Thread: Extra-terrestrials?

Are there Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), of course; if it is flying and unidentified, then it is by definition a UFO. Are UFOs visiting space ships, highly unlikely. Think about it. Anyone with the technology to build an interstellar craft would either:

1) Remain totally undetectable
2) Land and say "Take me to your leader."

This "maybe I'm here, but I'm not going to say" so stuff is way too childish for even normal human adults, never mind a more advanced race. Give me a break.

Originally Posted by xman

The human mind is prone to delusion and hallucinations which always take the form of the culturally relevant mythology. The highly pious will 'see' the virgin Mary hovering in the sky, Hindus will 'see' Krishna, since the 1950's people in the west have 'seen' flying saucers. Using Ockham's Razor, the simplest answer is likely true, rather than supernatural sightings changing by time and place to suit the viewer, it is far more likely that such sightings are the results of delusion. I had such a delusion myself as a boy. I 'saw' a flying saucer outside my bedroom window. From what I now understand of the natural world, I accept this event as delusion or an hallucination.

As for the likelihood of alien life;

The Hubble telescope Deep Field image taken over the course of eleven days in 2004 reveals 10,000 galaxies in a small and formerly completely unremarkable patch of sky. How small? You'll need almost 13 million such images to cover the entire sky! Taken as an average, our galaxy is estimated to have between 500 billion and a trillion stars, which would indicate that there are something in the neighbourhood of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000, 10 sextillion, or 10 billion billion stars in the known universe!

The universe is expanding, but not only that, it is accelerating. At only 14 billion years old, but 75 million light years wide, the light from the centre galaxies will likely never be able to reach those on the outer rim.

Compounding this unfathomable size is the fact that all of the matter and energy in the known universe, all of the elements on the periodic table and all of the energy which is detectable to us, comprises only 5% of the mass and energy of the universe, the rest being dark matter and dark energy, so named because we yet know nothing about them.

With literally astronomical figures like these it is a virtual certainty that there is life and even intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. In fact there may be more worlds with civilisations than grains of sand on a beach, but in all likelihood, as others have said, "You can't get there from here".

X

I actually worked on the optical coatings for the enclosure for that camera! (I actually did!)

I wouldn't be surprised if half of the "spiral galaxies" they have "discovered" are actually ghost images of the thumbprints I left on the housing!

I was cleared above Top Secret in the Military. I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you....

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I actually worked on the optical coatings for the enclosure for that camera! (I actually did!)

I wouldn't be surprised if half of the "spiral galaxies" they have "discovered" are actually ghost images of the thumbprints I left on the housing!

Surely you used Windex after you were done

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Surely you used Windex after you were done

I do remember having a bottle of acetone there, but can niether confirm nor deny any allegations that I may have actually used it on the part...

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I actually worked on the optical coatings for the enclosure for that camera! (I actually did!)

I remember the mission in '93 to fix the optics. I stayed up all night for a week just to watch them float around out there.

X

Originally Posted by xman

I remember the mission in '93 to fix the optics. I stayed up all night for a week just to watch them float around out there.

X

Are you sure they were "out there"? I heard that they did it all in a studio on a Hollywood back lot.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Are you sure they were "out there"? I heard that they did it all in a studio on a Hollywood back lot.

James.

Strewth!

Of course there are aliens... many many of them. And I know it first hand! Indeed, I own a travel agency especially for them; I haven't found any good explanation yet, but they have a really strange taste to all want to go to the US....

Originally Posted by JohnP

...Nothing I've seen in theory (or even, for that matter, Biblically, if one wishes to bring the religious aspect in) discounts the possibility of it occuring.
Just add in an infinite number of planets...don't think it's possible yet? add in a few million more galaxies, the odds keep getting better...

Can the existence of any extraterrestrial life in the physical universe even be given a probability if it is assumed that life only exists because God chose to put it there apart from circumstantial or natural influences?

As Terry Pratchett once said, "God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."