Do you believe that UFO?S are real?

[wisp]

Do you believe that we are being visited by Aliens from other Planets, do you think the Roswell incident really happened and the U.S Government is covering it up .Do you believe that people are abducted by Aliens for experimental purposes? Have you had a Close Encounter, seen a UFO or even been abducted, or do you think it?s all a load of nonsense.

When you look at the night sky do you question what may be out there, are we alone in this universe or do you just see specks of light.

I would be interesting to hear the forum?s opinions on this subject.

[Toi]

Who knows what out there. I mean, one has to think, all that space and its only us.

[ioiiooio]

Well aside from all the conspiracy stuff I dont think it would be deniable that there is surely some form or shape of life SOMEWHERE out there, I mean you'd have to be living under a rock not to question it even for a moment.... since class 1 I've learnt one simple, fundamental and undeniable fact:


http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb62/IOIIOOIO/universe.jpg


uuuuuuuh, 'nuff said...?!?!?!?!???!?!?!?

[ioiiooio]

Yikes! My bad! Didnt realise it was that big.... the picture I mean.... ;P

[Antharias]

Yes, I do believe we are not alone and the reason that we are still not in contact with them is because they have probably been watching us for aeons. They have seen the war and destruction that we have caused and hence why I think that they fear us. They are afraid that we will destroy ourselves more than we already are. We shall seek a greater force and seek to obtain power over all others.

We are alone because of our own shortcomings.

Never been taken by one btw :P

[Miktar]

Help! Planet Crazy! Send Nearest Gsv!

[Gldm]

My theory is that yes, there was a crash or at least some contact in the Roswell incident. Most likely the nuclear testing would attract interest from aliens if they were aware of it. However, would you expect them to just jump up and go "Hi, we're the green guys, but not from Mars. Please don't shoot us on sight!" or something? Doubt it. So I believe there is a subtle preparation program going on led by the US. Basically if you look at older scifi, aliens were the scary super-advanced menace from the stars (War of the Worlds etc). Gradually over the last few decades we've been seeing a transition in movies and such where we've got a better chance vs them, though not up to equal footing yet (think Independence Day). I suspect this is to desensitize people to the shock that will come when their existence is revealed.

As for the FTL issues, there's a cheat. It's pretty obvious. We can smell it from here. Einstein isn't infallible just as Newton wasn't.

[Chevron]

I believe we aren't alone. Although I doubt that any aliens have reached earth, yet.
When I look up at the night sky I wonder which of those of light have any planets and which of those have any life on them. Then I wonder which of those have any sentient life.

The universe is so massively massive that thousands of civilizations could have risen and fallen before we even had the wheel.

One day the S.E.T.I project will succeed.

[Chevron]

Help! Planet Crazy! Send Nearest Gsv!

huh?

[Miktar]

huh?

Reference: http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html

[wir]

I think they might be visiting us.
But these "sightings" might be false, if they have the technology to be able to come here, they surely wont crash or allow themselves to be seen so easily.

[cYn]

Here (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/aliens-space-weed.php)
Also relevant to "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

[Oeaks]

Why do people always assume that aliens would be more better than us? I'm sure they also would have things like corruption, war and poverty.

[Miktar]

Why do people always assume that aliens would be more better than us? I'm sure they also would have things like corruption, war and poverty.

Because man has a hard time lying to itself - there is a good chance if something crosses the great divide of space, that they've managed to either evolve past the petty differences that keep humanity Earth-locked, or they have an entirely different set of problems that would be incomprehensible to us.

I don't think all people assume that aliens are holier-than-man, but it's certainly easy to believe.

[ioiiooio]

Ja, I've read about stuff like this, there are also bad aliens, apparently.

[ioiiooio]

Yes, I do believe we are not alone and the reason that we are still not in contact with them is because they have probably been watching us for aeons. They have seen the war and destruction that we have caused and hence why I think that they fear us. They are afraid that we will destroy ourselves more than we already are. We shall seek a greater force and seek to obtain power over all others.



I'm with you on this one, humans just couldn't be trusted with the kind of technology they would have to share with us.

[Gldm]

I still contend that different species will have different advancement levels in areas. Just because someone has an FTL drive doesn't mean they have say, regenerative medicine. Or advanced digital processing, which is where I think our best bet may be. Our exponential rate of improvement in computing for 60 years may be highly uncommon or unique. Yes you'll need some form of calculation for any form of spaceflight but we managed the moon just fine in the 1960s. It stands to reason that a culture without a driving demand for faster information processing might level off before where we are now. Binary integers may not be obvious to everyone, especially a species which focuses on mathematics with non-discrete values. In which case they may have analog computation systems far beyond what we developed, but nothing like our digital systems, which are now so far advanced they're rapidly eliminating the need for any analog equivalent (i.e. all audio and video is going digital). If this is the case we'll likely have something quite valuable for trade with anyone who shows up.

Plus I still say our main tourist draw will be McDonalds, not because they could eat it, but because the concept of sentient beings eating food that's actually detrimental to their health will likely be so fascinating to many aliens they'll want to come see it for themselves.

[wir]

[quote]Our exponential rate of improvement in computing for 60 years may be highly uncommon or unique.[/quote
Also, it could be -extremely- slow in comparison.

[Cyberninja]

Yes. A few of them seem to be posting on these forums...lol

Seriously though, I don't see why they couldn't exist. Man has yet to travel into the far reaches of space to confirm whether or not they do, or do not exist. So there's always a possibility* that there is something else out there. As for the Roswell incident, meh not to sure about that. We all know that governments worldwide, are not always 100% honest with their people. So it wouldn't suprise me if it does end up being true. But I also think the media has played a big part in pushing this "incident" into the realms of fiction over the years. Just have to wait and see.

[Nimue]

If there are aliens and they have been watching us since we dawned on this earth, I can't help but think...either we're lab rats, or their perverts, either way its not a nice thought.

But I'd like to think we're the more advanced species in this universe, and we will one day be able to share our (then vastly superior) technology with the less advanced alien nations.

[Gldm]

[quote]Our exponential rate of improvement in computing for 60 years may be highly uncommon or unique.[/quote
Also, it could be -extremely- slow in comparison.


Possibly, but I don't think that's likely. I can't see anything significantly faster working because there's no way applications could keep pace to drive it. Hell we can't even make software keep up with what we're doing now. For everything except games and a few specialized tasks like physical simulation, even the cheapest PC is overpowered now.

[Chevron]

But I'd like to think we're the more advanced species in this universe, and we will one day be able to share our (then vastly superior) technology with the less advanced alien nations.

And maybe create a federation so that we may be allies with these aliens and then refuse to give technology to civilizations that do not want to be part of our united federation of planets.

[Nimue]

Hell yea!!

*Note to self: must find bald dude, to be the captain of the Enterprise star ship*
*Another note to self: must force everyone on the Enterprise star ship, to eat enterprise sausages*
*Yet another note to self: must buy shares in the enterprise franchise*

[.dB]

Yes. I strongly believe that there's other life out there, both superior and inferior to us.

[Gen0cyde]

Well, I have been looking on google sky for some time now and havent found anything.

I doubt we are the only race in the universe, even if the aliens are not as advanced as us or cant even be classed as intelligent more like wiggle 10000th tooth worms that are the size of your car key, it would still be life on another planet, and a huge and great discovery.

I would love to know what an alien would think of us if we had to visit one of their planets, or if they are having the same conversation amongst themselves on their planet.

[Somebody]

Some guy said earlier they will keep themselves hidden because they are scared of us and the wars and stuff. Hhhmmm if they can get here they shud certainly have weapons of mass destruction.

[wisp]

I firmly belief that Aliens are watching us from other worlds and that they don't really know what to make of us.A planet that seems to try and solve most of it problem by trying to wipe each other out-not cool.

If they are out there and monitoring this forum-
then beam me up please :) and take me with you

[Nandrew]

I believe that aliens may very well exist, but not in any way that we currently understand them to. In particular, I believe that most, if not all, alien sighting reports are pretty much bull. Most of the descriptions and ideas of aliens in these "encounters" reflect the depictions of such beings in pop culture at the given time.

I'm personally interested in seeing what happens with Jupiter's moon.

[wir]

On a documentary, I saw that they believe there may be life on one of Jupiter's moons.
I'm unsure of the name of it, the one thats a Ice moon, but a Ocean under all the ice.
They think there might be life in the icy ocean of that moon, be it even single celled.

[Somebody]

Here's a link (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0323_050323_jupitereuropa.html) to what wir said.

[Tr00jg]

I read the clearest sign that intelligent life exists outside our planet is the fact that they haven't visited us yet.

[Gazza_N]

Do I believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life? Why yes, I do. I'd have to be blind to probability not to.

Do I believe in grays abducting folks, mutilating cattle and generally causing misery? Not even remotely. The same way I don't believe in succubi, trolls and fairies, which attention seekers used before the concept of little green men popped up.

[Icenflame]

It's in all likely hood that there are Aliens, I believe there is a NASA scientist (or Not Nasa i stand to be corrected) that stated a theory if there are say a billion starts for every billion stars there are a million planets for the every million planets there are say for arguments sake 100 inhabitable planets.

You do the math, if we believe we are the only creatures in the entire universe i think we in for a beeeeg surprise.

here's a question to all.

What would you consider Alien life? a single cell organism? thats life is it not?

[kHayne]

Oh, there's quite likely life out there. It's just probably so completely unlike us, we'd never even recognise it if it presented itself.
See, I believe extraterrestrial life exists, but I don't quite believe in little gray men in flying saucers because of how un-alien the concept is. It's simply too convenient, and lacking in imagination. It's far more likely that planet-sized sentient crystalline beings exist, and communicate via lightpulses that take a millenia to speak a single 'word' for example, than take the easy way out with beings that are roughly our size, anthropomorphic, and travel the cosmos in some rather uninspiring cheesy 50's scifi movie-props.

[Chevron]

Sentient life I think is what most people are craving for. I really don't care. Any alien life would be a great find.

[kHayne]

Meh. We've probably come into contact with xenological life already, and simply cannot/could not recognise it.

[Icenflame]

I watched a very interesting documentary called Secret NASA Transmissions. If you guys can get hold of this it has some really interesting footage of Space walks and the like. With very strange images appearing on the footage.

Its worth the time to watch it I felt so anyway.

Click Here t00 (http://www.rense.com/general21/nasas.htm)

The link above is more arb but it gives you a small indication of what the above mentioned documentary is all about..

[MonGooS]

I believe that there are aliens out there. The universe is to big not to believe that the universe is so big we could not even begin to imagine, The Hubble telescope stared at a spot so small and found 3000 galaxies so there are billions and each has something like 500 thousand million stars each with a possibility of life.I also believe that "aliens" would not probably even be aliens they would probably be allot like us. Taking that the closest star to us is "alpha centauri" which is something like 4.3 light years away (the universe is 78 billion light yeas across), we would have to travel at the speed of light to get there and I could be wrong but I think it will take somthing like 4 years to get there. If we were to travel this fast the heat from friction would e to great and probably disintegrate us or our ship. So we would have to find a material that will be able to resist this intense heat. We do not know of any such material that I know of, so we would probably have to travel to another planet or solar system. Seeing that we cannot travel to these places and bring enough of this material back it is again not possible. And another thing being that humans cannot spend to much time in space. It affect our body in allot of negative ways. So Yes I believe that there are other people out there but I do not believe that we will ever meet them. I know you probably gonna say "thats what they said about going to the moon" or something but im not talking about theories im talking about physical possibilities.

[Oeaks]

I feel...very small.

I think I might of once seen a UFO, years ago(when I was seven or eight). Either that or it was my hyperactive imagination being fueled by a sugary treat.

Anyway,One night i'm looking up at sky, at the stars. Suddenly one starts moving around, sort of bobbing. It the suddenly disappeared!

As I said it was probably my overeactive imagination. B ut it really sparked my interest in SciFi and aliens.

[Chevron]

I believe that there are aliens out there. The universe is to big not to believe that the universe is so big we could not even begin to imagine, The Hubble telescope stared at a spot so small and found 3000 galaxies so there are billions and each has something like 500 thousand million stars each with a possibility of life.I also believe that "aliens" would not probably even be aliens they would probably be allot like us. Taking that the closest star to us is "alpha centauri" which is something like 4.3 light years away (the universe is 78 billion light yeas across), we would have to travel at the speed of light to get there and I could be wrong but I think it will take somthing like 4 years to get there. If we were to travel this fast the heat from friction would e to great and probably disintegrate us or our ship. So we would have to find a material that will be able to resist this intense heat. We do not know of any such material that I know of, so we would probably have to travel to another planet or solar system. Seeing that we cannot travel to these places and bring enough of this material back it is again not possible. And another thing being that humans cannot spend to much time in space. It affect our body in allot of negative ways. So Yes I believe that there are other people out there but I do not believe that we will ever meet them. I know you probably gonna say "thats what they said about going to the moon" or something but im not talking about theories im talking about physical possibilities.

It's gonna take a lot more science than what we have at the moment to travel the stars. Something like a warp drive(no jokes) will be needed. The speed of light is too slow for intergalactic travel. By the time we have a form of propulsion that can take us faster than light, gravity plating will be an easy matter.

Come to think of it. We may not need faster than light propulsion if we find out how to create artificial wormholes and predict where the exit point will be.

[wisp]

Technology has advanced tremendously in the last 50 odd years since Roswell, some say that the US government is slowly releasing the Alien technology that they found there . This maybe true . If one looks at our Technologial "evolution" ( for want of better word) we went from B/W tv to tv on our cell phones , from computers the size of house to microchips in such a "short space of time " .Does any one else think so or is it a conspiracy theory

[kHayne]

Conspiracy. Alien technology for eg isn't responsible for nuclear fission. That discovery was made well before Roswell.
Aliens didnt invent the lightbulb, or the internal combustion engine, or Newtonian physics, or the wheel, or fire. The rapid advancement of human technology has been cartwheeling towards the realm of science-fiction since the Renaissance. In fact the microchip is pretty boring tech and besides becoming smaller and faster, has seen no real revolution, only evolution since it's inception. Things like stealth fighters while seemingly super advanced, are just the result of some clever use of plastics, understanding of radar and the retuning of various existing, boring tech like conventional jet engines.
Alien tech conspiracy? Wake me up when we have anti-gravity and FTL drives, EM shields, memory metals and particle weapons.

[wisp]

Conspiracy. Alien technology for eg isn't responsible for nuclear fission. That discovery was made well before Roswell.
Aliens didnt invent the lightbulb, or the internal combustion engine, or Newtonian physics, or the wheel, or fire. The rapid advancement of human technology has been cartwheeling towards the realm of science-fiction since the Renaissance. In fact the microchip is pretty boring tech and besides becoming smaller and faster, has seen no real revolution, only evolution since it's inception. Things like stealth fighters while seemingly super advanced, are just the result of some clever use of plastics, understanding of radar and the retuning of various existing, boring tech like conventional jet engines.
Alien tech conspiracy? Wake me up when we have anti-gravity and FTL drives, EM shields, memory metals and particle weapons.

Totally valid points , but it seems that advances in other area such computer technolgy have exploded since then , as for anti gravity that raise a very good point . if we have the knowledge why not use it - i think it is a conspriracy theory but that not to say the Rosell never happen i believe it did and the USA covered it up

[kHayne]

No. computer technology hasn't 'exploded'. It has advanced somewhat linearly, yes, and somewhat rapidly. But the advancements have come from civilian sources. Not the US military. The US army buys from the civilian sector. Think about that for a second. If you think it was a massive cover up, do you honestly believe the US government would have intentionally allowed such technology to fall into the public domain?

[ioiiooio]

Oh, there's quite likely life out there. It's just probably so completely unlike us, we'd never even recognise it if it presented itself.
See, I believe extraterrestrial life exists, but I don't quite believe in little gray men in flying saucers because of how un-alien the concept is. It's simply too convenient, and lacking in imagination. It's far more likely that planet-sized sentient crystalline beings exist, and communicate via lightpulses that take a millenia to speak a single 'word' for example, than take the easy way out with beings that are roughly our size, anthropomorphic, and travel the cosmos in some rather uninspiring cheesy 50's scifi movie-props.

I think you could say for arguments sake that the entire universe is a living being, I think it is unwise and a mistake to believe that only something which has a heart beat posseses a consciousness, by scientific terms yes that is true, but in the bigger scheme of things who are we to define what constitutes a life form, based purely on our own perspective?

[wisp]

No. computer technology hasn't 'exploded'. It has advanced somewhat linearly, yes, and somewhat rapidly. But the advancements have come from civilian sources. Not the US military. The US army buys from the civilian sector. Think about that for a second. If you think it was a massive cover up, do you honestly believe the US government would have intentionally allowed such technology to fall into the public domain?


you are right, like i said i believe it is a conspiracy theory...i was just presenting both side of the coin. As for the US Government i doubt very much if they would let that fall into the Public domain, i mean they are so tight lipped about everything . But the statue of limations on certian restricted documents conserning UFO are be allowed public access now and hope fully more to come. For anyone not keeping tabs on computer technology , they see these advances as major compared to what they see at work,there a still companies that refuse to get email in the work place, if you don't work with it everyday it can look like rapid advancement to the uninformed.

[Icenflame]

i like the points raised regarding technology but in that respect its a "multiply effects" scenario.

As computer technology advances so do research speeds. The more advanced technology becomes the easier it is to further advance it.

This can explain the rapid advancement of PC over the last decade or so sheesh or even 20 years. I'm sure many of you older members of the forum had an encounter with a Comador 64 or ZX Spectrum. Those systems where the pinnacle of Home computing when they where released.

In regards to the any governments holding back the commercial sector... well in most respects that a joke the commercial sectors are the one's in charge especially in the United States if it is within national interest to with hold certain technologies then a government will intervene.

The developers like Intel and AMD are sure to be testing systems we could only cook up in our wildest dreams while they research new methods and technology. I'm sure most of you that did history will remeber the industrial revolution? Well we in the midst of the Information Technology revolution.

[MonGooS]

-"Mad Don Mckilt" That could be allot of things such as the same reason stars twinkle (light moving through the atmosphere etc) or anything else. And why would a spaceship be seen like a star ? things such as the moon shine because of the light from the sun but the spacecraft would not be that larg and that far out to catch it. If it was the light from the ship why would It only be one light ?? If they had technology advanced enough to get here why don't they have a clocking device ??

-"Chevron" Wormholes havent been proven yet, and even if we could make them what would happen to us if we did go through it ?? How would we travel faster than the speed of light. We do not know of any such material capable of releasing that much energy. Maybe a nuke but to harvest that power would be pretty tough. Do you personally believe in our life time or 5 generations away we will be able to ?? I don't, I don't even believe this world will last another 70 years.

[Miktar]

Have you ever looked at a dog, and considered that perhaps they're just as "sentient" as us, but due to developmental differences, we perceive their intellect as somehow "inferior"?

There are quite enough aliens on this planet alone, I wouldn't quite worry about the stars yet.

Btw, speed of light was apparently broken already.

[ioiiooio]

I believe this is what you speak of Miktar:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

Although ofcourse it has been challenged:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070816-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-no-i-dont-think-so.html

I dont really understand all this quantum physics stuff myself, just got it off a Myspace forum.

[Miktar]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tesla_coil.png

[MonGooS]

It says "The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - traveled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart." This still isn't an object its microwaves. How much energy would you need to move something like light compared to something the size of a spaceship ? It would be a huge difference. And thats not a propulsion device so its not about trying to get this to move faster than the speed of light its about getting a energy source capable of moving an object that fast. And they also say there "For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving." so thats another problem we have.

[Icenflame]

didn't Einstein dispel the theory of moving the speed of light? To do so you would be traveling back in time. As mentioned above you would arrive before you've left.

we could theoretically move just below the speed of light and not be affected by the space time continuum but that still has to be proven.

Really interesting documentary "What the *Bleep* Do We know. some really really intersting concepts about Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics...

[Miktar]

"What The Bleep" is something you need to Wiki, Icenflame - it's a fun watch, but it has no science behind it whatsoever and most of the people they interview are dodgy at best. It's entertainment, not education.

[Icenflame]

this i realized when i watched it but they do propose a few interesting thoughts and "concepts" in the way we perceive the world around us. Although providing relevant scientific proof to back some of these theories up would be rather difficult if not impossible.

Its similar to all the 911 conspiracy theories floating around its another thing to take in and evaluate. So information can be harmful if taken the wrong way but its the same as implicitly believing everything that CNN broadcasts to be true.

It's the whole idea of going against common knowledge and what is known to be and what is. If we as humans didn't dream of the beyond and what we could accomplish we would still be picking flees out our hair and walking around on all four.

But i completely get what you saying.

[Oeaks]

-"Mad Don Mckilt" That could be allot of things such as the same reason stars twinkle (light moving through the atmosphere etc) or anything else. And why would a spaceship be seen like a star ? things such as the moon shine because of the light from the sun but the spacecraft would not be that larg and that far out to catch it. If it was the light from the ship why would It only be one light ?? If they had technology advanced enough to get here why don't they have a clocking device ??

Yes, but I remember it going around in circles and then zipping off, didn't I say that?

Aaah, no. I said bobbing. But still it was probably my imagination.

[Thaumaturge]

didn't Einstein dispel the theory of moving the speed of light?

If I'm not much mistaken, his theories hold that one may not accelerate past the speed of light; if you are already going at superluminal speeds, then you would have a problem slowing down to our speeds, and vice versa. Of course, the trick may well prove to be to sidestep the issue, perhaps using two ideas that have been mentioned in this thread, I believe: wormholes and warp-drive.

Wormholes are essentially shortcuts, as I understand them - instead of travelling quickly, you find a way to take a shorter route.

A warp drive, again as I understand it, distorts space around the ship, compressing it before and stretching it behind, and then letting it snap back into shape, while somehow keeping the ship exempt from this, thus leaving the ship suddenly far ahead of its original position.

Of course both are currently well beyond our current technological level, to the best of my knowledge, but may well turn out later to be our means of interstellar travel - or, of course, if we do achieve interstellar travel, we may use some technique that is completely unheard of today, perhaps even based on concepts that we have yet to discover.


we could theoretically move just below the speed of light and not be affected by the space time continuum but that still has to be proven.

Again, by my understanding, the effects are present at all velocities - indeed, they are present in our day-to-day motion, albeit at too small a degree to be noticed.

In fact, I seem to recall that time dilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation) has been experimentally observed, even though I'm pretty sure that we have yet to build a machine that goes anywhere near the speed of light.

As to "aliens as the source of modern technology", I suspect that at least a part of the reason behind it is a sense in some people that humankind is really not all that intellectually impressive a species - a form of species-related inferiority complex, perhaps?

As to the original question, I have no strong belief one way or the other, but I think that it is more likely that there is some form of life elsewhere in the universe. Whether there is other intelligent life, and how we might ascertain that when the life in question may have arisen in circumstances entirely bizarre to us, I have no idea.

As to visitation by other species, again I have no idea - I have little evidence to incline me one way or the other, I'm afraid, although I'll admit that I have not researched possible evidence to any great degree.

Thinking of the now-classic "grey" alien, I once heard an interesting idea concerning them: that they are in fact our descendants, employing some form of time travel. This would explain their similarity to us.

I also note with interest that they seem to have some features in common with anime-styled characters - specifically large heads for their bodies, large eyes for their heads, small mouths, and underemphasised noses, at least taking standard human proportions as a baseline.

(Note: I give the above comments on the "grey" alien as matters of interest, rather than due to any belief in them.)

[Chevron]

In fact, I seem to recall that time dilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation) has been experimentally observed, even though I'm pretty sure that we have yet to build a machine that goes anywhere near the speed of light.


I remember reading that nasa has actually observed time dilation before. On one of the space shuttles they placed an atomic clock and synced it with one here on earth. When the shuttle returned the clocks were out of sync.

I don't remember by how much though.

[sjj3006]

Didn't they find a ship that was embedded in a mountain, on a pacific island which was heavily guarded by the korean military. :p

[Azimuth]

Please don't resurrect old threads. Necromancy is punishable by death by stoning.