Speculation on the probability of extraterrestrial visitations

So nobody here actually witnessed the 1997 Phoenix lights incident?

a reply to: dfnj2015

My thinking is assume for a moment we have all the necessary technology to search for life on other Worlds. Why would we do it? We would do it just for the information. We would do it just for documenting and experiencing culture from other forms of life. We would do it just for fun of it! After 1,000,000 years of video game technology development reality would probably be the only thing left that that is fun and interesting!

I think we also need to take into account the idea that life that has developed on other planets under different conditions won't be anything like us.

When it comes to motivations for seeking out other life, their reasons may be completely alien to us. The idea of seeking out new places just for fun and adventure may be solely human concepts. Due to different biology maybe some species of alien aren't capable of emapthy or don't have a concept similar to fun. Maybe an entire advanced species has arisen that only seeks to consume and destroy other life because the emotions that produce benevolence aren't a part of their biology.

Maybe we shouldn't be searching so hard out there for something completely alien to us. We might just find it.

according to a recent article in Astronomy magazine maybe about 4-5 months ago, scientists now think there could be around 2 TRILLION galaxies in the known universe, and the number of planets would be beyond astounding. So the liklely hood of life out there is even bigger from my perspective. I think it's everywhere out there, and, some has, and continues to visit us to this day, just ask the Navy.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Say life developed on say 1%...
And let's say out of the that number only 1%...
And let's say out that number 1%...
And let's say out that 1000 only 1%...

What is your basis for those 1%?

Personally I highly doubt that life would develop on 1% of earth like planets. I believe that number is much, much smaller.

Have you heard of the infinite monkey theorem? That is how I see the chance of abiogenesis. If you take an almost infinite number of planets, at least one of them will almost surely have developed life.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: butcherguy

I think I answered this question, "For any million year old technologically advanced culture we would certainly have nothing of interest or value other than to be cataloged and studied."

Or perhaps to provide DNA samples, or maybe they feed on emotional energy like fear, love, or worship. We have no real idea.

"A question would be why we have not been contacted."

Zeus flipping Buddha!

Is there a WAKE UP button around here that I can push to get some of these people up to speed?

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: dfnj2015

I think we also need to take into account the idea that life that has developed on other planets under different conditions won't be anything like us.

When it comes to motivations for seeking out other life, their reasons may be completely alien to us. The idea of seeking out new places just for fun and adventure may be solely human concepts. Due to different biology maybe some species of alien aren't capable of emapthy or don't have a concept similar to fun. Maybe an entire advanced species has arisen that only seeks to consume and destroy other life because the emotions that produce benevolence aren't a part of their biology.

Maybe we shouldn't be searching so hard out there for something completely alien to us. We might just find it.

I address every point you made in my original post. Any technology advance culture lasting over a million years would undoubtedly have solved every possible problem of need. You can make it to one million years if people have excessive needs. So I double very much their purpose is to seek out, consume, or destroy life. Neither one of us can prove it one way or the other. But It seems to me if all your material needs are met all that is left is cultural stuff.

RE: "I think we also need to take into account the idea that life that has developed on other planets under different conditions won't be anything like us."

I did take this into account. I think you missed it.

How do we search for alien life if it's nothing like the life that we know?

Besides, my post is not about us detecting them but more about them detecting us.

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: dfnj2015

Say life developed on say 1%...
And let's say out of the that number only 1%...
And let's say out that number 1%...
And let's say out that 1000 only 1%...

What is your basis for those 1%?

Personally I highly doubt that life would develop on 1% of earth like planets. I believe that number is much, much smaller.

Have you heard of the infinite monkey theorem? That is how I see the chance of abiogenesis. If you take an almost infinite number of planets, at least one of them will almost surely have developed life.

If you buy enough lottery tickets eventually you win. Life developed on this planet in 4 billion years. This could have happened 3 times over based on the age of the Universe. We humans are probably pretty late to the party.

1% is being ultra conservative in my mind. The number is probably much greater. 12 billion years is a very long time over billions planets!

a reply to: data5091

I agree. It just takes million year old technological culture with a jump-drive, power source, and self-replicating robots and 1000 years to search pretty much every start we know in the Universe for life. You could argue such technology will never exist but hoping it will never exist is just wishful thining.

EXCELLENT POST!!!!!!!

The funny thing is that we'll never know if there are extraterrestrial civilizations until we either find one or they find us. And at that point we will know for sure that there are two. But unless the aliens have some evidence of even more civilizations, we can conjecture and try to extrapolate but in the end we'll only be able to say that such a thing happened twice... until we can find a third (if there is one), and so on.

Hypothetical ET civilizations are the same as non-existent ET civilizations. When it comes to existence, we'll always need positive, confirmative proof.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: butcherguy

I think I answered this question, "For any million year old technologically advanced culture we would certainly have nothing of interest or value other than to be cataloged and studied."

I heartily disagree --- Besides the 10% of freshwater on our planet...tell me of any other planet in our star system that holds liquid seawater? Far as I know...there isn't any, and that might be the key reason why the otherworlders visit our planet.

If the otherworlders do use photon propulsion...they would need an infinite amount of fuel to get here from other star systems --- So that brings in micro mini black hole starship propulsion --- which needs photons to feed on. In places that lack starlight photons...a finite amount of liquid seawater that holds deuterium, would be required to be stored onboard the starship for fusion reactions; that would feed the micro mini black hole propulsion unit with photons.

Hence...there's a hunger and thirst for the otherworlders too travel to our planet.



Erno

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Hypothetical ET civilizations are the same as non-existent ET civilizations. When it comes to existence, we'll always need positive, confirmative proof.

I don't disagree with this statement. We have to have positive evidence. Take philosophical materialism for example. There is absolutely NO evidence we live in a clockwork Universe but it just violates people's intuition to think we don't. God does not play dice mindset even though it's a dogma belief system.

I think one of the main points of my post is there are probably thousands of hype-advanced extraterrestrials studying and cataloging us but we simply are not advanced enough to detect them. I think the intuition supporting my argument comes from the idea of what kind of technologies a culture would have after million years of development. Just think of what we've done with airplane technology have 115 years of development. There's probably technology that will exist 200 years from now in our culture that will support my argument or make it much stronger which we just haven't invented yet.

I think the OP is more about the possibility and motivation. We can't just assume they are not here because we are just not that advanced technologically. Again, we don't even know or can stop NSA from monitoring us.

And I think projection of our values of motivation based on an economy engineered with scarcity is a projection on what the extraterrestrials would want or need. I just think any extraterrestrial culture over a million years old doesn't have the same needs and desires we have based on scarcity economics. They just would not be here if scarcity were part of the equation is my thinking.

If they are here, we have to first assume they are here, and then make incredible efforts to detect them which is probably beyond what we are capable of doing for another 100 or 200 years.

I'm betting ET's are on Earth because it is a water planet. It does not matter if water planets are rare or common, only that water planets harbor life. They could just travel to all the water planets they can find.

The other option could be our missing link, the ET culture that created us. Current ET's could know that an ancient progenitor race developed us here. They could know because it is recorded history in a galactic encyclopedia. So the new visitors could have come here just to study us.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
From our original numbers we had 10 extraterrestrial cultures having over million years of technological advancement in the Milky Way galaxy. There are 100 billion galaxies in our Universe. So this would mean there are 10 times 100 billion number or one trillion extraterrestrial cultures having over million years of technological advancement in our Universe capable of coming to our solar system.

I was just thinking again about the numbers. Say we have over a trillion extraterrestrial cultures having over a million years of technological advancement in our Universe capable of coming to our solar system. Say each of these civilizations has say 10 to 20 billion citizens. What does that say about our place in the Universe, God, and religion, when our civilization is just 7 billion people out of a total Universe population of beings numbering in the octillion range?

In understanding our place in the Universe, given most people are megalomaniacs when it comes to their relationship to God in the Unvierse. Can our civilization endure the level of humility required in considering our utter insignificance when it comes to experiencing God's creation?

Maybe this is the barrier our World governments simply can't cross with having full disclosure occur.

originally posted by: spiritualarchitect
The other option could be our missing link, the ET culture that created us. Current ET's could know that an ancient progenitor race developed us here. They could know because it is recorded history in a galactic encyclopedia. So the new visitors could have come here just to study us.

Yeah, this could be the case. I think this would just increase the probability although it's hard to determine if this is the case.

originally posted by: spiritualarchitect
I'm betting ET's are on Earth because it is a water planet. It does not matter if water planets are rare or common, only that water planets harbor life. They could just travel to all the water planets they can find.

As it turns out, the more we study other planets and moons the more water we find. Except in the vast, empty reaches of space, the universe seems to be downright moist. As for other chemicals and elements, once you have fusion in your back pocket, you can pretty much make whatever you need from just junk floating around.

What might the Earth have that would be special enough for aliens to pay us a visit? What can't they get elsewhere?

a reply to: Blue Shift

This is exactly my thinking.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
What might the Earth have that would be special enough for aliens to pay us a visit? What can't they get elsewhere?

To our knowledge:
Humans
Oxygen rich atmosphere
Cows (joking... ish)
Natural defense against radiation (atmosphere)
Taco Bell

I get the general point you’re making but it’s kind of hard to answer. You’d have to know what they value.

For all we know, they came here and found out about Marijuana, got lit and decided to come back for more. Perhaps they tried some steak and decided they like it better than space cow and kept coming back for more. Who knows.

I would bet the probes the OP references were sent to find life in his scenario but probably for the following reasons:
- sheer curiosity to see what’s out there: life/resources/etc.
- recon for defense: make sure they know who’s in the neighborhood for a threat assessment (possibly searching for nuclear weapons/extremely high powered weapons discharge as sign of advanced life).
- options for a relocation planet should SHTF with the home world.
- searching for new/different/useful resources to benefit their species.

Since we don’t know what resources they don’t have I can’t speak to what makes us special.

Perhaps it isn’t so much about Earth as it’s about the neighborhood. Gotta get a sense of who’s out there and what they’re bringing to the table - they already know there’s a bunch of life out there and experience taught them it’s better to know who/what could hurt you then not.

Said another way, if we found life elsewhere and had jump/hyper/warp/etc. drives to get around we’d go check it out just because we can - and in true human fashion we’d be armed to the teeth just in case - it would be foolish not to be. I don’t think other civilizations would be much different (or at least many would be similar). Probe goes out, finds us, ship is sent that’s armed to the teeth/stealthy and recon is performed. This leads to finding something of interest or they realize they can establish a beachhead here undetected - useful for studying our neck of the woods perhaps.

None of this had anything to do with finding life per se - they knew life exists off their planet already. It’s pure recon/threat assessment at the start. What if turns into from there could be situationally dependent - anything from proactive strategic military strike to saying hello to hiding and observing or scavenging resources.

a reply to: dfnj2015

the probability of extraterrestrial visitations?

Accent Astronaut Theorist say yes. in fact they say yes to every question concerning the subject.
they like to throw BS on the wall and see if it will stick. best to find another source besides Accent Aliens.

don't get me wrong,I believe that there is. it would be ignorant to think other wise. but every thing they talk about about could have a million different possible explanations. but they act and talk like it's a fact with little to no evidence at all.