UFO's Yes or no

[mikegideon]

Drake equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and calculus too! Best thread ever

[leroy]

You're implying that they could fly around the world at nite?! Where would the daylight go, I wonder!

They MAY fly right at the edge of the day/nite horizon; OR just warp it up so fast ya cant see them in the day. They MAY also turn on their "invisibility cloaking device" so ya cant see 'em. They MAY actually drag the nite around with them. Kind makes ya wonder doesn't it!!?

Leroy

[Rightwinger]

Anyone seen the goat?

[Guest jackdm3]

Chupa?!

[Guest tnrider]

Hard to believe we are the only ones in all this space. Some may be smarter some not. I think the smart ones would stay away from this place.

[Raoul]

Hard to believe we are the only ones in all this space. Some may be smarter some not. I think the smart ones would stay away from this place.

Well said.

[bubbiesdad]

Saw one many years ago along with my brother. Light in the sky moving quickly, making a ninety degree turn.

[dariks]

To assert that we're alone is the biggest ego trip.

Amen.

I can't believe that anyone can actually look up at the stars and think we are the only ones.

[Transplanted Hoosier]

When I was in the Navy, our CAG was doing some workups on the brand new USS Abraham Lincoln. It was winter time (Jan 1990) and we were somewhere off the coast of Florida. I got called up to the flight deck to witness some maintenance but the plane was being repositioned at the time. I went over to a catwalk to look for falling stars and I noticed a rather large orange ball off in the distance running parallel to the ship. Quick as a flash it gained altitude and was gone. Never saw anything like it before but it made the news from New York down to Florida. I have no idea what it was but it was pretty cool to see.

[Guest manofsteel]

Criticism of the Drake equation follows mostly from the observation that several terms in the equation are largely or entirely based on conjecture. Thus the equation cannot be used to draw firm conclusions of any kind. not proof of ufo's

[Guest Halfpint]

All this thinking makes me want to go back to MY Saucer . . . car bomb, anyone?

[Motasyco]

[McAllyn]

I'm pretty convinced there's things out there. Not sure why they'd visit here and not talk to anyone though. Seems like a big waste of time to fly all the way here and not grab a beer with the locals.

As far as the speed of light thing... seems to me they are saying it can't be done simply because they haven't done it, yet. They said the same thing about the speed of sound. "Oh, there's gonna be hell to pay when they break the envelope! Holes opening in the ground, demons eating cats!" etc. Then the fly boys broke the sound barrier and amazingly enough, the speedo kept going. Big deal. Pretty sure when it's all said and done, the speed of light is just that... a speed. Once they pass it, the speedo will keep turning.

I also have to take issue with the "that planet cannot support life." Ummm, you mean HUMAN life, right? Or maybe "carbon-based" life, right? That bugs me. Who said we have ANY idea of what kind of life is out there? You know that the ocean cannot support HUMAN life, so there must not be anything in there, right?

I think these scientist types try to make things more complicated than they really are, just to keep their jobs. Guess that's why I liked Armageddon so much. It was just a bunch of beer drinking roughnecks flying around in space puking on each other until it was time to go to work.

Mac

[EMB145]

This earth is just 1 speck of sand on a huge beach.....and thinking of it that way probably makes us look huge. I've never seen anything, but I'm open minded. Someone mentioned the Great Pyramids.... then you have Easter Island, Nazca lines. Ancient astronomy...did they have help? Motives for constructing these things? What was the purpose? Alot of open questions.

Stop Alien Abductions

[JAB]

Hard to believe we are the only ones in all this space. Some may be smarter some not. I think the smart ones would stay away from this place.

I saw a show on the Discovery channel (or one of the educational channels, anyway) about the SETI project. There was at least one scientist who wasn't sure the SETI project and attempting to contact alien life was such a good idea.

The points he made were interesting and at least somewhat valid. He pointed out that it is possible that there are hundreds - maybe even thousands - of life forms out there in the universe. Further, he said that there is a good chance that some of them, at least, are more advanced than us. Why then, he asked, are they all remaining silent? Do they know something we don't? Are they aware of something out there that neither they nor we really want to come into contact with? Is that why they are keeping quiet - to avoid attracting the attention of whatever that something may be? Further, he pointed out what generally happened through human history when a more 'advanced' group of people met a less 'advanced' group. Generally speaking, the more advanced group kills, enslaves, conquers, overruns or completely wipes out the less advanced race. Why, he asked, would we assume that a more advanced alien race would just show up and want to help us? Isn't it just as likely - maybe even more likely - that they would want to conquer, kill or enslave us? Heck, maybe even treat us as a new food source? After all, these beings would not be 'human' so it isn't like they'd be doing such things to what they would consider intelligent beings - their own race.

Edited April 7, 2010 by JAB

[McAllyn]

"A Small Talent for War" comes to mind.

I saw a show on the Discovery channel (or one of the educational channels, anyway) about the SETI project. There was at least one scientist who wasn't sure the SETI project and ...food source? After all, these beings would not be 'human' so it isn't like they'd be doing such things to what they would consider intelligent beings - their own race.

[Oh Shoot]

... Why then, he asked, are they all remaining silent?

Who's to say any sentient life form out there IS "remaining silent"?

Fine tuning onto the, for all practical purposes, infinite, narrow band possible sources of artificially generated electromagnetic impulses may take many millennia to get a hit. Or we may simply not have the listening power to perceive it, unless it's a specifically highly magnified and focused signal that's specifically MEANT for us to receive.

There is much debate as to just how effective our own SETI listening post really is. We assume that some alien civilizations would have sophisticated enough receivers (and the desire to use them) to separate a 60 year old I Love Lucy episode from the general background noise of the cosmos. But it might not be so and I'm not real sure we can either.

Not to mention that a race that generated the signal in the first place may not even be there anymore by the time we hear it. Same as far as our outgoing signals, which we've been unintentionally sending for over 100 years. The nearest star is 4 light years away, which would be a rather slow conversation even if contact were made in even such a nearby area.

Even though logic would suggest that we are NOT alone in the universe, it is of course possible that we ARE. Yep, looks like a big waste of space all right, but if a Big Guy indeed cranked up the whole shebang, it's apparent he has a pretty twisted sense of humor in general, so you can't put that past him.

There are some rather convincing biological theories, btw, that for reasons that are over my head, assert that anything BUT carbon based life is highly improbable, even given the inconceivable vastness of the sampling area. Even the generalized physical form of homo sapiens could well turn out to be the optimal evolutionary design, modified by different gravities, light spectrum, chemical consumption/reaction for metabolism, etc.

- OS

[Guest TargetShooter84]

[mikegideon]

Play some Slim Whitman

[John]

I rarely tell this tale because i feel a little crazy in saying so, but I will go ahead because it is the internets:

So I was driving with my dear mother from Franklin out to Townsend (the maryville area), we have some land out there and don't visit it often enough. oh by the way, this was about 2002. So we are driving on 40 and somewhere past Crossville maybe near Rockwood, and between these two hills that were on either side of the highway something moved from behind one of the hills very quickly, and for how low it seemed it moved very quickly relative to planes and things that seem to loom in the sky more than cut through it, once it had reached a place between these two hills it just stopped. it was this long rectangular thing with rounded edges. A bit like a candy bar just hanging there in the sky. It was metallic but not lit up.

I ask my mother, "are you seeing this?"

she says, "you know, i think i am"

So we have slowed down considerably on the highway and are just kind of staring at it wondering what it could possibly be, and another car pulls up next to us, he rolls down his window and says "what the hell is that?" and of course we explain that we have no idea.

Thinking for some reason I'd like to see it more closely, (figuring it was one of those things you stare at and think "well what in the hell is that?", and then you realize it is a pencil type situation) I drive on up the road, till at one point a cut off rock face blocks my direct view, when I come around a bend maybe half mile further it is no where to be seen.

Still have no idea what it was, if i was alone i might have thought i had just been seeing things or something but since it was confirmed by others, who knows?

Was it aliens? I doubt it. but it was flying. or at least floating, I have seen a good number of balloons (and this was a nice summer weekend) but the way it moved was unlike anything I have seen before or since.

Honestly it could have been anything. It is difficult to describe.

Btw I voted yes, but not because of this story but because of the vastness of the universe.

Edited April 7, 2010 by John

[Guest Straight Shooter]

I was truckin southbound out of Louisville Ky a few years ago, late evening, and in the distance I say a bright orange ball, stationary. I was several miles away, and thought nothing at all about it, until I kept getting closer, and it kept getting bigger, and still not moving. Than a couple miles away, Im like...Dang, that thing is superbright and huge, what is it? Im really freaking, the CB was goin crazy,and as I get up on it.....it was the Goodyear Blimp, COMPLETELY lit up,inside the blimp and out, BLAZE ORANGE. Really pretty, but it flat tripped me out for about 15-20 minutes. And I wasnt the only one!!

Edited April 7, 2010 by Straight Shooter

[John]

thats kind of what i figure with my yarn

eventually you get right up on it and figure out what it is.

[Rightwinger]

I saw a show on the Discovery channel (or one of the educational channels, anyway) about the SETI project. There was at least one scientist who wasn't sure the SETI project and attempting to contact alien life was such a good idea.

It may be still going on but years ago I helped SETI in their shared distribution research project. They gave you a small program and a chunk of the noise from the Arecebo dish so that your computer could run an analysis on it to look for modulated or rhythmic signals in that hash of stellar noise. It was a cool project and the idea went on to a cancer project and others using the power of all those PCs out there to help look at small packets of data and send back the results. No, they still haven't found anything, but I like them looking. I think any race advanced enough to be moving among the stars communicates with gravity waves or something that we don't even know about (instantaneous) like the Ansible.

Maybe the advanced races have already gone into their Dyson spheres or built and started moving their ringworlds.

[JAB]

"A Small Talent for War" comes to mind.

I actually thought of that while thinking about this thread earlier. Was going to bring it up, just for kicks, but you beat me to it.

Maybe the advanced races have already gone into their Dyson spheres or built and started moving their ringworlds.

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

[Rightwinger]

I'm currently re-reading the Posleen war series by John Ringo and yeah, humans are just "thresh". Something for the larder as they march in.

Not a comfortable thought. Still better than the baby elephants Niven hits us with in "Footfall". What was he smoking that year??