Why I Believe We Are Not Alone In The Universe – Intelligent Discussion

First of all, over the years I've always felt overwhelmed be the immensity of the "known" universe, especially with new discoveries being made on a constant basis lately.

Here lately though, I've switched my thinking of how immense the universe is to how incredibly tiny we are.

I haven't seen this video posted yet and I think this is really mind-boggling at the scale of the universe which teams of astrophysicists have come up with. This is really a must see.

Largest model of universe video.

I've come to the conclusion, that where there is light, there is life. Here is a composite picture of the Earth at night. All those points of lights are cities teeming with "life". Can you find a point of light near you?



Last of all, I've really got to be going, is this video showing Hubbles' ultra-deep field photographs of patches of sky that seem empty. Beware, at min. 1:30-1:55, there's is some guy clowning around, but keep watching.
And listen very closely at the quoe at min. 6:01. Remarkable quote to say the least.

Most important image ever taken by man.

Not only, I believe, that we're not alone. We're, I truly believe, are swamped with life in every direction we can point.

Had to edit. Couldn't link up previoulsy but now you can.



[edit on 7/10/08 by Intelearthling]

This just in..... we have finally gotten permission to interview the 6th man to walk on the moon.... Apollo 14's Commander Dr. Edgar Mitchell.

Ask Your Space, Moon & Universe Questions HERE!

Dave

reply to post by Dave Rabbit


I believe we are not alone in this universe. Its amazing to me how you can look at a planet we see in a telescope or photo with our eyes and see one thing, but a trained eye that looks at a planet with a colored filter can see a whole new perspective such as gasses present minerals elements etc... . This should tell us something about ourselves. We can only see what we are able to see. Or experience what we are able to percieve. I believe there are many examples of unknown life in front of our face here on earth, but our eyes are not able to see them or thier technology due to limitations in our senses, and? the fact that we do not practice senses that are available to ourselves that have been unlearned over the years. That is not the only reason I am positive their is other life. I believe they know how to travel between different dimensions. I also believe that nothing we experience here has anything to do with anything other than life. Namaste to all here and within all the multiverses.

reply to post by Dave Rabbit


I know we are not alone.
They are here. They have been here a long time.
They have very advanced technology.
It took the U.S. Government about 40 years but we finally figured it out.
Now the USA has very advanced technology.
It is dual use technology. That is why it is dribbled out to the U.S. public
and the rest of the world.
The Roswell crash in July 1947 happened.
There are people out there still who know the truth.
I think 2 Tophat spacecraft had a mid air collision.
It was left damaged but intact. It had fiber optic cable, microprocessors,
LCDs and gravity wave caterpillar drives etc.
The Grays piloted them.
There are also many other races that have reached the planet Earth.
Space craft here

I found another link that should get you thinking.
USAF Briefing
[edit on 7-10-2008 by Eurisko2012]

[edit on 7-10-2008 by Eurisko2012]

We are not alone, we have each other while waking up to a universe teeming with life.

We are alone, each of us just cells of the universal godmind thinking about itself.

Don't you love a good paradox?

Thanks Dave, and a star and flag for you!

Any race worth its salt would be hightailing it out of Eta Carinae's 3000 LY sphere of death. Once they put their numbers together, all intelligent worlds would be involved in a cooperative race.

The number one reason for interstellar migration is not resources, energy, or genetic material. It is survival. Even if the worlds just outside the (I'll coin it) the Sphere of Death, acronym SoD, took their races underground, their cities would be illuminated by the natural soft blue glow of Cherenkov radiation as they cooked alive.

It is not a matter of when much less if. She has already blown, and Earth, along with many other worlds, lies at the crossroads of this cosmic exodus. That is why so many different varieties of UFOs have been observed throughout the ages. It also explains behavior. A few flagships of any particular world, once adapted to long term spaceflight, will not be immediately interested in "conquering" or "settling" the first planet they come to, especially when whatever they use which could pass for economics evolved for centuries around cooperation and sustainability.

We would be viewed by these voyagers as Hee-Haw backwater rednecks, who replaced our anteriors with posteriors through competition. A careful analysis of the UFO reveals ^citation needed a more gestalt as opposed to individualistic operation. That is the result of thousands of years of cooperation within and between worlds in the common interest of survival.

edit to even it out

[edit on 10/8/2008 by Matyas]

amazing photos. wow.

i personally believe that there is life out there. there is so much activity outside of our planet. infinite activity, it seems.

and "beings" visiting us? i think its possible. but i also think that if there are "beings" here then i would put my money on the uso theory. not saying that they always lived here. (even tho they very well might have)... just saying that if we are visited by ufo's then why wouldn't they have some sort of a base set up here? and if they did... it would have to be under water.

just my opinion.

I believe that the idea that we are alone in the universe is as arrogant and ill-founded as the idea that the earth is the center of all creation. To me the two beliefs seem closely related in religious dogma and both should have been tossed out long ago.

Here is some information I compiled years ago that should help everyone understand what we are dealing with:

Galactic Facts
© Copyright Boomslanger.com grants permission to
distribution and use of this material in its unaltered form.
Other copyright material in this paper used under the GNU
Free Documentation License.


Our planet is revolving at 900 miles per hour and orbiting the Sun at 5,400 miles per hour.
Our solar system is traveling at 42,000 miles per hour in our galaxy the Milky Way.
That’s over a million miles a day.

The Milky Way contains over 100 billion stars.
It is approximately 100,000 light years from one side to the other and 1,000 light years thick at the spiral arms. The center or hub of our galaxy is about 16,000 light years thick.

Light Year: The distance light travels in one year…
5,865,696,000,000 (5 trillion, 865 billion, 696 million) miles.

We (the Earth) are around 26,000 light years from our galactic center and orbit around that center every 220 million years.

Our galaxy is one of millions of billions in this expanding universe. We also know our universe is expanding in all directions at or near the speed-of-light which is 186,000 miles per second or just shy of 670 million miles per hour.

The universe is estimated to have ten billion trillion stars, most having their own solar systems. The differences between these systems are great. Some stars are so enormous that their diameter would engulf Mars if they replaced the sun at the center of our solar system. Others are so small that planets with an orbit as close as Mercury would be solid blocks of ice. Some of the more exotic solar systems consist of clusters of stars intertwined in a gravitational dance that allows nothing larger than dust to form in their wake.

Among all this diversity is an uncommon group, known as type G stars. Only an estimated 8% of the stars in the known universe are of this type and fall within the ideal age spectrum. When stars are the correct age, they are neither too hot nor too cold, and create the foundation of a solar system able to support life.

What makes these facts and figures fascinating is that they are factual and verifiable.
Now there’s one more faction which should be included…probability statistics.

Not only do these statistics overwhelmingly reveal at least 100 million (and probably billions) of Earth-like planets in our known universe, they also reveal a high probability that there are thinking, conscious beings on millions of them. And some, more than likely, millions of years more advanced.


Numbers Table
Million, Billion, Trillion... © Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
People sometimes ask me the names of the large numbers. The system used in the U.S. is not as logical as that used in other countries (like Great Britain, France, and Germany).
In these other countries, a billion (bi meaning two) has twice as many zeros as a million, and a trillion (tri meaning three) has three times as many zeros as a million, etc. But the scientific community seems to use the American system.
Here is a table.
Number of zeros U.S. & scientific community Other countries
3 thousand thousand
6 million million
9 billion 1000 million (1 milliard)
12 trillion billion
15 quadrillion 1000 billion
18 quintillion trillion
21 sextillion 1000 trillion
24 septillion quadrillion
27 octillion 1000 quadrillion
30 nonillion quintillion
33 decillion 1000 quintillion
36 undecillion sextillion
39 duodecillion 1000 sextillion
42 tredecillion septillion
45 quattuordecillion 1000 septillion
48 quindecillion octillion
51 sexdecillion 1000 octillion
54 septendecillion nonillion
57 octodecillion 1000 nonillion
60 novemdecillion decillion
63 vigintillion 1000 decillion
66 - 120 undecillion - vigintillion
303 centillion
600 centillion

Scientific Notation
© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
Large (and small) numbers can be written in many ways. 375,000,000,000 is cumbersome and maybe confusing. In America it is called 375 billion. In most of the rest of the world it is called 375 thousand million. Even if you keep that straight, you may not remember the names for larger numbers, like nonillions.
Scientists (and other people) use scientific notation for large and small numbers. A number in this notation is written as a decimal number between one and 10 times an integer power of ten:
3.75x10^11 (or 3.75x1011)=375,000,000,000
6.7x10^-20 (or 6.7x10-20)=0.00000 00000 00000 00006 7
Here ^ means power. Normally we just write the superscript number. (which some WWW browsers cannot handle). These numbers are much more compact, and easier to read. In computer programming, this is often written slightly differently: 375,000,000,000=3.75E11.
OK, what is 3.75x10^11 + 6.7x10^-20? The answer 375,000,000,000.00000 00000 00000 00006 7 is ridiculous. Neither number implies that kind of accuracy. The answer is 3.75x10^11. compared to 3.75x10^11, 6.7x10^-20 is the same as zero.
Addendum:
There are other big numbers with names.
A zillion has come to mean an arbitrary or unknown large number.
A googol is 10^100.
A googolplex is 10^googol (10^10^10^2). This number is too large to write here without exponents.
Skewes' number (gesundheit) is 10^10^10^34 was used as an upper bound in a mathematical proof. Recently 10^10^10^10^10^7 was used in a proof.

The googolplex has given rise to the n-plex notation: n-plex is 10^n. n-minex is 10^-n.

Donald Knuth invented arrow notation, where m^n (^ is an up arrow) is the regular m^n.
m^^n is m^m^m^m...^m, with n up arrows.
m^^^n is m^^m^^m...^^m, with n ^^s.

According to The Book of Numbers by J.H.Conway and R.K.Guy, chained arrow notation is the following enhancement: a^^^^^b is written as a>b>5, where > is a right arrow.

reply to post by Jakman


Yes, Jakman....we who are educated have all seen those numbers. Maybe not the 'copywrited' ones from Jim Loy that you wished to introduce, but it is easy to admit that big numbers are hard for humans to wrap their minds around, right???

Your basic measurements of the Galaxy that we inhabit, are accurate.

It is fortunate that we inhabit the 'suburbs', as it were....in one spiral 'arm', far from the center of our Galaxy, since the intensity of radiation nearer the Center is likely fatal to all lifeforms on Earth.

But, we evolved HERE....does not preclude other lifeforms that could have evolved within a strong radiation environment.

However, in order to discuss, we must first understand the processes that stars undergo: The first basic elements of the early Universe were Hydrogen, and Helium. Over time, they, because of Gravitational attraction, coalasced into into the first 'stars'. (Hint: There was no life, yet, in this early Universe)

During the "time" (we cannot really use Earth 'years' here, since earth has not been formed yet....but we try to use a form of time that is familiar to humans) stars are formed, they produce fusion, produce more and more elements through the fusion process, and some explode....producing nebulae....that eventually coallesce and make more stars, possibly planets as well.....and more fusion enables more elements to form....so NOW, we have a lot more than just Hydrogen and Helium.....

This happens again and again....that is why OUR Sun is termed a 'third generation' star.

All of this, it's only happening in our own little block......if you can undserstand how far away the NEXT block is, in Human terms?

Well....our sun is 8 light-minutes away from us. The next closest star, Proxima Centauri, is just over 4 YEARS away, at light speed. The speed of light is about 186,000 miles per second. (that's close to 300,000 kps)

My calculator doesn't have enough numbers to tell me, nor you, how many miles are involved JUST to travel to our nearest planetary system (if it even has planets).....

That's why we use the 'Light Year' as a standard....it is the distance that light will travel, during what we know as a 'standard year', knowing the speed of light.

It is currently well beyond our (known) capacity to travel these great distances, in a human's lifetime.

However....these 'distances' may mean nothing, if certain other techonolgies can be employed.....

I thinks people might also want to consider that there are life forms beyond our comprehension. Say, life forms of pure energy, that might actually be able to live on stars or on giant planets like Jupiter, or even capable of living in space. I don't know how many people here saw the space tether video, but those plasma creatures that seemed to be attracted to the tether like moths to a candle sure seemed to move of their own will. Many religions philosphize that when our physical bodies die, we survive in a spiritual/plasma form. If this is the case, what will we know then. If we have a spirit and or a soul, do thees higher planes of our existance evolve as we evolve as a species.

Intelligent life forms other than our own could be in any inconceivable manifestation. Should we ever succeed in crossing the great depths of space, who knows what other great concepts we may discover, especially if we could become a part of some interstellar community.

Originally posted by lushyslushy
i think its possible. but i also think that if there are "beings" here then i would put my money on the uso theory. not saying that they always lived here. (even tho they very well might have)... just saying that if we are visited by ufo's then why wouldn't they have some sort of a base set up here? and if they did... it would have to be under water.
just my opinion.

Lushyslushy-Good point!
Quite a few well respected UFO advocates including Timothy Good,Stanton Friedman and astronaut Edgar Mitchell have also speculated on the possibility of bases underground or undersea.
If you've not seen it before,heres a great U.S.O. doc from the History Channel-it seems unidentified submarine objects have been around for a long time and have been witnessed by many people in many countries
-from feudal Japanese fishermen to Christopher Columbus right through to crews of U.S. Warships-some unknown objects have also been captured,plotted and corellated on sonar performing unheard of manoeuvres,travelling quite silly speeds and even to be seen emerging from the ocean.
THC's USOs:
uk.youtube.com...
uk.youtube.com...
uk.youtube.com...
uk.youtube.com...
uk.youtube.com...
uk.youtube.com...
Also heres some interesting reading:
www.ufologie.net...
Cheers Karl


[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
Although you do provide a valid arguement, scientists have been working for some time to send a probe to Europa, a moon of Jupiter, to search for life there:

If we do find life there, then I would say the chances of finding life elsewhere are highly probable.

Of course. Anything to increase the sample size is good (if we care). At least it would provide some kind of confirmation of at least the types of ET environments where life is possible, even if we don't know for sure how life came about in the first place. We'll just have to wait and see what they come up with. If we live that long.

But if life is found there, will it make us human beings -- and life on Earth in general -- more significant, or less significant? If, however, it turns out that we are the only living things in the galaxy, does that make life on Earth more valuable or less valuable? You could make an argument either way. If there was only one diamond on Earth, it would basically be worthless. What gives something value is a combination of rarity and desirability. If Earth life and civilization was only one out of a million others, we'd just be another rock with a bunch of critters crawling on it. If we all died or were destroyed, it would be like, "whatever." On the other hand, if we're completely alone in the universe, who else would be around to care if we were here or not? If we all died, who would even know or care? Nobody.

Another thing I find interesting about the whole debate is that there are a lot of people really, really hoping to find ET life, or ET civilizations out there, but could care less about all the very fascinating civilizations and cultures that we have right here on Earth. On this forum, there are more people interested in ETs than in the different people and cultures in their own hometowns. It's not like a lot of folks here are enthusiastic and dedicated cultural anthropologists. Yes, every single one of the nearly 7 billion people on this planet is a unique and fascinating world of their own. Are people interested? Nah, not so much.

I think people like the idea of life on other planets, with their zippy ray guns and flying saucers. But for practical purposes, if a hundred thousand ET civilizations were discovered tomorrow, most people would ignore them the day after.

[edit on 9-10-2008 by Nohup]

Originally posted by Jakman
Not only do these statistics overwhelmingly reveal at least 100 million (and probably billions) of Earth-like planets in our known universe, they also reveal a high probability that there are thinking, conscious beings on millions of them. And some, more than likely, millions of years more advanced.

See, again, this is where your logic breaks down. Just because there are probably a billion or more Earth-like planets out there, what makes you think that life just "automatically" has to form on them? Where are your statistics for that?

You tell me how a bunch of dead chemicals automatically configures itself into a living thing with a consciousness and a point of view. "Magic?" "God?"

Because unless you know the statistical probability of that process happening (whatever that process even is), you can have all the Earth-like planets you want, and all they will be are sterile rocks floating in space.

Originally posted by Zepherian
We are alone, each of us just cells of the universal godmind thinking about itself.

Zepherian I do like that one
I think findings in the field of Quantum Holography may also be indicating something along those lines:
books.google.co.uk...

As for the sheer scale of the universe-the very great,late Carl Sagan shows how truly insignificant our planet looks when filmed from very far away- Pale blue dot image is at end of vid (music by Pink Floyd too )
uk.youtube.com...



[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Very good thread, awesome photos.

Honestly, I think in all likelihood, there is other lifeforms out there. There is more than one reason that I believe this to be true.

1. I have seen numrous "UFOs" myself. When I was in my teens, I was somewhat of a sky watcher. I used to spend hours just looking into the depths of space. I witnessed many things that couldn't have been of conventional explanation.

2. Even skeptics have admitted that it is hard to imagine a universe as vast as the one we occupy not having other lifeforms other than earthlings. Carl Sagan himself admitted as much.

3. Beig someone who believes ina higher power, it is hard for me to imagine a creator that is so single minded as to just put life on one planet.

OOOps, you said no religion. Although, I must say that my last satement isn't necessarilya "religious" one.

[edit on 9-10-2008 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth

3. Being someone who believes In a higher power, it is hard for me to imagine a creator that is so single minded as to just put life on one planet.

Oops, you said no religion. Although, I must say that my last statement isn't necessarily a "religious" one.

I agree, therefore the "Wrath Of Dave" shall not come down.

Seriously though, I wanted to keep this from a scientific perspective because of guests that we have had on the ATS MIX show in previous months and compare things that they told us from a scientific standpoint to what our members believe.

Dave

P.S. I always use IE Spell Check before I post, so it corrected your spelling. So, I guess it is not an actual quote. Sorry.... sidebar.

Heres my belief on this subject and im very in the middle about it but....

though i do believe that it owuld be ignorant to think that we are the only intelligent lifeforms in this universe....at the same time [because im very cautious and like to see things with my own two eyes] im pretty sure theres not anything out there just because i know that we do have the abilities to make wild thoughts up and science has shown us that nothing would be able to survive out there [form what weve seen] so it could be very possible that because this earth can sustain life that something was created and everything else is lifeless because there is nothing in our galaxy that has the same ability ...if that makes sense

but like i said im very confused because this universe is infinite

[Posted by 80.41.149.130 via webwarper.net... This is added while posting a message to avoid misuse.
Try: webwarper.net... Example of viewing: www.webwarper.net... ]

These images are very interesting. I believe there are many types of Alien. Some are like us some more unusual or exotic. However like Terrence McKenna and possibly Maurice Cotterell , I think intelligent sentient life exists in many forms in many dimensions and sometimes in plain view.
Macroscopic microscopic subatomic & multidimensional intelligences Im sure exist.All I have done to these images is mirror them. You can see faces and shapes similar to human but clearly not. T

reply to post by TheTimeIsUp


It's not about belief (belief is for religious purposes and can be an opinion with no real observations or facts to back it up). It's more about discussing the likeliehood or probability with the available evidence to hand. Thanks Dave for keeping religion out of this discussion at least so we can have a rare meaningful discussion here.
Some bacteria have the ability to withstand very high doses of radiation. Some bacteria have the ability to lie dormant for millions of years and reawaken. Many bacteria can survive vacuum and therefore travel through space.

A link to alien life?

Bacteria can be detected early in our earth's history and are proven by genetic studies to be our ancestors. Ancestors of plants, aninals, fish, reptiles, jellyfish, you name it. We are all descended from a few single celled bacteria at most and all living things on earth are close relatives to each other. PROVEN, no doubt about it. The types of bacteria that are alive today can be traced back to two or three main originators. We can see by comparing the genes of all living bacteria we have been able to study so far that they are all related billions of years ago (meaning share common ancestry). It indicates to me that it's not easy for life to get started. Because they appeared early in our geological history and show common ancestry to just a few types billions of years ago we could propose that it is more likely they drifted onto earth and when the conditions were right for at least one type or perhaps two or three types at most they could reproduce and mulitply and spawn life on our planet. Once the original colonist bacteria occupied the earth other floating bacteria in space (the posters above put the numbers together for you, we are whizzing through space at unbelievable speeds and do a complete orbit every 220 million years so bacteria don't even have to move, we just have to collide into a patch of them that were expelled from a dying solar system or attached to comets or another solar system we passed close to) would find it hard to get a chance to take off, their niche already being occupied by a much better adapted earth bacteria.

However proving this theory is hard because we can't even properly study 99% of the bacteria around us at this time (it's only possible to grow 1-2% of bacteria in culture), we know there are a huge number out there that we cannot study at present because we can identify them from unknown rRNA fingerprints (similar to DNA) but we can't grow them to examine their biochemistry.





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