The Great UFO Debate

[SirUlli]

July 14, 2005
by Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute

The good news is that polls continue to show that between one and two-thirds of the public thinks that extraterrestrial life exists. The weird news is that a similar fraction think that some of it is visiting Earth.

Several recent television shows have soberly addressed the possibility that alien craft are violating our air space, occasionally touching down long enough to allow their crews to conduct bizarre (and, in most states, illegal) experiments on hapless citizens. While these shows tantalize viewers by suggesting that they are finally going to get to the bottom of the so-called ?UFO debate?, they never do. That bottom seems perennially out of reach.

So what are the contentious issues here? First off, despite heated discussion by all concerned, let?s admit that interstellar travel doesn?t violate physics. It?s possible. After all, the Pioneer and Voyager probes are nearly three decades into an inadvertent interstellar journey right now. The kicker, of course, is that these craft will take 70,000 years to cover the distance to even the nearest stars (and they?re not aimed that way). With the physics we know, it?s extremely difficult to substantially, and safely, shorten that travel time. Sure, it might be theoretically possible to create worm holes or some other exotic facility for high-speed cosmic cruising; but that approach is entirely speculative.

And it?s not really the point. The problem I have with the claim that strange craft are prowling our planet is not with the transportation mode, but with the evidence. I?ll worry about how they got here once I?m convinced that they?ve really made the scene.
...

Full Story

http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=1163827

Sir Ulli

 

[networkman]

Those of you who know me well know I'm a little whacked to begin with.. though I prefer the description of "He has the entire six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy to keep it all together." :Q 😛

Anyway, not only do I think that ETs exist(else why would I be doing Seti@Home in the first place?), but I'm also one of those folks that do think our planet has been visited. And yeah, the government probably does know more than they're telling.. although that thought by itself is a bit scary too. 😕

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: networkman
Those of you who know me well know I'm a little whacked to begin with.. though I prefer the description of "He has the entire six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy to keep it all together." :Q 😛

Anyway, not only do I think that ETs exist(else why would I be doing Seti@Home in the first place?), but I'm also one of those folks that do think our planet has been visited. And yeah, the government probably does know more than they're telling.. although that thought by itself is a bit scary too. 😕

I am with you

Does that make me Weird?

 

[Smoke]

I'm with Seth. 😛 😀

 

[Soggysocks]

 

[Soggysocks]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider

Originally posted by: networkman
Those of you who know me well know I'm a little whacked to begin with.. though I prefer the description of "He has the entire six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy to keep it all together." :Q 😛

Anyway, not only do I think that ETs exist(else why would I be doing Seti@Home in the first place?), but I'm also one of those folks that do think our planet has been visited. And yeah, the government probably does know more than they're telling.. although that thought by itself is a bit scary too. 😕

I am with you

Does that make me Weird?

As far as I'm concerned "NO" 😎

 

[MoFunk]

I got in a discussion with some people about the possibility of life on other planets. These folks had the stance that they did not believe that to be possible. We were outside and it was dark so I told them all to look up. I said do you see all those stars? Most of them are suns just like ours. They have planets circleing them just like us. Do you not think it to be a bit arrogant to think that we are THE ONLY planet with life on it?

 

[Fardringle]

I'm sure I have a few of the words wrong, but this quote from Carl Sagan's "Contact" pretty much sums it up for me:

"There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space."

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: SirUlli

The problem I have with the claim that strange craft are prowling our planet is not with the transportation mode, but with the evidence.

I?ll worry about how they got here once I?m convinced that they?ve really made the scene.

It is frustrating that they only choose to show themselves to select people that do not have a chance of convincing others of what they saw.

It's really a sick game they are playing, we're being toyed with.

I'm not surprised though since they are obviously so much more advanced than we are.

We are probably to them like what ants are to us, something like that.

Anyway if you ever are fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how you look at it) to have ever seen a ship, you will have no doubt they exist.

 

[SirUlli]

btw

cant find with Googel Earth

http://earth.google.com

or with

Nasa worldwind

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Area51

they are not there

Greetings from Germany NRW
Sir Ulli

 

[amdxborg]

Thanx SirUlli! 😀

I'm with all the believers out there! :beer:😉

 

[Spacehead]

I find it hard to believe that there isn't some sort of life other than ourselves in the universe, be it intelligent or not.
If we found bacteria or something similar outside of our planet i think that would be a monumental dicovery... possibly the most important scientific discovery ever.
Which leads to...

I also think that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe, but i don't think the Earth has been visited by them.


But i could be wrong.

 

[networkman]

Hmm.. I wonder what radio-frequency the alien bacterias are using? I wanna make sure all these Seti@Home WUs are in the right range. 😛

 

[ProviaFan]

I'm with Spacehead on this. 🙂

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider

Originally posted by: networkman
Those of you who know me well know I'm a little whacked to begin with.. though I prefer the description of "He has the entire six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy to keep it all together." :Q 😛

Anyway, not only do I think that ETs exist(else why would I be doing Seti@Home in the first place?), but I'm also one of those folks that do think our planet has been visited. And yeah, the government probably does know more than they're telling.. although that thought by itself is a bit scary too. 😕

I am with you

Does that make me Weird?

Yep 😉 lol


I believe there is life out there (hence running SETI) but I am not yet convinced they have visited us.There's no proof.
There is proof of an unrecognised phenomena going on,lots of visual sightings & radar 'blips' of flying objects ,but that is not yet proof of alien visits.
No doubt we will find out one way or the other some day ,time will tell!😛

NWM
lol ,what if bacteria are using the optical bands? 😉

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: Spacehead
I find it hard to believe that there isn't some sort of life other than ourselves in the universe, be it intelligent or not.
If we found bacteria or something similar outside of our planet i think that would be a monumental dicovery... possibly the most important scientific discovery ever.
Which leads to...

I also think that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe, but i don't think the Earth has been visited by them.


But i could be wrong.

I guess I'd probably fall in right about here also.

If we are being visited, I appreciate their consideration in hiding so well that we could have this debate in the first place. With the treatment I see to and from our terrestial neighbors... I don't even want to imagine my embarrassment at the treatment ET would probably receive from us.

-Sid

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: Assimilator1

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider

Originally posted by: networkman
Those of you who know me well know I'm a little whacked to begin with.. though I prefer the description of "He has the entire six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy to keep it all together." :Q 😛

Anyway, not only do I think that ETs exist(else why would I be doing Seti@Home in the first place?), but I'm also one of those folks that do think our planet has been visited. And yeah, the government probably does know more than they're telling.. although that thought by itself is a bit scary too. 😕

I am with you

Does that make me Weird?

Yep 😉 lol


I believe there is life out there (hence running SETI) but I am not yet convinced they have visited us.There's no proof.
There is proof of an unrecognised phenomena going on,lots of visual sightings & radar 'blips' of flying objects ,but that is not yet proof of alien visits.
No doubt we will find out one way or the other some day ,time will tell!😛

NWM
lol ,what if bacteria are using the optical bands? 😉

LOL thats like saying I have seen the mesquitos, but I've never been bitten.

We may never know the answer 😛 but too many "unexplained" events makes it hard for me to doubt.

:beer:

Mike

 

[petrusbroder]

Well, I do not know (Hmm, nobody does...).
I am convinved (reasons see posts above) that there is life in the universe.
But have we been visited? I doubt it very much that we have been visited by life forms as we know of or as we imagine that they are. Why? Well lets say this: there are som many people listening, looking and watching: and there is no consistent and reproducible evidence of sightings and - especially of communication. We should have heard at least something if some of those stories really were visits from an extraterrestial intelligence.

The problem is: we are looking for evidence of live as we have defined life on Terra.

I think rather something else: we may have been visited indeed. But the visitors are so alien and so different that they do not recognise us as selfconscious and, hmmm, hmm, - intelligent - beings. And we as well may have seen them - parhaps several times - but did not recognise them as being extraterrestial visitors. Why? Because our imagination is somewhat limited and we can not communicate with them.

Where does this leave us? We have to develop our imagination, our communications skills, our physical sciences, etc., and strive on to see what there is to be seen; we have to wastly expand our ability to recognise life.

 

[Jeff7]

I too figure that something else out there must be alive. I mean come on, look at Hubble's Ultra Deep Field. If you look at the moon, imagine a tenth of that width that we see, and take a picture of that area. 10,000 galaxies in that tiny space. Now extrapolate that over the entire sky. Galaxies everywhere, each with millions upon millions of stars. Thats a lot of chances for life to form.

You'd need to be advanced to do interstellar travel, either to find a means of superluminal transport, or else to build a sleeper/generational ship. With that technology level, it would probably be possible to build sensors that could see individual people from a position near Pluto's orbit. No need to go interact with an ant colony when you can learn by watching. You might get bitten if you try the former.
Second part of that - they have to find us, not someone else.