WHAT EVER.... just another famous-was looking for more time for his 15 minutes of real-world fame... :/
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
People are always wondering, If there are aliens, are they more advanced than we are? Well, we'd give 'em a fight, anyway!
But wouldn't a species who could build a long-range multi-generational (or crygo-storage or AI) vessel and have the economic wherewithal to send it to another star system pretty much have the tech to wipe us out like a mouse infestation?
Oh, and maybe the moon-walker dude is just senile.
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
Hahaha, what a guy. Is it really that hard for people to accept that no intelligent life has visited us? What a senile old man. And of course he would be believe it and be dead serious if he had Alzheimer's...
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
The Miami Herald ran an article just today on how proof of alien life would impact various faiths. Seems Al Gore (back when he was veep) had a serious sit-down with various religous and scientific folks back when that meteorite seemed to contain bacterial life from Mars.
That whole Abraham relationship could be threatened if Earth were not oh-so-special to God, or if another civilization's concept of God is a giant cockroach or something.
In can soooo see that fatwa over such a disresepect to Allah... Alllah the merciful, Allah the powerful, Allah that scuuries away when the light is turned on.
My personal bet is on First Contact to come from some Von Neuman type probe- it'll likely be something the senders consider "basic" that will be waaay over our heads for decades, and of course, there will be skeptics, conspiracy nuts and alien-worshipers.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
If you look at this guy's background, you can see he has a bit of a history for this kind of thing. Off the top of my head I think he's the one who claimed a remote healer cured him of cancer, though if memory serves there was never any biopsy to support this. So personally I take this with about a grain of salt. Now if something like this came from Armstrong or Lovell, I'd be very much more inclined to entertain it. Still, he's not actually saying he's seen anything directly (not even the fabled UFO sightings of the Apollo program.) So I do wonder.
On the other hand, while I'm very much a sceptic when it comes to this sort of thing, I don't think it's beyond the bounds of possibility that intelligent life has been visiting us. Certainly in my mind, just from a mathematical standpoint it's neigh on impossible that we're the only ones in the universe that sussed out the whole "bang the rocks together" bit.
On the UFO side of things, I know from speaking to a few ex-RAF types that there's been along running thing among high altitude pilots (especially commercial pilot) where allot of UFO sightings go unreported for fear that they'll loose their jobs (not through fear of the fabled MIBs.) Actually I happened to catch something on Richard and Judy (a mostly sensible daytime program here in the UK) that touched on this very thing...quick google later and here's the video. Now I'm not sure what concerns me more; that something as big as that could get so close and be of extra-terrestrial origin, or that something that big could in fact be terrestrial in nature.
As I said I'm a sceptic, but I have to wonder when the source of such things comes from seemingly credible sources. Don't get me wrong, there's no shortage of nutters who stand on top of bluffs at night, screaming "UFO!" every time they see an F-22 hit the afterburners. Those idiots you can safely ignore, but a commercial that comes out with a sighting is something I'd take a little more seriously.
As for the "little grey men" aspect, it's always bothered me that a race could evolve totally separate from us, yet share the same basic shape. I mean genetically speaking, we'd have more in common with jellyfish. Though it's not impossible for several form of life on different planets to adapt into roughly the same shape, the odds for two of them to exist at the same time and actually encounter one another must be enormous. Still I suppose I creative mind could invent many different explanations to account for that, from custom engineered avatars, shapeshifters to parallel dimensional travel and time travelers. Then of course there's the old chariots of the gods bit where we are genetically related after all. But that's all just fantasy.
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
There's a definite possibility that there is intelligent life in the universe. Just none that have visited us methinks. I think it'd be cool if we were the MOST intelligent life in the universe, in lamest terms of course.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
That's assuming of course we technically qualify as "intelligent". I can see something like a Vorlon silently giggling to itself at the very idea of hairless monkeys thinking they're smart just because they can make fire. Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
If you were an intelligent alien from an advanced civilization would you WANT to visit here?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Even if we were visited by intelligent alien life forms, they might not share anything in common with us- definitely not a biped phenotype (as those 'lil Greys do) and their thought processes would likely be as diffrent from us as ours are from a jellyfish.
Of course, a probe type of contact may reveal nothing about the senders- just sorta a long range survey of the local galactic area with minimal information given by the senders for their safety's sake. Only humans could be so stupid as to send off a map to our planet in a primitive spacecraft showcasing our lack of defensive capibility.
Also consider that even a huge spaceship (somethng like a kilometer long for example) could be sitting anywhere in our solar system and we'd never know about it unless we got a chance occultation of the ship in front of an observed star or planet or something. Anyththing out past the asteroid belt would be for all purposes invisible to us.
Even if we were looking for a suspected ship, it would be akin to finding an ant in the Saraha- from orbit.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Only humans could be so stupid as to send off a map to our planet in a primitive spacecraft showcasing our lack of defensive capibility.
Yeah, why did they do that? That was too much information to share with possibly hostile beings. We should send up other probes that say "uh ignore that stuff we sent up the first time."
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:Only humans could be so stupid as to send off a map to our planet in a primitive spacecraft showcasing our lack of defensive capibility.
Oh? You seem to making a powerful assumption based on absolutely nothing about what a completely alien lifeform might do Also, jellyfish don't have thought processes. They have no nerves or brain.
Also, if we were looking for a ship that large, how would we tell it from an asteroid, even if we saw it? And if we're not looking for it...well. Plus, as I like to point out, as we're now developing nanotech and metamaterials, who the hell knows what aliens might use. There could be an invisible, or phase-shifted, or non-corporeal alien sitting (heh, or the equivalent) right next to me as I type this. Or my bloodstream might be full of nanites that form a computer network, either a simple probe or an actual consciousness. Do I believe those things are true? No. But they could be - there's no concrete reason why not.
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
Or we're in the Matrix. That's be cool too.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Also consider all the intilligent aliens that might have zero chance of attaining spaceflight- creatures living in an abyssimal ocean under Europa's icy surface for example....or they just lack thumbs.
The jellyfish comparison is not so far off when thinking of species that have adapted to high pressure environs or the weightless void of space. It's possible that their senses might not even percieve most attempts we couuld make at communication.
As to nanotech, the mainstream media is under wildly false assumptions about how that would be- ill-concieved things from STargate, Voyager and elsewhere make nanotech out to be microscopic metal robots with moving parts etc., but they'd more likely be tailored protien strands and programmed introns- stuff that your body would not kill itself rejecting.
As for why aliens would visit, the only plausable motive I can get my mind around is a sort of philosiphy of experience- that is, a desire to experience as many strange and uique things as possible in one's life. After all, any species advanced enough to either have FTL or greatly augmented lifespans probably does not need to leave home.
As to the Matrix comment, Fort Lauderdale is chock full of bueatiful women in red dresses ans I own a black cat, so I guess it's possible. Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Is intelligence the same as sentience?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Jason: Well, yes, but also moving parts - go read about utility fog, or respirocytes.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
Of coarse Aliens have visited Earth. Why else would we have The MINI VAN!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women:
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Only humans could be so stupid as to send off a map to our planet in a primitive spacecraft showcasing our lack of defensive capibility.
Yeah, why did they do that? That was too much information to share with possibly hostile beings. We should send up other probes that say "uh ignore that stuff we sent up the first time."
You forget, we FIXED that problem by booting Pluto out of the planet club so when the ID4 Aliens come to our solar system they'll see that there are only EIGHT planets and move along. Disinformation is a wonderful tactic.
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