Are we alone ??

[oldenough]

Aren't wormholes an un-proven theory ?

Not if your a piece of wood .................

Buckmeister, you are for sure beyond help[]

[Groomlakearea51]

True OE. I'm still wondering if anyone else knows what the hitler broadcast is all about? Colin? You still there? (he never is every time i ask)

First relatively high powered TV transmission; previous transmissions were mostly experimental, very low powered and basically the signals would probably fade away to insignificance as they spread out through space.

Some of the most powerful signals produced from about 1940 through the early 50's were massively powerful radar transmitters used by both sides in WWII for long range aircraft detection and later by the Soviets (and NATO). They did not have the reception technology as today, and thus compensated by unbelievably powerful signals.

Maybe the way to travel is going to be the "stargate" theory (a time space distortion that creates a "wormhole" that connects two points in space, but in the same "relative" time). Problem with "wormholes" (Einstein/ Poblesky/ Rosen) is that the theory still predicts an infinite gravitational field at the point of entry (very bad for body parts), and the other side of the "hole's" location cannot be predicted.

There have been some ideas about "teleportation', or instantaneous transfer of data, and objects; but all have fatal flaws that relagate them, at least for now, to "science fiction". Most relate to the laws of conservation of energy (in a constant gravitational field).

I kinda' vote for someone figuring out how to create a stasis field around an object (as in a "ship"). Once they figure that out, internal control of, and thus movement of that "field", which as an object would have no mass, would be an inertia-less drive. Then we just may get outa' here.

Oh well,... I believe that in the next 10-20 years (or sooner) we may have some answers, and they may be good, maybe not. I'm an optimist, so I'll vote for good.

[JJkizak]

Talking about the speed of light, the PBS program the other day showed movies of light being slowed down to 32 mph in a Boise-Einstein Concentrate, the laser light being 2 miles long actually compressed to about 1/2" as it traveled through the concentrate (almost absolute zero) then took back off again as it exited. One of the learned lessons was that none of the light muxed data is lost when this happens. They might have to add something to the equation of physical laws and constants that exist in our Milky Way galaxy.

JJK

[Islander]

Physical evidence suggest that every 28 thousand years north america gets covered with ice sheets miles thick. During these senerios ocean levels drop to a point that the contenental shelf actually becomes the coast line. Off the coast of asia is a pyrimid with sone steps, but the problem is the pyrimind is 30 meters below the surface of the ocean. There are aritfacts that exist around the equator that are massive and old, and it is not clear who built them. There are large shperes that are alleged to be positioned in alignment with all the planets and moons in this solar system to scale. And there is the buisness of the runs ways of south america which can only be viewed from the air. Mechanical hearts and clocks have been found in layers 10's of thousands of years old. Skulls have been found around the world with holes cut as a result of surgery and the holes have healed. Every civilization has myths of a great flood with limited surviors (melting of the ice caps). And then there's the buisness of atlantis.

fritz, you may want to read Ages in Chaos and Worlds in Collision, both by Immanuel Velikovsky, in which he attempts to explain why large numbers of bodies of tropical animals have been found frozen in the Arctic, among other things. His work is controversial but interesting.

One explanation of why Atlantis has never been found is the theory that it is Antarctica and that it was located in the south Atlantic until there was a slippage of the Earth's crust that sent it to its present location, where the buildup of ice obscured any evidence of human habitation. Check out the Piri Reis map.

There is evidence that humans (or pre-humans, at least) lived on the island of Britain as long as 400,000 years ago, while the earliest evidence of human occupation in Ireland goes back to only 8000BCE, because the last ice age scoured any remains from the island when the glaciers advanced over Ireland. Who knows what civilizations existed before the last Ice Age?

[oldenough]

Oh well,... I believe that in the next 10-20 years (or sooner) we may have some answers, and they may be good, maybe not. I'm an optimist, so I'll vote for good

I vote for good also.. There is a theory out there (can't re-call who's) that postulates that no civilization can exist past a certain length of time or a certain point of advancement due to self annihilation. My thought is that any extra terrestrial civilization that succeeds in mastering Galactic travel would have to be the exception to the rule, and manage to pass through that phase. Good usually has the ability to overcome evil. Hence i think, and certainly would hope that any visitor would be on a peaceful mission. The spoiler would only be our intentions toward our visitors, as futile as they would probably be

[Oblio]

These 3 million remarkable individuals who think they have been abducted are actually remebering their birth.

Too bad they had an anal probe at birth, or maybe that's just their own fantasy....lol. Human psychology is downright hilarious once you get past the absurdity.

It does fit though. IIRC it is common to probe a newborn to rule out a malformed colon. If a probe cannot be inserted, surgical intervention is required.

[Guest " "]

"There is evidence that humans (or pre-humans, at least) lived on the island of Britain as long as 400,000 years ago, while the earliest evidence of human occupation in Ireland goes back to only 8000BCE, because the last ice age scoured any remains from the island when the glaciers advanced over Ireland. Who knows what civilizations existed before the last Ice Age?""

Sure, pre or post ...all over the place....every continet...weird stuff....within the band around the equator that would not get covered by ice.

Atlantis....30 - 90 meters below the surface...it will reappear...at the peak of the next ice age when most of the water covering it would have receeded due to the ice build up.

[Ray Garrison]

I find the whole question of whether there might be life someplace else in the universe to be so silly that I find it hard to understand some of the points of view I hear.

There are on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and each contains on the order of 100 billion stars. That's ten to the twenty second stars. Do you have any idea how remote the probability of life occuring would have to be in order for there to be no life out there? Even if there's only one chance in a million that life might form in some star system, that would leave, uh, ten quadrillion places where life started. Some of them, surely, would be at least as smart as we are.

Now, whether they've happened to stroll past our little out of the way corner of the Sagitarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy any time that we've been around to notice is another question entirely. Probably not, we're not that interesting.

[oldenough]

I find the whole question of whether there might be life someplace else in the universe to be so silly that I find it hard to understand some of the points of view I hear.

Ray i don't believe that anyone is questioning whether or not life is out there. Although the title of the thread would suggest that, sorry i should have given the title a little more thought. Silly me.

[oldenough]

Oh now i realize that your change of title has altered the argument a little.

[Guest " "]

Either way question being if we are alone or if their is life out there...issue is that conclusion discussion is based on UFO's and other observed or recorded events. None of which provides proof of extraterestrial presence so long as it may be possible to have visitors from our future amoung us, which could also take the form of craft which could appear as UFO's.

[Colin]

Ray, thanks, that is exactly what Drake's Law calculates - the odds must be that we are not alone. The odds are also that no aliens are headed our way.

[oldenough]

With the latest round of UFO sightings i got to thinking about whether there is intelligent life somewhere outside our Universe, and if there is, and it has made what must be a monumental effort to get here , then why do they not let thereselves be known to us. Now i realize there are a lot of opinions regarding UFO sightings and any debate on that would be futile, but to repeat myself the question is...what would be stopping them from making contact with us ?

In fact the question was; What would stop them from making contact with us ?. I most certainly believe that life is out there somewhere. But does that mean that we are not alone?

[mas]

Regarding communication and why anyone would want to come
here…

Assuming someone is located 500 light years away, they would
just now be receiving a reflection ‘back from earth dated 500 years ago and
which they transmitted 1000 years ago. If we transmitted (and they left
immediately , first having made sure that everyone had gone to the bathroom before
leaving and thus eliminating the need to stop along the way), then we can only imagine
what the court of Ferdinand or the Chinese were sending (or how, or any number
of things for that matter!), and I am sure whatever
we had to say was profound. Let’s see, if it was from Europe they would have
been enjoying the heyday of the Inquisition and the message would have been along the lines
(ironically, not much different than any other time in Earth’s history) that “if
you disagree with us we will kill you…”. And how could anyone resist a visit to such an advanced enlightened garden spot…
Welcome to Earth!

The alternative of time travel…Well, that’s easy, we already
know as most have seen 12 Monkeys, so we already know everything we need to
know. On the other hand, Time Bandits may be closer to the logical solution,
given man’s propensity(sic) for rational and responsible thought.

But rather than time travel , strangely enough, more logical
explanations lie in either dimensional transversal or worm hole travel
theories. (And the notion of using the word “logical” in ANY of these
discussions is anything BUT!)

And in that vein, what amazes me most beyond any of the proposed theories is that there have not
yet resulted any proposed audio mods that many are running to implement on their system
based upon perceived (hey, but I sense
it, it must be true!) notions as a result of the aliens, be they from the neighborhood or not.
After all, the resultant detailed speculation about something we don’t even
know exists, let alone what its characteristics are, is so fundamentally “audiophile” as to relegate the entire topic to
an elite group of audiophiles rather than to physicists or the military or to
any other groups who may have a greater vested interest.

[*-)][|-)][*-)]

And has no one else found it utterly amazing that NO ONE in Stephenville caught ANYTHING on a cell phone video? Or have the men in the black helicopters not already seized all of them and erased any memory of them, but somehow forgetten to remove the memories of the actual event?

[stan krajewski]

Right now, all we can really say is that we are alone. No proof otherwise. NONE!!!

I have the COSMOS series on DVD and Carl Sagan went through a calculation of how many civilizations there might be in our universe. The end result went from zero to a very large number depending on the values plugged into the equation. Carl Sagan was man enough to state that we may indeed be the first civilization. It's highly unlikely but a possibility.

All of the arguments presented here are valid. But unfortunately for some who constantly need closure there is no answer at the moment.

Hats off to the scientists who work diligently day in and day out and through their efforts the secrets of the universe are being revealed to us bit by bit. They have moved us from an earth centered universe to what we know today. And we most assuredly have an infinetly long road of learning ahead of us. Just think, in 1492 almost everybody on earth believed the world was flat.

And if there is no other life in this universe, there may be life in countless other universes.

Great thread. I love this stuff. Keeps me going. So much to noodle, so little time. So few answers.

[Ray Garrison]

"So much to noodle, so little time. So few answers..."

"So little time" is relative. Think of the changes you've seen in your life, how different even the most mundane tasks and chores we deal with every day from those of your parent's parents. Most of the life on this planet does not have the advantage of living 50, 75 or even 100 years (if lucky) to see events come and go, assumptions rise and fall, truths and postulates presented and retracted. The world as we know it today would be unrecognizeable to someone from even a hundred years ago. Scientific American has a page that reprints copy from 50, 100 and 150 years ago. A few months ago there was a reprint from a late 19th century issue in which an offhand comment was made regarding the moon. The gist of it was that truly knowing what the moon was composed of, what the surface was like, actually touching it was something that would remain forever beyond the experience of man. And that perception was presented as a simple, uncontestable and immutable fact, a simple statement of the nature of reality and an acceptance of its laws. There was absolutely no room for consideration that someday, perhaps, a man might actually visit there.

I think of this whenever I read an argument talking about the distances between the stars and how this forever precludes the possibility of life of one form traveling to and interacting with life in some other form.

Perhaps a touch too much Merlot tonight.

Then again, my first post was on 9/8/1999. The world we live in today is so different than that world that I believe, sometimes, that I am not that person. Music provides one continuity - my family another. What will I be typing in some thread in this forum in 2018?

[oldenough]

And has no one else found it utterly amazing that NO ONE in Stephenville caught ANYTHING on a cell phone video?

Yes i found that rather suprising, especially given that every time a cop makes a bad move someone is there for that fleeting moment to capture it.

[Guest " "]

"What will I be typing in some thread in this forum in 2018? "

According to the INCA calendar, you won't be typing anything on this forum in 2018.

[pauln]

Drakes's is just part of it (the huge number of locations). The other half is the huge amount of time to figure things out. The first galaxies and stars with planets like our own with the conditions for supporting the earliest aliens would have developed about 10 Billion years ago. This is an unbeleivable headstart - basically, absolutely anything and everything that is technically possible would have been discovered and available to them long ago. This includes travel and communications, and unimaginable stuff.

Which just makes the question more profound -Where are they?

[Islander]

basically, absolutely anything and everything that is technically possible would have been discovered and available to them long ago.

Space, or even just our galaxy, is a really big place, with many planets. Trying to find the grain of sand on the beach that has a flea on it might be easier than finding the planet with all the Klipschsters on it.

As for assuming that any advanced civilization would have all the inventions we have, there's no guarantee on that one. They could have interstellar travel, but not have the radio, or the wheel, or even fire. After all, if our atmosphere had much less oxygen, fires would be hard to light and wouldn't happen naturally. If it had lots more oxygen, they'd be really hard to put out, causing everything to be quite different here. Those are just basic examples.