Science and Society

I agree that SETI has not yet produced results but I am a believer and I think it is just a matter of time before a cellphone or videocam photo of a UFO will surface that will make us all believers. I am not a crackpot, but someone who believes that lifeforms exist that we have not yet imagined.

UFO's are just a fantasy. There is no way that ET's can travel here from such vast expanses of space. Also, the odds of life on any one planet are so remote, and the absence of prospective planets capable of sustaining advanced life in our known area, makes the distance needed to travel even further. It's fun to think about, but, please, we'll never make contact with any other life forms.

I used to think an alien visitation would be cool until I reminded myself of Alien Nation. That's all we need - to get saddled with UFOs full of refugees. Or maybe it'll be like V and a bunch of lizard people will come over and eat our parakeets. Not cool.

I believe interstellar travel is already happening, and humans should eventually go to other worlds. Except for that horrible Planet of the Apes. Wait minute...Statue of Libery...that was OUR planet!!! You maniacs!!! You blew it up!!! Damn you!!! Damn you all to hell!!!

I doubt we'll every really encounter a UFO visitation, but I think it very likely that one day we'll detect something in the way of a radio signal. Important to remember though that the Universe is absolutely positively huge, and that time is also beyond expansive. Therefore, detecting an advanced civilization really does mean looking at both the right place AND the right time. If someone was trying to detect us from as little as a mere 200 light years away, they'd have to wait about a hundred more years before they even heard a peep - and a peep it would be.

My only question, as stupid as it seems to me, is related to our methods of communication: Could there be another form of communication/frequency bandwidth in another medium that we havent considered or even discovered yet? Could our sources of collecting the data not be adequate enough to pick the type of signals we are looking for or signals we arent familar with and are overlooking. - IRS, I suppose we cant do mach2 until we figure out how to fly.

Keep looking....keep listening...sooner or later someone or "something" will respond. I'm a firm believer that there must be life on other planets out there somewhere. The universe is an immense place. It would be foolish for anyone to think that we are the only species in this vast universe.

Ummmm... If life is out there, and it prolly is, why do you think they have developed radios and flying saucers?

Stop and look at our pathology of technological development. We had unfair help along the way by disobedient emissaries of our Judeo-Christian Deity. Plato (& Solon) hint that we were never cavemen but started out technologically advanced. The most that may be out there is animals, shrubs, and germs. Maybe a few humanoids but nothing like us as we are special to the above Deity.

BTW - There have been two unconfirmed SETI hits in last 2 decades. One was the WOW signal. The 2nd was more recent. Both seem to emerge from Sagittarius region or Ophinicus Constellation (IMHO that is).

We should be checking closer to home like Saturn and Jupiter... Hmmmm... but maybe they are...

For any debunkers who don't believe in alien-human hybrids, one question: Carrot Top?

I believe their are planets around most of the stars. The reason they have been so hard to find is that they do not generate light on their own, and therefore must be caught reflecting light.

At great distances this would hide them in the light and coronal emissions of the stars they are orbiting. Or simply occlude them based on size and realative dimness of emitted light.

I do not think our solar system is particularly unique. Although life may have evolved quite differently elsewhere and the dominant species on these hypothetical planets may not resemble humans.

What's a Carrot Top?

Now I know, real name, Scott Thompson. His dad, Randy Weigand was a scientist at NASA during Gemini and Apollo era, Scott was raised at Cocoa Beach,Florida, then became a standup comedian. Interesting, a comedian with a scientist dad. I wonder what his dad thinks about alien species somewhere in the galaxies. He'd probably say, "look at my son!"

THE LARGEST SITING TO DATE WAS ON MARCH 13TH, 1997, WHERE THOUSANDS SEEN A MILE WIDE TRIANGULAR CRAFT SILENTLY FLOATING ACROSS THE ENTIRE STATE OF ARIZONA, PARTS OF NEVADA AND NEW MEXICO. THIS WAS JUST ONE OF MANY EVENINGS THIS UFO WAS SEEN IN THE AREA. IT HAD FIVE LIGHTS WHICH WERE REPORTED TO BE ABOUT 150 FEET IN DIAMETER. THE CRAFT FLEW DIRECTLY OVER MANY HOMES. THE GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA, AND DEPUTY MAYOR OF PHEONIX PERSONALLY SEEN THE LARGE OBJECT AND HAVE BEEN RIDICULED WHEN ASKING THE MILITARY TO RELEASE INFORMATION ABOUT THE INCIDENT NAMED THE "PHEONIX LIGHTS".

SEE THIS FILM FOR MORE INFO ON THIS INCIDENT AND MANY MORE CREDIBLE ONES. WE DON'T NEED TO LOOK VERY FAR IF WE'RE LOOKING FOR INTELLIGENT ALIEN LIFE. YOU MIGHT WANT TO JUST LOOK UP MORE OFTEN.

THE MILKY WAY GALAXY HAS BILLIONS OF STARS. THE MILKY WAY IS JUST ONE OF BILLIONS OF GALAXIES. SOME ASTRONOMERS CLAIM THAT JUST IN OUR GALAXY THAT MORE THAN 10,000 PLANETS EXIST THAT HAVE INTELLIGENT LIFE CAPABLE OF COMMUNICATING WITH EARTH. THE PROBABILITY THAT INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE VISITING EARTH IS ABSOLUTE ACCORDING TO MANY ASTRONOMERS.

I have no doubt that intelligent life exists out there-- but until physics can explain how it could ever be likely that we or anyone could travel even close to the speed of light (or faster, as you'd probably have to be able to), survive such travel, and yet still sustain life for the tremendous amount of time it would still take to find and then travel to a planet where intelligent life existed, I have to believe with those people who argue that we never have and never will experience life outside our solar system. Mind you, I'd be excited to learn how interstellar travel could occur, and I hope to learn about it if it is scientifically possible-- but up until now, I've rarely (maybe never) met anyone who claims to have seen or otherwise believes in these UFO incidents who didn't strike me as completely unreliable.

It is very encouraging to see SETI broaden its RF search capabilities. Another method by which the SETI search might be facilitated is to search for coded messages in very brief optical, IR, or UV light laser pulses which could potentially be used by ETI civilizations to send messages with greatly reduced time averaged broadcasting power. A series of laser light pulses wherein the pulses could be on the order of one picosecond to one nanosecond might be good to search for. It might only take a few hundred such short pulses in series for ETI to broadcast meaningful messages to Earth. perhaps ETI use such pulses for communication or transceiving via downlinks and uplinks.

Ridiculing these efforts are deplorable. Have patience,and one day we wil meet the the other living beings from other galaxies.

Note that we as humans have the fundamental physics already well established that could if dilegently applied, allow us to travel about the Milky Way Galaxy within a generation and a half of normal human family lifetime with respect to the ships reference frame. Such technologies include: beamed energy propulsion concepts such as for photon momentum transfer to thin membranous electromagnetic energy sails, beamed energy powered photon, electron, or ion rockets powered by photovoltiac, thermoelectric, or steam driven turboelectric power systems; matter antimatter annihilation rockets; new improved interstellar ramjet concepts; and many bounce photon thruster systems (See Bae Systems Website). In fact, an interstellar ramjet accellerating at a constant 1 G, not even the 100s or 1000s of G's UFOs are alledgedly capable of in UFO cultural lore, could circumnavigate the known observable universe in about 56 years ship time while one must admit 76 billions years would have passed by on Earth and the ship would have traveled essentially 76 billion lightyears.

The technology needed to develope and build these systems is well grounded as in special relativity, nuclear and particle physics, microelectronic and nanoelectronic numerical control systems for collsion avoidance and flight control, radar, lidar, laser and particle beams, and good old fashioned classical electrodynamics whose basic theoretical foundation was largely in place by the late 1800's.

If we as the human race had not squandered our intellects and monetary resources developing huge nuclear arsenals and associated delivery systems and survielance systems that still possibly threaten to end our species and perhaps most of the rest on our planet, we might now be going where no man has gone before and be setting foot on extraterrestrial extrasolar worlds. If we can in principle do such, it is everybit reasonable that other civilizations have visited Earth in the past and might still be stopping by to fill up their space craft with fuel, possibly densely stored hydrogen taken from water bodies such as lakes to power nuclear fusion powered propulsion systems and the like.

By the way, I am a fan of the concept that the mythical civilization of Atlantis sometimes referred to as a very advanced society in rare ancient Greek writtings may have been an extraterrestrial outpost. My thinking is that if it was, perhaps the ETs being new to the planet did not accurately study the potential threat of geological instability in the land mass they occupied and as a result, their colony was destroyed by an unforseen geological upheavel. I don't know this to be the case, but I am very open minded to this as a possibility.

I too support SETI, by using several home computers to run the SETI@home software. I even have a team (PSCFG) of a few people running it together. The universe is simply too large for us to believe we are the only life form to exist and develop a technological society. If you agree, check out the SETI web site and put your computer to good use, when you are not using it yourself. It can be set to check for a signal only when you have stopped using it for XX minutes.

It is being narrow minded to think that intelligent life forms from other parts of the universe haven't figured out how to travel millions of lightyears within a few seconds, it is possible that other beings have figured out how to bend time and space and travel vast distances in a few seconds without even traveling at light speeds. Just the fact that there is life on this planet proves that there is life all over this vast universe, after all why create something so vast and put life on only one tiny planet in the universe it seems an awful waste of space to me.

The species list is expected to show 1.75 million species on this planet. Only one has the ability to communicate far beyond all others. To think we are the only habitable planet in the universe is beyond reason. I don't know how many species are out there, but there are 1.75 million proven ways for intelligence to experience physical existance on this planet alone.

badleeroy:"the odds of life on any one planet are so remote," Actually it is mathmatically impossible for there NOT to be life out there. Just in our galaxy we have BILLIONS of stars and probably 75% or more have some planets orbiting them. Given that we all came from the same star dust then it is extremely likely that that same mixture of "dust" and conditions to promote it are not only out there but in abundance.That's just our galaxy....there are millions if not billions of galaxies. The distance means nothing......our simple race has moved from animal driven vehicles to space flight in less than 100 years with new technologies emerging daily and new theories coming to light. There is so much out there to learn and so much we have no concept of as of yet.We have come so far in just the last 100 years.....what of a civilization that is out there that is 1000 years more advanced than us.......we would be as odd looking as Amish in NYC.

My home computers are busy 24/7 analyzing data for SETI@home...It may take years...It may happen tomorrow...I believe the search for extraterrestrial intelligence will someday result in the affirmative answer to the question "Is there anyone out there"...That answer will result in enough questions and dreams to last a thousand lifetimes...

Do you think any intelligent life-form that may exist out there in UniverseLand would want anything to do with a culture that has sent "I Love Lucy" hurtling around the galaxy? Come on, folks, let's clean up our act and maybe then we might drum up some interest.

Maybe we are thinking too small. We won't get there with present day technology. It will basically be the technology the aliens who are visiting us now are using. Think big, Einstein is not the final answer. Several scientists have been working on how to reduce the mass of an object to zero. No mass, no inertia, no limit on speed or distance. I believe that is what the aliens do. Think about it.

Hmmmmm.... it is hard to find intelligent life here on earth, let alone in the vast universe!

I can find no reason why a alien species would want to visit our planet except to know what Not to do. As for us traveling to other places outside our solar system we would need to achieve speeds faster than we could imagine which would put our ship in peril even hitting a grain of sand. Therefore a different mode of transportation would be required that is only written in SciFi stories.

James M. Essig's comment is quite interesting. However, propulsion of a vessel does not address the problem of crafting a self-sustaining environment for the humans on-board the vessel. A pair of attempts to create such an environment in the desert show how far we have to go in this area.

The fact that people are even arguing whether interstellar travel could potentially be possible, is grounds alone for any intelligent species other than our own to keep their distance. If you can't even accept that there 'might' be things beyond yourselves and comprehension, your candidacy for having any involvement in such things is null and void. Let alone accomplishing such things. Besides, even if the most simplistic of problems facing society can't be solved (let alone poverty, war, etc..), how can one even begin to suspect that they have a passing chance of interacting with a more sophisticated intelligence and society. The true absurdity is not interstellar travel or extraterrestrial existence. The true absurdity is the presumptions of those who might deign what is and what isn't, without actually knowing what is and what isn't.

If God wanted us to find et, He would have created et.

. . . Contact shall be achieved within our lifetimes . . . watCh & see!!!

Well i started seti before a few days (i am 18 years old,i live in greece) and i think that we cant be the only inteligent life form in all these million planets out there that we havent seen or we dont know.
"The is always hope" (king Elesar, The Lord of the Rings the Return of The king)and i will believe it to the end...

Even before I saw the film, "Contact," I believed in the idea that if we were the only intelligent beings in the entire universe, it would be a heckuva waste of space. However, it is also possible that we are the first (somebody has to be "first") species to attempt communication with alien civilizations.

But, I also admit to being a bit conspiratorial about SETI. Even though I've heard Seth Shostak deny the possibility, I'm convinced that any REAL evidence of intelligent life elsewhere would be (A) classified as quickly as it was discovered, and (B) that a cover story debunking the find would be disseminated with equal speed.

In short, I doubt if the human population will ever hear of a SETI "success" ... even if it does come about. Proof of an alien intelligence would have to be so dramatic that it could not be debunked or ignored - like an alien spacecraft landing in front of hundreds or thousands of witnesses ... and an alien actually coming out of it and saying "Hello there" (in their own language, of course).

Still, this does not prevent me from participating in the SETI@home project (grin). But I am skeptical over the possibility of any REAL success being made public.

Remember in text books when the general rule was that no one could exceed 60 MPH and then later the sound barrier? The same thing applies today with light speed. What is the difference between 286,000 miles per sec and say 287,000 miles per sec and so on ? I say it's just another number.

I'm also crunching for Seti@home, and of course I believe that intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is possible. But intelligent life which has developed technology is likely to be extremely rare.
Therefore, any signal from an intelligent civilization is unlikely, but that doesn't mean it is impossible.
The universe is so huge it would really be like hitting the jackpot on the lottery.
However, if we don't try, I don't think we stand any chance at all.

Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but the lack of any sign of recognizable intelligence is beginning to worry me. Intelligence in organic life forms may not only be rare, but also short lived. Machine intelligence, once established, is likely to evolve more quickly than organic intelligence and may already be dominant in much of the universe. Consider how quickly digital viruses appeared and evolved (of coarse driven by human intelligence)following the introduction of digital computing. An advanced machine intelligence could make use of similar but highly advanced algorithms transmitted by light to co-opt and exploit the resources of noisy newcomers.

Its amazing that we judge all other possable civalizations by our own very limited scientific intelligence!! 100 or 500 light years to us might be nothing to anyone else who may exist somewhere out there!
Look how long it took us to invent electricity!!