Aliens Exist, but Cannot Travel to Earth: A Loss for the Believer's Community?

Originally posted by Merigold

suggest that alien races are not capable of getting here, is baseless, arrogant, and above all illogical.

But let's say that they can travel here, why would they? I accept that at some point should we not blow ourselves up first of course, we will have the technology to travel vast distances, but why would we unless it was for resources? Then agin..why travel far for them?

If you where to reverse the situation, so say if we had the technology to travel to other planets do you not think we would? Even just for the pure purpose to prove that we are not alone and also to study them and compare them to ourselves.

For example finding out how they are different from us, what they are composed of, what are their ecosystems are like... there are countless reasons for them to visit us just as we would them.

Originally posted by Xtrozero
reply to post by lunarminer

 

I agree with you to a point, but as I said who is to say intelligence is a good evolution trait? Also, the most intelligent creature in the universe is likely not to have the physical ability to build as we do.

As I said in another post, what makes us better than dolphins, our intelligence or our thumbs.

But who's to say that we don't have the physical ability to build as other worldy species do?
Again as quoted earlier by another poster you are going by the assumption that our human race is the greatest, who is to say some other being isn't able to teleport, or use psycho-activity to move things etc.
There is NO PROOF to say that it isn't possible and that well, we are the most capable creatures in the universe

Originally posted by franspeakfree

Originally posted by Merigold

Unless of course we HU-MAN beings are the bi product of THEIR evolution and indeed they are monitoring our transitions?

[edit on 12-3-2009 by franspeakfree]

i tend to agree with you...we humans are so far advanced then any other creature here on earth, that it is hard to believe that no other native creature on earth has advanced farther then they already are. the expotentional growth in human intelligence has far exceeded any other species native to earth. thus my conclusion is since we have a 99% DNA match to apes, we must have been genetically modified in the past to physically survive on this planet, but with an upgraded intellect from other non-earth beings. also since there appears to be 3 dominant races, anglo, african, asian on this planet, it could be logically assumed that there were 3 types of alien beings that injected the different modifications.

Originally posted by lunarminer
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

Something that I did not mention in my previous post that might be cause for concern. I once read an article that stated that only predators develop intelligence. Predatory species have to stalk their prey and may need to outsmart it. Non-predators need to be fast, nimble, and quiet, so they do not develop their brains. I don't know if it is actually true but when you look at a list of the most intelligent animals on the planet, almost all of them are predatory.

So, it may be that the development of intelligence is a part of the natural selection process and so it may not be rare at all.

There is just one problem with this, being that humans are not predators, or at least we weren't. We used to be the hunted until we became intelligent enough to outsmart our predators and and well as the old saying goes "the hunter became the hunted".

But still we had to be intelligent enough to survive in the first place. Another example are creatures that are intelligent enough to hide, etc as forms of defense

Now to the heart of it all: many scientists and astronomers agree, citing the Drake equation, that the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere is extremely high.

That's the interesting part...isn't it?

So, scientifically, if we posit that there are indeed many other intelligent civilizations out there, then logically, there are some of these that have been around far longer than we have.

Continuing in this logic, we humans have expanded our "range" from a few hundred miles (via train) to a couple hundred thousand miles (from the Earth to the Moon) in less than a century.

So, if we apply the same exponential technology curve to a civilization that has been around longer...then logically, their range would be enough to have visited us... The longer the civilization has been around, the bigger the curve, and the more likely instance they have found a way to traverse vast distances....

It's funny how they'd agree with some statistics, and not others using the same variables....

reply to post by Absence of Self



So there are a lot of variables, and you need to understand all the mechanics of the universe to make a valid point on whether intelligent life is out there, and/or if it is, capable to reach us. I guess I get the point.

My point is we have no proof other than us that anything else is out there, and we also do not have anything to prove that there are other dimensions, so we are basically “what ifing”, but we do have a few understandings to play with.

One is that our universe as we know it is around 15 billion years old, what went on before that time means nothing to us since it is something “outside” our universe. We also understand that it took roughly the first 5 billion years to start to form galaxies and solar systems to support life, and so this gives us about 10 billion years to play with. Earth took 5 billion years to make us, and so we know that evolution is a slow process.

We also know that the simpler the life forms the better chance it survives the multitude of environmental effects. We know this because that is what happens (ed) on earth, and even using ourselves we do not have proof of long term space travel, or that intelligence is a good trait, and so sooner or later intelligent life could destroy itself or have a high risk that the environment destroys it, which would make it a bad trait that doesn't survive.

So far all we have is that life if out in the universe, but intelligent alien life visiting earth is as real as saying god is real and as provable.

So far all we have is that life if out in the universe, but intelligent alien life visiting earth is as real as saying god is real and as provable.

You'd be ignoring other evidence though...

("proof" is a misnomer...there are few things one can "prove" about anything, all you can do is look at the evidence for anything and decide whether or not you'll believe a particular position)..... Do you have personal "proof" the Earth is round? Not really, but pics from space, academic sources, etc. state it is, so you agree to accept it.

However, there is evidence including photos, videos, expert testimony, the government's proven attempts at coverup (proven in that they've been caught in certain lies, i.e. claiming test dummies for an event that happened over 5 years prior to the dummies), etc. that there are craft which have and continue to outperform known terrestrial technological limits. Sure, the majority of sightings are mistaken mundane phenomena, but if even one simply defies explanation, then you've got a real mystery on your hands (and there are far more than one)...

One also has to consider this into the Drake Equation.... we're learning more each day about possible E.T. life (albeit likely not intelligent) right here in our own solar system, from possible water on the Moon and Mars, to moons such as Europa or Ganymede...

The Universe could be literally "teeming" with life...for all we know.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by fleabit
Considering what we've learned and how far we've advanced in a mere 200 years, why is it so hard for folks to grasp that a race 5000+ years up on us technology-wise, couldn't easily have found a way to travel across vast spaces in a fraction of the time of even FTL travel.

It's my contention that "humans" will never directly develop the FTL travel speeds. Rather, it will be some AI/ALF (artificial life form) or some derivative there of that we created which will develop the technology. And by that time, humans will have self-mutated so much that they will essentially be a different species, if we will even be biological in nature at all.

Really, we have already begun reaching "mental limits" in developing technology with just our brains. We depend on artificial information processing technologies (computers) to further technology. While we are still "humans" today, we have already begun integrating the technology directly into our brains/bodies with pace makers, cochlear implants, and such. We are also manipulating biology at the molecular level with plants, etc.

Eventually all this will merge together and into us.

I find it interesting many people are asking why aliens would visit us and other planets. My answer is simple: curiosity. Why would we be the only curious animals?

When I got home from visiting someone else, my dogs and cats would immediately sniff my clothes. They were curious as to where I had been. If a "lowly" animal can be curious, why not highly advanced life forms?

reply to post by Elepheagle


So how far down the rabbit hole are you prepared to go?

I started out being pretty convinced that something was going on. At first, back in the sixties, I thought it was nuts-and-bolts stuff. Then after reading John Keel I thought it was ultraterrestrials. Now... I think the universe is teeming with life and there are a lot of people interested in us.

I think there's enough documentation to be able to say, pretty definitively, that the USG is certainly covering up their involvement with the issue. The question then becomes, how far? Are they just clamping down because they don't own the skies, or is it something more?

Various people have said that Ben Rich, Skunk Works director about 20 years ago said, back in the nineties after he'd retired, that "we now have the technology to take ET home."

Once you start to consider stuff like that seriously, you have to start looking at NASA as just a publicity stunt. No wonder their budget's so tight.

As far as the title of your thread goes... a mere eyeblink ago, historically speaking, the authorities and skeptics of the day were saying that you couldn't travel faster than 30 mph, because you wouldn't be able to breathe. It's the same kind of short-sighted arrogance.

Originally posted by marshy10156
For example finding out how they are different from us, what they are composed of, what are their ecosystems are like... there are countless reasons for them to visit us just as we would them.

All these goals could be accomplished cheaper, faster, and more reliably by unmanned probes, probably similar to a "von neumann" type.

Unless just about everything we know of physics is wrong, there is no way to travel at relativistic velocities, let alone super-luminal velocities, on the cheap when it comes to energy requirements, regardless of technological sophistication. Even if you could bend space itself or fashion an artificial wormhole to make a thousand light year journey shorter, the energy needed to do so would exceed the energy budget of entire solar systems. Even if the technological hurdles could be overcome by advances that are far above our ability to comprehend, there are these huge energy requirements that cannot be mitigated. If a civilization could do all these things they probably wouldn't want to on a regular basis because they'd have to consume vast, unimaginable amounts of resources just to do it once. To do it "star trek" style would mean converting entire the equivalent of entire supergiant stars to pure energy on a daily or even hourly basis to provide the energy needed. Talk about environmentally unsound lol.

I strongly believe that if such an advanced civilization existed within our galaxy, they'd use autonomous von neumann style devices that would explore the entire galaxy at sublight speeds, perhaps replicating itself at each destination and sending the new probes out to multiple new destinations afterwards, exploring the galaxy in a gradual but exponential way. If that were the case, our own solar system might contain an old von neumann probe left behind by an advanced race to monitor this solar system after the new probes departed. Serious searches by astronomers for such devices have been carried out in the past by monitoring stable lagrange points of earth for any unusual objects the size of skylab or bigger. I think it would be interesting to do a study searching for hypothetical smaller devices, and in the lagrange points of other planets as well.
www.rfreitas.com...

Bear in mind, I am a lot of things that would predispose me to skepticism: a christian, a scientist, an amateur astronomer, but I also come from a family that had a very close encounter of the 1st kind. One possibility I've entertained is that an alien civilization might not need to take the journey in person to achieve a biological presence (the thing my family encountered had windows and interior space, not needed for an unmanned device). A von neumann style device could include something akin to frozen embryos that are thawed out just before arriving at the destination to institute a test tube colony. But what if the probe discovered that the observations made before departure were too old and the previously uninhabited system now has intelligent life?

[edit on 13-3-2009 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by marshy10156
But who's to say that we don't have the physical ability to build as other worldy species do?
Again as quoted earlier by another poster you are going by the assumption that our human race is the greatest, who is to say some other being isn't able to teleport, or use psycho-activity to move things etc.
There is NO PROOF to say that it isn't possible and that well, we are the most capable creatures in the universe

I'm not saying we humans are anything. It is obvious to me that other races would not only be 10 of millions of years off from each other, but even billions. We could easily be in the middle with some still billion of years from our point in evolution and other billions of year ahead of us.

There are two ways to go with this...

One way is to add up all the stipulations as to what a race would need to evolve to so that they could actually achieve space travel, and cover long distances, and then discuss if this would be common or a rare event. It is one thing to ask if there is life in the universe and another to ask if there are purple, one eyed, eight armed, six legged, four headed people eaters. To ask if there is life we have 100% yes to ask if there is something with many stipulations that 100% starts to drop with each addition. To go from mold to an intelligent space faring race we have a lot of stipulations involved.

The other way is to "what if" every situation with none of them provable or even an ounce of factual information backing it up. I can say there are silicon based life forms that live in space and can use mind power to travel, but since I just made that up off the top of my head would I really use it as my point in whether there is intelligent space faring aliens out there? Most likely not….

I'm really not narrow minded, I'm just working with what I have to work with, and that is us humans and the planet earth. If you all want to sit around smoke cigars and drink 18 year old scotch as we dream up aliens I can do that too.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by Gazrok


However, there is evidence including photos, videos, expert testimony, the government's proven attempts at coverup (proven in that they've been caught in certain lies, i.e. claiming test dummies for an event that happened over 5 years prior to the dummies), etc. that there are craft which have and continue to outperform known terrestrial technological limits. Sure, the majority of sightings are mistaken mundane phenomena, but if even one simply defies explanation, then you've got a real mystery on your hands (and there are far more than one)...

One also has to consider this into the Drake Equation.... we're learning more each day about possible E.T. life (albeit likely not intelligent) right here in our own solar system, from possible water on the Moon and Mars, to moons such as Europa or Ganymede...

The Universe could be literally "teeming" with life...for all we know.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by Gazrok]

As I said teeming with life doesn't mean teeming with intelligent life. Take earth as example...5 to 6 billion years and we have one life form that might be capable. Capable is both the mental and physical ability to accomplish the task. You could also add in social/psychological aspect too, in whether a race wants to do it even if they are capable. Just looking at the earth that has an abundance of life we humans are a rather rare event even with the perfict situation here that is needed for life to form, I would also say earth is a rather rare event too for it wouldn't take very much to make earth like mars.

As to the evidence, all of it and I mean all of it is missing that critical element of empirical data to conclude proof positive. Not one shred of evidence concludes that there are aliens, and so because of that all of it really leans towards we are alone much more than we are not alone.


[edit on 13-3-2009 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by Elepheagle
Jerry Lodriguss, a photographer and self-proclaimed amateur astronomer

To borrow a phrase we're all familiar with, "You know what really chaps my butt?" people using the phrase "self proclaimed". All amateur astronomers are self proclaimed. All members of religions are self proclaimed. As you can't prove I came from another planet, I'm going to go ahead and call myself a self proclaimed earthling.

How about this Jerry Lodriguss, a photographer and amateur astronomer.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box of unrelated things now.

As for the OP question, I think for most people in our community, if there are no aliens actually on earth or have ever been on earth it negates an awfully lot of conspiracy theories, and that is simply unacceptable.

[edit on 14-3-2009 by maxweljames]

reply to post by Xtrozero


You said, "As I said teeming with life doesn't mean teeming with intelligent life. Take earth as example...5 to 6 billion years and we have one life form that might be capable."

I'd like to address that issue for a moment. We don't know what the optimum time frame is for life to develop or for intelligence to advance. We only have one planet to reference as an example.

We live on an unstable world and we have undergone mass extinctions on many occassions. We do not know if the previous lifeforms would have developed intelligence, because they got wiped out.

Who knows, if the conditions are right a planet might develop an intelligent species in a few billion years. The Universe is old enough that there could be races that have histories measured in billions of years.

We are a race that does not know its own history. We are only able to trace our written histories back a few thousand years. Even though our race is hundreds of thousands of years old at least and may be several million years old. We do not even know if we have passed this way before. I would say that we are still lost in the woods.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we encountered a race of beings who could shed light on our own history? Wouldn't it be amazing if they could tell us where we took a wrong turn, got lost in the woods, and how many times we passed the same milestones? I think that is entirely within the realm of possibilities.

The question is deeper than one might think . There may be races that have existed in various forms , or stages of evolution , since time actualy existed. Perhaps born from the chaos of the first moments of existance, and only truely existing at the subatomic level. For all we know the universe itself may be a life form, and we and the galaxies that we speculate about, mere ticks upon its back. OPEN YOUR MINDS, WONDER IS AT HAND !

That could have done without the caps however you are essentially correct.

To understand 'life' even as a fundamental factor we must first be capable of answering the questions which underly our own reality/existance.

If we cannot answer even the most basic questions relating to our own reality we are in no logical position to make announcements of actuality or whatever it is as a whole.

Ask the question 'what is time' and you are answered with 'I dont know' yet in the same breath people will say 'it takes too long' as if that makes any sense.

Never mind learn from mistakes, humans cannot even learn from their own perspective.

reply to post by Absence of Self


Im sorry about the caps , but every time I come up against arguments about the probability of aliens having visited our earth, someone always says something like "the laws of physics deny its possibility" or "the mathematical probability of an advanced race must be into the trillions to one" it makes me mad, because its arrogance to deny something you cannot examine.
If we were flying around out there in deep deep space for a few millenia , and came across nothing , well maybe thats different. But even then we would know but a mote of the knowledges to be aquired. Any debunking and skepticism is basicaly a lack of foresight on the part of the involved party , and is lunatic in its origins. We are talking about people who would be gibbering vegetables if they ever found out that thier fragile psychological equilibrium with the universe had been shattered/never existed. That kind of weakness makes me want to chew razor blades.

Well, I wouldn't chew razors since that would actually hurt and pain is a direct consequence of personal experience defined by my individual perspective.

But.. Bingo.

Yeah.

Caps are forgotten and personal experience is both the point and meaning.

Technically we'd call it egocentrism, a term normally applied to pre-(socially)-developed children. (But never to our o' so enlightened educated selves)

I will never fail to be entertained by people making blanket proclamations about what can and cannot be when they cannot answer the most basic questions about what they themselves are.

Why should I pay attention to some muppet saying that nothing can travel faster than light when they can neither define time, distance, space or even light?

Originally posted by lunarminer

I'd like to address that issue for a moment. We don't know what the optimum time frame is for life to develop or for intelligence to advance. We only have one planet to reference as an example.

Well we do know that evolution from simple lifeforms to advance life forms is a very slow process. i.e. billions of years. We do know that the slightest change to earth can wipe all life here rather quickly. change the temp of earth 10 degrees either direction and we are toast, along with all other more advance life here.

Who knows, if the conditions are right a planet might develop an intelligent species in a few billion years. The Universe is old enough that there could be races that have histories measured in billions of years.

I'm not saying it is not possible, I’m saying for this to happen it is so rare that we would be spread out to the point that interaction would most likely never happen. Now if you wanted to say there was one race that is billions of years ahead of us and they spend 10s or 100s of millions of years seeding the universe I would say then that we would have many aliens around us. If we let evolution do it all we have very little chance to ever meeting another race.

We are a race that does not know its own history. We are only able to trace our written histories back a few thousand years. Even though our race is hundreds of thousands of years old at least and may be several million years old. We do not even know if we have passed this way before. I would say that we are still lost in the woods.

If there were other intelligent races before us on earth then there is a good chance that intelligence is a bad trait and it kills itself out. Hell sharks have been here for what 400 million years, and they are not very smart...

Wouldn't it be interesting if we encountered a race of beings who could shed light on our own history? Wouldn't it be amazing if they could tell us where we took a wrong turn, got lost in the woods, and how many times we passed the same milestones? I think that is entirely within the realm of possibilities.

Yes it would be amazing and I would love to see that happen, but fantasy and reality are two different things, and much of our beliefs border on fantasy.

[edit on 14-3-2009 by Xtrozero]