Why isn't there any "direct" proof of alien life in the universe?

Originally posted by Area51NightStandx
Mabey an advanced civilization has already met another planet of life forms, and now its just not worth the time or effort to meet anymore. Mabey they are content living thier lives and not bothering the lives of other species.

Ok with that in mind, think of this analogy...

On our planet we have progressed, created countries, waged wars, developed technology, traded with one and another and created alliances. Now, in the modern world you have countries and their governments working together, creating the UN and other organisations.

Why?

At our current state of technological and social/cultural development, have we stopped making an effort with eachother? (too a point yes) But do we not "bother" other countries etc?

The same goes for more advanced beings I should imagine, there would be a galactic communty which may or may not operate along the same kind of lines.

Originally posted by TheMur
We could be the geneticlly engineerd expieriment or weapon for all we know. Aliens have been here for a long time visiting us and maybe even living here for extended amounts of time. The major reason i think that our govenments have not exposed them is becuase of the mass religious histeria and panic. Imagine being a very religious perosn and one day finding out god does not exsist in the way you believed and practiced, or finding out you were an expieriment that was developed in a intergalactic test tube. Chaos could ensue and war could be a result of it. To many questions could be raised once they are exposed and some questions could be avoided to avoid such a event. This in turn could grant mistrust in our universal neighbors. This is really a very complicated situation, and if the world goverments have been hiding this for years how would the citizens take it? In the end I think the Aliens will reveal themselfs to us at the right time. I think we are getting close to disclosure bit by bit we are getting info to prepare us. We can already see the rise of UFO sightings latley they want us to see them now more than ever. Why? who knows, maybe 2012 is really going to happen and we as a civilization has failed to meet there expectations as a intergalacitc species. We would rather bicker,fight and greed over such pathetic things rather than progress as one and only as one can we use our knowlege and resources to ascend to the next step. We could have been on a clock and now time has ran out and where are we...

I am not religous but I would think that the existence of other life out there would only be a greater glory for God. He the great creator has not stopped his creations...

reply to post by karen61057


I dont have another species to compare to, but whats going on in this planet is pretty interesting. Even if they had no interest in our tech, culture or resources... we are pretty damn entertaining to sit back and watch.

There is plenty of proof. DIRECT PROOF!
You just have to be willing to search for it.
And, when you find it???
You have to be willing to LOOK at it.
And when you SEE it?
You HAVE to be willing to let go of all of your deeply held firmly rooted beliefs and
embrace an entirely new and foriegn world view of which little is known.

A pretty tall order to fill for most.

reply to post by Resentedhalo08


Thats certainly interesting to think about, and it does make sense. Here's another thing to think about. Every planet in the entire universe is doomed to be destroyed. Weither it is thier star burning our, a comet hitting it and wipping out all life, ect, ect.
Advanced civilizations HAVE to travel to other planets, (possibily already inhabited by others) to ensure thier race survives.

reply to post by Resentedhalo08



I read a paper a couple weeks ago, can't recall the title or author, but the idea was that any sufficiently advanced civilization would, as soon as it was technologically capable of doing so, attempt to disguise its presence from other - possibly hostile - space-faring civilizations. I believe it was Steven Hawking who said not too long ago that it might not be the wisest idea to be broadcasting our presence to the universe at large, as we have no idea who may be out there, or whether we would remain safe once they knew we were here.

I'll try to find that paper and post a link. It was a very interesting read, and maybe someone has posted it already.

Say there are bad aliens as our government/controlling our government, the question comes up "well if they are so advanced, why can't they just take what they need by force and leave?"

Well I guess there are many answers to this.

-They may not be to the technological stage of complete planetary takeover.

- It would be easier and less...violent/destructive if they covertly enslaved us and stole our resources/whatever they're here for instead of using weapons or whatever.

- We could be test subjects and they could be watching us and "shaping" us sort of. Not just physically.

I dunno. Just some thoughts

And Orko, that is pretty interesting to think about. Broadcasting your planet out to unknown areas where there could be hostile species that could easily just destroy us... Kind of scary honestly. It's like throwing your address and house key into a crowd full of good people/bad people. I guess.

reply to post by karen61057


Good point but many contradictions could be revealed in the text of Religous books. I can only hope that people can take it in the way you have mentioned, god it would make it go over much smoother.

Originally posted by Orkojoker
reply to post by Resentedhalo08

 

I read a paper a couple weeks ago, can't recall the title or author, but the idea was that any sufficiently advanced civilization would, as soon as it was technologically capable of doing so, attempt to disguise its presence from other - possibly hostile - space-faring civilizations. I believe it was Steven Hawking who said not too long ago that it might not be the wisest idea to be broadcasting our presence to the universe at large, as we have no idea who may be out there, or whether we would remain safe once they knew we were here.

I'll try to find that paper and post a link. It was a very interesting read, and maybe someone has posted it already.

Haven't found the paper yet, but while searching I did find a free online pdf book called If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens...Where is Everybody?. Haven't read it, but the table of contents is intriguing. Have a look.

EDIT: Here it is! I highly recommend reading it. It's called Brane Worlds, the Subanthropic Principle and the Undetectability Conjecture

reply to post by Orkojoker

Cool 2nd link
My bookmark tag is gem.
Thanks

reply to post by Gradius Maximus


Best reply I've heard in a long time in relation to this topic, cheers mate.

reply to post by Resentedhalo08


Because there is someone to "redirect" it:

ufocon.blogspot.com...

Could it be true, ask yourself

I believe we are going about the search all wrong. An example- In order for SETI to pick up a radio transmission they must be lucky enough to catch said Alien race or civilization at the exact point in their development where they use radio waves to communicate. Let's say they have been around for 20 million years, who's to say they even use radio signals to communicate? Maybe they use some form of lasers or another, as of yet undiscovered by us, method of communication.

Also we focus too much on life AS WE KNOW IT, instead of focusing on the possibility that they may not be Carbon based like ourselves. Life is very resilient and I believe there may be ammonia or methane based lifeforms out there. With the sheer size of the Universe, who is to say?

To me SETI is a collossal waste of time, if one day we are able to travel the reaches of space we are more likely to find either a advanced civilization or a dead one than one that is exactly on par with ours technologically. My opinion is that there are probably a handful of type 3 civilizations out there, the time it takes to develop into such is mind boggling and would require alot of luck. However with new research suggesting that there could be habitable planets orbiting white dwarfs our search area is ever-increasing. The more science opens its eyes to the fact that life may not develop along our stringent guidelines the more likely we are to find some form of life out there. And it is my belief that they are out there and possibly quite close by. We just arent advanced enough to notice them yet.

I think the above poster has a good bead on it. I think it's easy to explain why the proof of extra-terrestrial life is so hard to find. The reason is right here on Earth. Within the last couple of years a photograph purporting to be of the last tribe/culture of humans to have no contact with the outside world surfaced in NATGEO or some other publication. This tribe/village had no clue about any of the advanced civilisations outside of Borneo or Brazil or wherever they were until the helicopter buzzed them to take the pictures.

If you look at it as WE are the tribe and UFOs or Aliens are the NATGEO anthropologists it's easy to see why we have no proof. If a civilisation on Earth can go without contact or interference from modern societies that are no farther than a couple thousand miles away it's easy to see why we haven't had "official" contact with advanced societies that are billions of miles away. UFOs may just be the anthropologists in their helicopters studying us because we are a similar stage of development that their ancestors were at some point.

--Apex

reply to post by Apex Predator


Very nicely put

That's a star for you!

Originally posted by Resentedhalo08

Originally posted by Area51NightStandx
Mabey an advanced civilization has already met another planet of life forms, and now its just not worth the time or effort to meet anymore. Mabey they are content living thier lives and not bothering the lives of other species.

Ok with that in mind, think of this analogy...

On our planet we have progressed, created countries, waged wars, developed technology, traded with one and another and created alliances. Now, in the modern world you have countries and their governments working together, creating the UN and other organisations.

Why?

At our current state of technological and social/cultural development, have we stopped making an effort with eachother? (too a point yes) But do we not "bother" other countries etc?

The same goes for more advanced beings I should imagine, there would be a galactic communty which may or may not operate along the same kind of lines.

To me its either three things - the top powers of the world chose to withhold the information, or the mysterious things that have happened were of a nature that was interdimensional and not physical, or the vast amount of stories to do with all UFO abductions did not happen and all cattle were mutilated by humans in UFOS.

reply to post by Apex Predator


Couldnt agree more. It would actually be quite easy for a civilization thousands of years older than us to go un-noticed. The means by which they communicate and travel would be completely foreign concepts to us. We are searching, just with the wrong equipment and mindset.

reply to post by greyer


The whole inter-dimensional aspect needs to be studied further in my opinion, seems like it could be a real possibility and may hold the answers to many of our deep space travel questions.

Well the ancients always told stories of beings coming from the sky and visiting them and they depicted them the same way we do now which is proof for me at least that there is something out there or maybe for some,something to just look into.

The Roswell incident COULD of been an alien craft but who were on the scene,closed the area off and took what was there?.......the military,therefore we will never know if there is any evidence.

For all we know there could be hangars full of direct proof of alien existence but no one goes searching for the truth and instead we go round in circles asking the same questions.

reply to post by Resentedhalo08


Think of the ant in a jungle.....that ant could easily go its whole life without knowing that humans exist. Humans know about the ant....but that ant most likely will never see a human, unless some random human goes into the jungle and happens to see the ant. Thats kind of what I think about aliens