Aliens

Originally Posted by Littlepeahead

You mean I don't have to hold on all the time? Why didn't anybody tell me this before now?!

There's always one eh?

Originally Posted by Ben.tattooer

I like to believe there are aliens, and that those aliens have been visiting us for a very long time. Who knows it may just be future us's travelling back in time.

David icke (yeah yeah I know) said when believed the earth was flat, and someone said it was a sphere there was uproar and it was thought preposterous!until we learnt about gravity, and they realised you won't fall off. Level of information or something. Maybe soon a snippet of information will be released to us which changes mainstream opinion.

I talk to customers regularly about various theories, some are willing to listen and discuss and others smirk like I'm weird. These people don't smirk at someone who believes a bloke in the sky created earth in a week though. Go figure.

He bold is all I need to hear. Even the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round and there was very little uproar recorded when they provided evidence.

Originally Posted by Spank86

He bold is all I need to hear. Even the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round and there was very little uproar recorded when they provided evidence.

Details aren't exactly important, it's the idea. The level of information we have on a certain subject makes all the difference to how legitimate an idea or new theory becomes to those who are slightly more skeptical.

Take the million pounds thing for instance. I doubt you have ever seen a million pounds in cash, or held a million pounds in cash, however you have no doubt that it exists.

I'm sure at some point we will be told something reasonably small, I don't know a footprint on the moon or a tiny organism (fnar) which will mean the idea of aliens visiting us is less crazy. Drip feeding instead of causing widespread panic.

Maybe.

Originally Posted by Ben.tattooer

I'm sure at some point we will be told something reasonably small, I don't know a footprint on the moon or a tiny organism (fnar) which will mean the idea of aliens visiting us is less crazy. Drip feeding instead of causing widespread panic.

Maybe.

The idea of aliens visiting us isn't crazy because of some lack of belief in the ability of life to arise on other planets, the fact that we bother to search for life IN the solar system means that scientists generally believe that's a strong possibility. The idea is crazy because of the timescales and distances involved.

You can dismiss out of hand the alien abduction reports (mostly from the US) they provide very little evidence since the spaceships reported have changed according to our technology level and the aliens themselves have tended to converge over time so they're now most often "grays" (shifting with expectation and media reporting) This suggests that its simply in the minds of the so called abductees, no different to people in previous centuries who "saw" witches on broomsticks.


The idea of a million pounds however is simple extrapolation from what I have in my wallet and the number of people in England, that's akin to the alien life existing argument (although our base of 1 doesn't really give us sufficient data to extrapolate), it's not like to the chances of aliens, or a million £, coming to visit me.

Interesting discussion point this. Before I start my waffle, has anyone noticed the decline in plausible evidence for any of these "unexplained" things since the rise of smartphones and now everyone has a camera with them almost all the time....

Although if the Loch Ness Monster got outed on instagram I think I'd want to find another planet anyway.

Back to the topic, personally I believe they must exist out there somewhere but I'm highly sceptical that they are close enough/interested enough to sneak around our planet and abduct random people to study. We are a species of constant communication in all its forms, any civilisation seeing us would pretty easily be able to communicate in some fashion. Admittedly this presumes their intent is research, which I suspect is possible but we have as much chance of any other race being aggressors wanting resources from the planet and perhaps not even considering us at all.

So in summary, YES I believe they exist (sheer probability alone is pretty compelling)
NO I don't believe the people on earth that have had "encounters"

[Littlepeahead]

I love Calvin and Hobbes

It's a very self centred view to believe than in a universe of infinite size, with infinite worlds, stars and galaxies we are alone.

As people have suggested above, it's mathematics. We are the sum of an equation that results in life. We may not understand that equation, but given the same circumstances in another place (which almost certainly exist) there will be life.

To add, providing our understanding of physics is at least advanced enough that travel faster than the speed of light is impossible, then it is likely that we will never be able to have communication with another race. Certainly not have a discussion with the same person in any case given the time it would take for a message to travel.

[NTECUK]

I bet you're missed the C5 ufo documentary (on now)

Originally Posted by EssexDave

It's a very self centred view to believe than in a universe of infinite size, with infinite worlds, stars and galaxies we are alone.

Very true, should we find ourselves in one we might have to rethink the possibility.

Most scientists believe the universe to be finite but unbounded with a very large but yet not infinite number of planets.

It's also worth considering what you're actually looking for when you say life.

When people ask about life on other planets they're usually asking about intelligent civilization however there's no guarantee that the dominant lifeform on another planet would have got that way due to expanded brain size. It's entirely possible that they could dominate though sheer size and ferocity the way the dinosaurs once did on earth.

Or indeed the only other life could be akin to bacteria and simple organisms, it depends how far from earth a planet is able to deviate and still maintain a form of life, and how advanced that life could become with said deviations.

[NTECUK]

Are et
http://www.channel5.com/shows/aliens-are-we-alone