The Aliens. Are we gonna talk about it?

[SMOGZINN]

Well they apparently flew all the way here to go spelunking in some redneck’s butt hole so maybe they aren’t as fancy as we think.

There is a favorite short story of mine called The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove that has as it's premise that FTL travel is actually trivial and invented in the steam age for most civilizations, but that for whatever reason mankind just never thought of it, until some wooden spaceships land and try to invade a near future Earth using black power muskets. It is a silly idea, but fun story nonetheless.

 

[Zor Prime]

When I was young, back in the 80s, one night soon after I had gone to bed my mother was outside and saw something hovering over the nearby opposing hillside overtop the trees. She ran inside the house and yelled for my father and I to get outside to see what was going on.

I got out of bed and went outside with her to see what she was going on about.

It was this saucer looking shape, thing, in the sky, and damned colorful. On the outer edge of this thing it looked like carnival lights that twinkled in and out of varying intensity. The main body looked illuminated as well, it was a fiery orange color.

It seemed to drift one way a little bit, then would pause and chill a bit, then head back the other direction and chilled for a bit. It did this for several minutes.

My mom had a bright idea, she would go back into the house and get the telescope to get a really good view of it. And she did, and left my ass outside alone with this thing. Dad never got out of bed, wouldn't wake up.

She left my terror-sticken self outside alone with this thing. I had never been so scared in my life, and I have yet to ever be remotely scared of anything as much as I was of this thing.

I spent a period of time growing up in the 'hood, dudes running around shooting guns trying to kill one another right next to me. Don't give a fuck, whatever. That's fine. No big deal, it's all good.

This thing, however, I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move. I wanted to move. I tried to move. I couldn't fuckin' move. I'm not even sure I was able to bat an eyelash.

She finally comes back outside, every second she was gone felt like a minute.

She quickly sets the telescope down and starts trying to aim at it and get a good look. She complains that every time she almost has it in view that it moves. The, "thing," starts being a whole lot more active now. It's not chilling anymore, and moving around a lot more. So yeah I can understand the complaint when you're actively being defeated.

After a couple minutes of this cat and mouse stuff with the telescope this thing finally rotates on its axis. So originally the side profile looked like a saucer shape, but it either rotated to its top or bottom side from our point of view. As if I wasn't scared enough as it were, this damn thing looked like a gigantic fiery orange eyeball now with twinkly lights. I think part of my soul died, because I could feel something looking right at me. Whatever this thing was.

Previously the only saving grace I had going for me was that I thought I was unnoticed. Now there's a huge fiery orange eyeball pointed right at us. Note it didn't look like an actual eyeball, it's just the rings of colors and stuff that were somewhat reminiscent of one. I can't describe it any better.

Eventually it got tired of us and it did some shit I'd ever only seen in Star Trek to that point. It started heading further up the hill on the opposing hillside from us, and in an arc from left to right to completely out of view it shot out of there as if it had hit warp speed in a streak of light. No noise. Dead silent. No noise at all. This was the countryside, you could hear a dog bark very well if one were to bark at that distance.

So I'm not saying it was aliens. But I am saying it gave me some severe PTSD for the next 4-5 years. Spending 4-5 years completely horrified of going to sleep sucks, pretty damn bad. That thing saw us, and I imagined it knew where we lived and if it wanted to find us it wouldn't be nothin' but a thing for whatever it was. The only way I was finally able to shake being afraid as fuck to go to bed is that we finally moved to the city and I rationalized that it wouldn't dare show itself in the city for so many people to see.

 

[esquared]

When I was young, back in the 80s, one night soon after I had gone to bed my mother was outside and saw something hovering over the nearby opposing hillside overtop the trees. She ran inside the house and yelled for my father and I to get outside to see what was going on.

I got out of bed and went outside with her to see what she was going on about.

It was this saucer looking shape, thing, in the sky, and damned colorful. On the outer edge of this thing it looked like carnival lights that twinkled in and out of varying intensity. The main body looked illuminated as well, it was a fiery orange color.

It seemed to drift one way a little bit, then would pause and chill a bit, then head back the other direction and chilled for a bit. It did this for several minutes.

My mom had a bright idea, she would go back into the house and get the telescope to get a really good view of it. And she did, and left my ass outside alone with this thing. Dad never got out of bed, wouldn't wake up.

She left my terror-sticken self outside alone with this thing. I had never been so scared in my life, and I have yet to ever be remotely scared of anything as much as I was of this thing.

I spent a period of time growing up in the 'hood, dudes running around shooting guns trying to kill one another right next to me. Don't give a fuck, whatever. That's fine. No big deal, it's all good.

This thing, however, I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move. I wanted to move. I tried to move. I couldn't fuckin' move. I'm not even sure I was able to bat an eyelash.

She finally comes back outside, every second she was gone felt like a minute.

She quickly sets the telescope down and starts trying to aim at it and get a good look. She complains that every time she almost has it in view that it moves. The, "thing," starts being a whole lot more active now. It's not chilling anymore, and moving around a lot more. So yeah I can understand the complaint when you're actively being defeated.

After a couple minutes of this cat and mouse stuff with the telescope this thing finally rotates on its axis. So originally the side profile looked like a saucer shape, but it either rotated to its top or bottom side from our point of view. As if I wasn't scared enough as it were, this damn thing looked like a gigantic fiery orange eyeball now with twinkly lights. I think part of my soul died, because I could feel something looking right at me. Whatever this thing was.

Previously the only saving grace I had going for me was that I thought I was unnoticed. Now there's a huge fiery orange eyeball pointed right at us. Note it didn't look like an actual eyeball, it's just the rings of colors and stuff that were somewhat reminiscent of one. I can't describe it any better.

Eventually it got tired of us and it did some shit I'd ever only seen in Star Trek to that point. It started heading further up the hill on the opposing hillside from us, and in an arc from left to right to completely out of view it shot out of there as if it had hit warp speed in a streak of light. No noise. Dead silent. No noise at all. This was the countryside, you could hear a dog bark very well if one were to bark at that distance.

So I'm not saying it was aliens. But I am saying it gave me some severe PTSD for the next 4-5 years. Spending 4-5 years completely horrified of going to sleep sucks, pretty damn bad. That thing saw us, and I imagined it knew where we lived and if it wanted to find us it wouldn't be nothin' but a thing for whatever it was. The only way I was finally able to shake being afraid as fuck to go to bed is that we finally moved to the city and I rationalized that it wouldn't dare show itself in the city for so many people to see.

Not quite Nuclear Ned level, but pretty good.
Would read again.👍

 

[VRAMdemon]

If I'm an alien, I would have to obtain knowledge of intelligent life on a planet within the galaxy before travelling to Earth. This could be achieved by detecting radio signals. The first radio transmission by Marconi occurred in what, 1897, 126 years ago. That signal would have now travelled 126 light years and its strength would become weaker making it difficult to detect. If the Milky Way galaxy is thought to be 100,000 light years in diameter and contain 100 to 400 billion stars. Marconi's transmission has travelled about 0.10% of this distance.

IMO, The probability of other intelligent life in the universe is most likely low but I do believe in the possibility. The probability of other life "forms" in the universe is most likely high. (Maybe even under one of these icy moons around Saturn) The probability of them (intelligent life) getting here from another solar system is lower given the constraints of physics. The probability of them looking like us or being able to communicate with us is most likely low. I'm open to the (extremely unlikely possibility) that this shit is real, but it will take real credible evidence to convince me. I'll give you 10:1 odds that credible evidence will not be presented.

Plus, if this was real Trump would have set up a rally in Rosewell already and blabbed it all out by now. I'm assuming any smart authorized federal military official would have kept someone like him out of the loop.

 

[hal2kilo]

On the flipside space is extremely empty with enormous distances to travel to any earthlike planet so I find the idea of intelligent visitors ever coming to earth similarly ludicrous when you consider the time and energy requirements.

That's always been my standby, but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that us mere mortal humans are just scratching the surface about what we understand about physics, and what the possibilities are for faster than light travel. After all, some of these beings may have a billion years or so amount of evolution on us. The mind boggles.

 

[fskimospy]

If I'm an alien, I would have to obtain knowledge of intelligent life on a planet within the galaxy before travelling to Earth. This could be achieved by detecting radio signals. The first radio transmission by Marconi occurred in what, 1897, 126 years ago. That signal would have now travelled 126 light years and its strength would become weaker making it difficult to detect. If the Milky Way galaxy is thought to be 100,000 light years in diameter and contain 100 to 400 billion stars. Marconi's transmission has travelled about 0.10% of this distance.

IMO, The probability of other intelligent life in the universe is most likely low but I do believe in the possibility. The probability of other life "forms" in the universe is most likely high. (Maybe even under one of these icy moons around Saturn) The probability of them (intelligent life) getting here from another solar system is lower given the constraints of physics. The probability of them looking like us or being able to communicate with us is most likely low. I'm open to the (extremely unlikely possibility) that this shit is real, but it will take real credible evidence to convince me. I'll give you 10:1 odds that credible evidence will not be presented.

Plus, if this was real Trump would have set up a rally in Rosewell already and blabbed it all out by now. I'm assuming any smart authorized federal military official would have kept someone like him out of the loop.

I think the probability of other intelligent life in the universe is a near certainty due to the sheer scale of the universe, which is basically beyond our comprehension. Other intelligent life we can come into contact with? That’s considerably less likely.

 

[amenx]

I believe the universe is teeming with life, but dont necessarily believe intelligent beings would find much purpose or interest in visiting Earth. They might view life in the universe as commonplace and have other priorities to attend to.

Plus, for all we know, they might not find it practical to send ships across vast distances when they may have other means of studying or knowing what may exist on distant planets.

 

[Artorias]

I think the probability of other intelligent life in the universe is a near certainty due to the sheer scale of the universe, which is basically beyond our comprehension. Other intelligent life we can come into contact with? That’s considerably less likely.

If you believe that humanity and all creatures on earth were "seeded", then the likelihood of Aliens being in contact in recent time would be more likely.

Anyways I smell bullshit, its just another psyops campaign.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Alright here's something out of the left field of my brain...

I would guess the key to traversing the cosmos is AI superintelligence. If such AI was created somewhere in the galaxy by advanced intelligent life and escaped containment, it could create self-replicating subservient AI spacecraft and cover the entire galaxy in a few hundred million years, if the craft could achieve some substantial fraction of light speed.

Imagine each craft can land on other planets and make say, 1000 more. At the beginning, you have one. After one iteration, 1000. then 100,000..1 million... 1 billion. ..1 trillion. etc. If each iteration takes (travel time plus construction), say, 10 million years, in 4 iterations -- 40 million years -- you have trillions spacecraft scattered throughout the galaxy. They can visit every detectable planet.

And their mission need not be to communicate with us. It might be to monitor us, perhaps specifically for the development of our own AI superintelligence.

What would happen next is unclear.

It might not be good.

 

[brycejones]

We already talk to Moonbeam here, isn't this already proof of aliens on this planet?

 

[fskimospy]

If you believe that humanity and all creatures on earth were "seeded", then the likelihood of Aliens being in contact in recent time would be more likely.

Anyways I smell bullshit, its just another psyops campaign.

I don’t - I think the most likely answer is random chance. The anthropic principle says the only reason we are here to know we are alive is because conditions to support life in the universe exist. Given the fact that the universe is basically incomprehensibly large there’s almost unlimited rolls of the ‘life dice’.

So intelligent life other than us? I think a near certainty. Intelligent life other than us that has the means to reach us? Unlikely.

 

[Jaskalas]

And after perusing the thousands of images that the Hubble and James Webb Space Scopes have produced I wouldn't be surprised at all that in the near future they and its successors will break the myth of us lowly humans being the ONLY intelligent life forms in the vastness of the universe.

There is a theoretical project involving the gravitational lensing of the Sun. And us firing off spacecraft for one way voyages to fly past a certain distance where the lensing effect would allow us to see the SURFACE features of exo planets. Clouds, water, and land. Such observations should make detecting industrial activity a breeze. A breeze I say, but the project would be a colossal big data undertaking involving high precision data imagining across several dozen AU of space.

If we do not end our civilization in the next hundred years, we might very well obtain all the proof we need. From some of "their" home planets.

But the idea that there is some conspiracy cover up here at home is ridiculous. Conspiracy nutters at their best. I'd rather have them screaming about aliens than elections though.

 

[VRAMdemon]

I think the probability of other intelligent life in the universe is a near certainty due to the sheer scale of the universe, which is basically beyond our comprehension. Other intelligent life we can come into contact with? That’s considerably less likely.

I think intelligent life is a rare occurrence in the universe even though the vastness of it is, as you say IS beyond comprehension. IMO, it's mostly rare and is so spread out that is to be forever isolated. Our planet setup in our solar system is a rarity. In part because of a highly unlikely (lucky?) and rare favorable factors - magnetic field shielding us from harm, water in three phases, single moon in a stable orbit that causes gentle tides, bombardment limited by "keeper" planets that park asteroids in a belt. I would think this all lining up in other worlds is rare, but who knows.

Life on our earth (And now our Intelligent life) gets to a point and self-extinguishes; this might go in cycles in which one species is supplanted by another after millions of years. And then there is extinction events, that probably happen in other worlds set up like our earth. Or the "intelligent life" has extinguished themselves.

 

[fskimospy]

I can't see a plausible explanation for how any alien species even arrives here. Unfortunately we live in a universe where your top end speed is just under the speed of light so good luck with that. Also, if any advanced species exists anywhere in our galaxy, we would have picked up their radio waves by now. I'm with Fermi's Paradox on this one - intelligent life in the universe is likely quite scarce.

There are broadly plausible ideas as to how faster than light travel could happen (wormholes, etc.)

As far as radio waves from intelligent life in our galaxy I don’t think that’s true. A quick google says our Galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. Considering we’ve only been emitting meaningful radio waves for about 150 years that leaves the overwhelming majority of our Galaxy unreached by our radio waves.

In addition this is our one galaxy out of an estimated 200 billion galaxies. That’s so many rolls of the dice.

 

[fskimospy]

I think intelligent life is a rare occurrence in the universe even though the vastness of it is, as you say IS beyond comprehension. IMO, it's mostly rare and is so spread out that is to be forever isolated. Our planet setup in our solar system is a rarity. In part because of a highly unlikely (lucky?) and rare favorable factors - magnetic field shielding us from harm, water in three phases, single moon in a stable orbit that causes gentle tides, bombardment limited by "keeper" planets that park asteroids in a belt. I would think this all lining up in other worlds is rare, but who knows.

Life on our earth (And now our Intelligent life) gets to a point and self-extinguishes; this might go in cycles in which one species is supplanted by another after millions of years. And then there is extinction events, that probably happen in other worlds set up like our earth. Or the "intelligent life" has extinguished themselves.

I guess it depends on what you mean by rare. A quick google says the estimate is there are 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. (I’m sure this estimate varies wildly)

It seems that life is an unlikely event, yes. But by this estimate if the odds of life are one in a trillion then there are 200 billion incidences of life.

 

[Moonbeam]

- Yes, I am being a bit hyperbolic about it, we certainly haven't reached the end of knowledge. Problem with ETs is that they require way too many assumptions even beyond the realm of physics and into just straight logic for them to really make sense.

Obviously not all of us are so limited by their assumptions.

 

[Moonbeam]

Any intelligent life form would quickly realize that people see what they believe not believe what they see so all that would be required to be invisible among us would be appear as something familiar.

 

[dlerious]

As @woolfe9998 mentioned, the existence of ET spacecraft here basically means everything we know about physics is wrong, and everything we know about physics isn't wrong because I'm typing this comment into a fancy piece of sand that does super math thanks to the physics.

Like Newtonian physics? Good for most things, but not too good when it comes to say - Mercury's orbit around the sun .

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

There is a favorite short story of mine called The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove that has as it's premise that FTL travel is actually trivial and invented in the steam age for most civilizations, but that for whatever reason mankind just never thought of it, until some wooden spaceships land and try to invade a near future Earth using black power muskets. It is a silly idea, but fun story nonetheless.

One of my favorites as well, and not entirely implausible. Lots of tech humans have invented are probably pretty clever for our overall technological development, thanks to our curiosity and general hatred of each other. I'm sure other species are similar in many ways.

As a coin-flip moment, imagine the tech we've left on the table for moral reasons and imagine another species without such moral hangups. Can you imagine the viral tech we would have developed since uncovering genetics? Or what we could have created in the realm of chemical weapons, radioactive material dispersal, hell even fusion weapons? We collectively stopped at 100MT, how big would those fuckers gotten had we just continued developing? What would a gigaton explosion do to a spacefaring vessel attempting to enter orbit?

 

[dlerious]

Well, yeah, but these would be emissaries of an advanced civilization who have come all this way across the cosmos, so I'd at least expect a fluffer or two to help me "produce" for them. Plus, if they're going to record the whole process, I'd want residuals.

What if they're not oxygen breathing or a carbon based life form?

 

[Vic]

While it would surprise me if it turned out that the earth was the only place in the universe where life existed, at the same time I find the notion of advanced alien species regularly visiting earth to be little to no different than polytheism. It is literally the same as saying that the gods visit us from the sky. And should be IMO considered with the same skepticism.

One of the things that our children's generation is going to need to come to grips with is the scientific reality of space travel. We did not evolve to travel in space and it is deadly to us. Besides earth, every planet and moon in our solar system is deadly to us. The surface of our own moon (for example) is covered in statically charged microparticles that can rapidly corrode any humanmade material. That's why we haven't gone back. There are no safe harbors in space except the earth itself.
Space itself is filled with cosmic rays and ionizing radition which will kill us. The amount of energy required to propel a vehicle into and through space is mindbogglingly enormous and dangerous. The vastness of the distances that would need to be traveled cannot be overstated by any stretch of the imagination. And finally, faster than light travel is impossible because the speed of light is not the speed of light but the speed of causality, which cannot be broken. It is what separates each moment in time and keeps everything from happening all at once.
If my words seem extreme here, it is because I spent much of my youth reading and watching scifi and dreaming of space travel. And I hate to say it, but even what most scifi fans consider to 'hard scifi' is about as unrealistic as Star Wars or Star Trek.

Now maybe, just maybe, there is an intelligent organism out there that did evolve and develop to travel through space. And the likelihood of them visiting us and being able to communicate with us is effectively zero.

 

[woolfe9998]

There are broadly plausible ideas as to how faster than light travel could happen (wormholes, etc.)

As far as radio waves from intelligent life in our galaxy I don’t think that’s true. A quick google says our Galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. Considering we’ve only been emitting meaningful radio waves for about 150 years that leaves the overwhelming majority of our Galaxy unreached by our radio waves.

In addition this is our one galaxy out of an estimated 200 billion galaxies. That’s so many rolls of the dice.

We'd have to actually find a wormhole first, then travel to it, wherever it may be. So unless we're lucky and there's a wormhole in our solar system that we don't know about, like in "Interstellar," that's probably never going to happen. Also, ideas like bending space to travel faster without having to increase velocity are theoretically possible, but even if we can build such a device, I'm afraid the power requirements would make it impossible.

I'm aware that our own radio waves have barely travelled 100 light years by now. It's more the absence of incoming waves from other species. It suggests at a minimum that our galaxy is not like "Star Trek" where there's like 100 sentient, advanced species out there. If there were, we'd probably have picked up something by now.

So far as the rest of the universe, it may well be. Maybe there's one sentient technological race active per galaxy at any given time, on average. If so, we're never going to meet them. They're too far away.

 

[fskimospy]

We'd have to actually find a wormhole first, then travel to it, wherever it may be. So unless we're lucky and there's a wormhole in our solar system that we don't know about, like in "Interstellar," that's probably never going to happen. Also, ideas like bending space to travel farther without having to increase velocity are theoretically possible, but even if we can build such a device, I'm afraid the power requirements would make it impossible.

I'm aware that our own radio waves have barely travelled 100 light years by now. It's more the absence of incoming waves from other species. It suggests at a minimum that our galaxy is not like "Star Trek" where there's like 100 sentient, advanced species out there. If there were, we'd probably have picked up something by now.

So far as the rest of the universe, it may well be. Maybe there's one sentient technological race active per galaxy at any given time, on average. If so, we're never going to meet them. They're too far away.

I have nowhere near the expertise to talk about this, I just think considering our limited reach we should keep our minds open about the possibilities.

 

[Vic]

We'd have to actually find a wormhole first, then travel to it, wherever it may be. So unless we're lucky and there's a wormhole in our solar system that we don't know about, like in "Interstellar," that's probably never going to happen. Also, ideas like bending space to travel faster without having to increase velocity are theoretically possible, but even if we can build such a device, I'm afraid the power requirements would make it impossible.

I'm aware that our own radio waves have barely travelled 100 light years by now. It's more the absence of incoming waves from other species. It suggests at a minimum that our galaxy is not like "Star Trek" where there's like 100 sentient, advanced species out there. If there were, we'd probably have picked up something by now.

So far as the rest of the universe, it may well be. Maybe there's one sentient technological race active per galaxy at any given time, on average. If so, we're never going to meet them. They're too far away.

The problem with all forms of FTL travel, regardless of how theoretically possible, is that they require more energy than exists in total in the known universe.
Such as even though wormholes might exist, the energy that would be required to hold one open large enough and long enough to pass human bodies safely through simply does not exist much less is capable of being harnessed.
As to the regularity with which intelligent sentient beings exist in the universe I cannot speculate. But I am confident it is rare enough to make the likelihood of contact between them non-existent.

 

[Vic]

I have nowhere near the expertise to talk about this, I just think considering our limited reach we should keep our minds open about the possibilities.

Alright, let's suppose that the reason we haven't made contact is because we've only been emitting radio waves for 150 years and the nearest intelligent life is 76 light years away and so we'll receive their return signal in 2 years. Then what?
Assuming (highly unlikely IMO) we could somehow communicate better with them than we do with the other species on our own planet, that's quite the long distance relationship when we'd be separated by a whole human life's distance at the speed of light.