We are alone in the galaxy

a reply to: 727Sky

350 to 450 billion known galaxies with trillions and trillions of stars.. What a ???? words are not enough to describe his thoughts on the matter... not for me anyway.

Perhaps the silence hints at something more profound than just being alone in the Galaxy , perhaps we and our local surroundings , solar system , are in reality all there is with the rest of the Galaxy / Universe just information played to us , perhaps there's no one there because the program doesn't take that into account.

It's an out there thought but quantum physics has thus far shown us that at the quantum level reality is an out there place with many unanswered questions.

a reply to: gortex

A lot of the time I think people should shut up and wait before proclaiming anything. We've only just begun to discover planets in other systems right? Kepler's been out there less than five years and we're confident to start sulking about 'no life out there??' How dramatic!

In the next few years, we'll discover more planets and technology will be more refined. We'll be analysing the atmosphere of any visible planet or moon that has one. At that point, whose to say we won't find evidence of heavy metals in the air that indicate an intelligent life-form?

At the beginning of our Industrial Age, we weren't capable of heavier-than-air flight or even sending telegram messages. We certainly weren't sending out any signals to other worlds. Even now, whatever transmissions we've sent so far have a minuscule chance of escaping our heliosphere with coherence. We're capable of space flight and effectively 'silent' as far as recent SETI attempts would be concerned.

Just maybe, one or more of these newly found worlds will show signs that of technology? Bronze Age or Industrial Age? Even the equivalent of the 1930s could be out there in high numbers and we wouldn't notice them with the technology we've been using.

It always seems to be talk of either micro-organisms or advanced civilisations. What about the millions of years where life on this planet has been neither?

Don't get me wrong here, I'm making a basic case for something that's far more complicated and I realise that - it's internet and not a dissertation. It's possible we're the one and only technological life form in the entire Universe and that's a depressing possibility when we consider how frigging stupid we are as a species. Still, based on a lot of previously wrong assertions from particular scientists, we could be celebrating the first evidence of life out there in the next five years. Just like the exo-planets, if we find one, we'll find that it's ubiquitous! Oh yeah!!

a reply to: jimmyx

my feelings exactly....saying there is no evidence is laughable....they just refuse to believe the thousands of eyewitnesses from the past decades

UFOs are not evidence of Extraterrestrial life , they are evidence that people see things that they can't identify.

The opinions of William Borucki are based on his time as a scientist searching for other worlds using the best technology available for the task , our opinions are based on belief and reading the results of the work undertaken by Mr Borucki and his fellow scientists , to dismiss what he says out of hand smacks of sticking our fingers in our ears because someone says something we don't like.

I want ET to be out there as much as anyone but so far there is no evidence I've seen to support that.

a reply to: gortex

oh ok .....based on his narrow and restricted use of the word "evidence", I agree with you

a reply to: gortex

Thanks for the reply: If there are space fairing civilizations then I highly doubt they are using radio or some sort of light beams to communicate. to slow. If they can communicate via telepathy even if it requires a mind boosting chip how would anyone know on earth what was being said by all the possible civilizations..? That is not even considering some of the theories floating around about the multiverse. During WW2 our subs had to surface to establish radio contact. Maybe E.T. has to pop into another universe to call home... I don't know and neither does anyone else....except maybe an E.T.

To be honest all of this is over my head and I even realize it is.. But that does not stop my gut feelings and the odds I perceive when I look or read about the known universe; they are there we are just to stupid to find them.

lol. where are the visitations? (while totally discounting every incident where people say we are being visited.) what a walking set of genitals. bollocks. arrogance. presumption.

If the moon wasn't there, the north pole would have tipped over facing the sun, the northern hemisphere amoeba's would have fried, and the southern one frozen, end of history, so perhaps earth is unique, because of its moon, one lucky happenstance out of billions.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

lol. where are the visitations? (while totally discounting every incident where people say we are being visited.)

There is no evidence that anyone has ever been visited by ET , there are reports of visitation and people who believe that has happened to them but no actual evidence , no information given that was previously unknown.

presumption

Based on the the available evidence he's had first hand knowledge of , I don't think anyone is ruling the possibility out but so far in our 13 billion year old Galaxy all is quiet to our ears , maybe we just haven't found them or they haven't found us yet but as it stands there is no evidence anything is out there.

a reply to: gortex

I know we are not. Countless verified visits prove this. Like this UFOs over White House 1952

Just starting with that causes those sources to be entirely wrong. s/f, though.

a reply to: gortex

Not my opinion either, but guess he is entitled to his opinion as well. I personally think we will find the universe to be a rainforest, life all shapes and sizes.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

This dude needs to have his degrees taken away and be sent back to jr high school.

Yes, he is the dumb one, you have the truth...**sigh**
The truth is often painful and less interesting than fantasy. Especially when you have built up quite a bit of fantasy.


V

originally posted by: Variable
a reply to: FormOfTheLord

This dude needs to have his degrees taken away and be sent back to jr high school.

Yes, he is the dumb one, you have the truth...**sigh**
The truth is often painful and less interesting than fantasy. Especially when you have built up quite a bit of fantasy.


V

Sure do bub the universe is infinate in every way and there is life everywhere as counsiousness is everywhere. Get it got it good!
Consider yourself schooled on the infinite life of the infinate counsiousness of the infinate LOL!

I think his statements are way to broad, and assume too much.

I have often wondered if we are alone. Not in the whole universe, maybe not even in just our own galaxy, but I have wondered if we might be alone in a large section of our galaxy.

You do have to admit, when you line everything up of what it took for us to be here, it seems like one incredible lucky break after another.

1) Most accepted theories on planet formation says that the early solar system had about 20 inner planets and that most ended up being flung out of the solar system, into the sun or destroyed from very large collisions.
2) The way our very large moon was formed: the massive collision theory is the most held one. That collision could have gone another way and destroyed the Earth completely, but it didn't and it gave us a very large moon that would eventually help anchor the Earth's spin axis.
3) Look over how life formed on Earth, how it's atmosphere has been changed until we have what we have today, and all the ELE events that eventually lead to us today
4) According to evolution, we came from primates that learned to walk upright and who started to eat meat for protein (leading to a much larger brain). According to that, it happened because the climate and terrain in East Africa started to change all due to tectonic plate movement, destroying the rain forest that was once there, and created a savanna where the primates had to learn to walk across open grass lands in search of food.
5) We've been lucky enough so that since modern man (walking upright and tool using) has not suffered any huge ELE as has happened in the past. We've had events that have come close to that, but not quite wiping us out.

and last:

6) Some how we have survived all sorts of things we bring on ourselves: war, famine and plagues......and now, we are at the tech level in which we most certainly could wipe ourselves out at the push of a button.

If you stop and look at it all, it does seem like a miracle that the human race even exists.

How often does that happen out there? We simply don't know. We do now know that there are a LOT of planets out there that more than likely could sustain life as we know it, so we are increasing our knowledge and an answer to that question as time goes by.

It could be: it happens a lot! But.....just because we have not had ships show up from another star and land here, waving a big hello to us all over the world, or because we are not hearing anything via some other communication, does not, in my opinion, mean other intelligent life isn't out there.

His statements are the same as: You live in a very isolated place on the Earth. No roads, no cities, and far enough away to not receive any radio or TV signals. And because of that, you must be the only person on the entire planet.

B.S.

There could be millions of civilizations out there. Many of them could be at a stage where they do not have radio or TV. Many of them could be at that stage.......but are so far away from us, that their signals have not had time to get here yet (space is BIG). Our own signals from our planet have not even traveled out to 100 lighyears yet. Many stars are hundreds, thousands and up to tens of thousands of lightyears away.

What if they have FTL? Why haven't they come here?

Let me ask you all a couple of other questions: Why would they come here? and Are we close enough to them?

Watch your Sci-Fi! Even in Star Trek with warp drives......it takes time to travel from star to star. It could be their FTL drives only allow fast travel to local star groups (stars only tens of light years away). There could be a HUGE galactic empire stretched out over half the galaxy.....on the other side of it. And they just haven't gotten here yet.

Even if there were a huge galactic empire on the other side of that galaxy that's been around for over a thousand years....that's STILL not enough time for any lightspeed signals to get here. That's how big the Milky Way galaxy is.

Could be that FTL communications is something we can not detect......yet. We might be bathed in FTL communications.....only we don't have the technology to detect it.

So yah....okay, it might be that intelligent life like here on Earth is very rare, and we might even be the only ones in our galaxy......but their is no proof of that, and his statements are nothing more than pure speculation.....and a very poor attitude IMO.

For all we know, there is a planet that Kepler has picked up, close by, just 20 lightyears away that has a huge civilization on it....but they are at the same tech level as we were back in 1600 AD. They wouldn't hear us....and there would be nothing coming from them for us to hear.

We won't really know until we get out there and LOOK.

in the 1500's, I wonder if the natives of Hawaii thought they were alone in the world because they couldn't hear the drums of other people across the ocean?

Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.

I can't believe someone actually said "we should have had contact by now, since we haven't, there isn't any others out there".

Pfft puh-lease.

Look at the state of our planet... Do you really think anyone out there wants to get involved with us?
Are they also overlooking the fact that there COULD have been contact and the Governments don't want anyone to know?

How many times have one or more scientists stated something emphatically, only to eat their words later on? Here we are, a species in Kindergarten, that hasn't even finished exploring our own planet, and we think we're ready to make broad, over-reaching statements of any kind.

If we're alone, fine. It's certainly nothing to get upset over. Life in this galaxy has to spread from somewhere. Maybe we're the place it spreads from. Though admittedly, it's a bit scary to think of us populating the galaxy at this point in time.

If we're not alone, that's fine too. We may yet find out our ancient ancestors weren't the ignorant buffoons we think they were, and left us all kinds of clues pointing the way, and we've been too ignorant, arrogant, and self-serving to know what we're looking at.

Who's to say we even have the right technology to Recieve the signals coming from the edges of the galaxy? Or the communications dont break down and cant reach that far?

Or if another advance intelligent civilization would even try to communicate with us..

Also who has the technology Now on Earth to recieve these signals? With that kind of power, would they even tell the common folk or use it to their advantage? In todays way of thinking on this planet.. I dont think we would be told the truth!!!

there have been many scientific writings on the theory of "large numbers".....considering the billions of stars in our own 1(one) galaxy, I lean toward those, rather than the OP's cited "experts".

a reply to: gortex

That whole idea is absolutely asinine and ludicrous. Anyone with 1 1thousandth of 1 1 millionth of 1 single % should realize that line of thinking is so far down the ignorance chain....that they've hit a hundred branches falling off it.

What makes sense to me...is we are too little, too uncivilized, too ignorant and abusively hell bent on destroying our world and each other...that we aren't even worth communicating with..and too stupid to accept and recognize any of the evidence cthat has existed for untold millennia.

And it'll be awhile...

The evidence says that we are being visited. A person would literally have to explain away every single reported sighting through all of recorded history. Impossible.