty much says we're screwed if we make contact. Could be right, could be wrong.

[leroy]

Then we're gonna need serious amounts of cat nip and kitty litter... along with a lot of live game ( other than us ).

Oh, and a friendly race that's the equivalent of a Great Dane scaled up would be nice too...

J.

Amen brother!! I heartily agree. Maybe we should start on the Great Danes now. I vote for the size of the Great Dane and the disposition (...toward aliens...) of the great German Shepherd (...the nuclear guard dog type...).

Keep watching the skies!!

Kind regards,

"Tinfoil" Leroy

[Rightwinger]

I sense Emperor Palpatine in this picture. Don't know why.

That's just what they want us to believe.

[Guest mosinon]

Voted yes. I saw yesterday how Stephen Hawking pretty much says we're screwed if we make contact. Could be right, could be wrong.

The problem is that Stephen Hawking is thinking of things through an certain, human, filter. We do stuff for dough and so forth. It is natural to think that any alien civ will do stuff for some reward. But that is pure projection.

If an alien culture takes the time and effort to make contact the resources used will be far greater than the resources gained.

And now it is apparent why the chances of alien visitation ore near zero. Any program would have to be purely altruistic.

While that is certainly possible, from our understanding of life and evolution it seems highly unlikely.

Plus, fermis paradox and all.

[Wingshooter]

I sense Emperor Palpatine in this picture. Don't know why.

The Force is strong with you.

[ftncityfatboy]

voted no. the unexplained or unexplainable leaves one to let their minds wonder. you see something in the sky you don't know what it is, call it a UFO, you hear something go bump in the night and you call it a ghost. So I believe we have been programed to call the unexplained something. Just like most have been programed to believe guns are bad and bad people own them. we have been programed to live in fear of the IRS because of the power they have over us and what they will do to us if we don't pay our taxes, chit like that.....SO, technically speaking, when you see something in the sky you have identified it as something, therefore its not unidentified....therefore, it is an identified flying object since you have identified the unidentified...forget it

[Guest Jamie]

.....SO, technically speaking, when you see something in the sky you have identified it as something, therefore its not unidentified....therefore, it is an identified flying object since you have identified the unidentified...forget it

Owww.... that made my head hurt.

Oh, and just because you decide something is a particular thing doesn't mean it really is. The reverse is also true.

So until you have indisputable proof that what you see really is what you think it is... or isn't... it's still technically "unidentified".

So there!

J.

[Guest Daelith]

Both those made my head hurt. :-\ I need some Advil now.

[Guest Jamie]

Both those made my head hurt. :-\ I need some Advil now.

Sorry, I figured turn-about was fair play.

J.

[Guest Daelith]

Sorry, I figured turn-about was fair play.

J.

Okay I'll forgive you for this. I'm still not over the spiders though.

[Guest Jamie]

Okay I'll forgive you for this. I'm still not over the spiders though.

Heh... I'd forgotten about that.

I never did hear a screech though...

J.

[Guest Daelith]

Heh... I'd forgotten about that.

I never did hear a screech though...

J.

That's because I never could find my screaming banshee smiley and I was too lazy to look on my computer at home. If you really, really want it, I'll see what I can come up with for you.

[Guest dboonekilledabearhere]

I voted yes because....while traveling in the car one evening with my Mom & Dad and older brother we noticed 2 objects in the sky to the left of the car. The objects appeared to be red in color (maybe lights, I don't know). Dad stopped the car and we sat there and watched as the 2 objects moved about horizontally and vertically. It was late fall so the trees did not have any leaves on them. The objects moved behind a tree and stayed there for a few minutes. Then one object moved out from behind the tree, hovered for a few seconds then shot upward and out of sight. The 2nd object did not move out from behind the tree but shot upwards and out of sight a few seconds after the first one. I was about 12 years old at the time and this has stuck with me for 34 years. UFO yes, flying saucer, I am still not sure.

[Guest Jamie]

That's because I never could find my screaming banshee smiley and I was too lazy to look on my computer at home. If you really, really want it, I'll see what I can come up with for you.

Nah, that's okay... it wouldn't be any fun now.

I do tend to make people wanna scream though, so maybe you'd better look it up and save it for later.

J.