BIADH is the voice of reason in this thread.

Yes I do. We used to live close to the UFO cap of the northeast. Me and mom have had seen weird stuff or some sort of encounter. I hate having sleep paralysis. I wanna see the 4th kind movie. Alien abduction stuff fucking scares me

If space is infinite (seems likely), matter is distributed uniformly (hard to prove, but seems reasonable for now), and the laws of physics are constant throughout the universe (who knows?), then an infinite number of Earths exist, and on an infinite subset of them, an infinite number of yous exist. The expected distance between the Earths is so big it's beyond astronomical, and with high probablility the sun will burn out long before the light from any of those Earths reaches us, but there you have it. Aliens exist, and they look like you.

squishy wrote:So...anyone believe in this stuff?

I take it for granted that everyone watched Carl Sagan's series of shows in the 1980s and knows about the Drake Equation, but maybe you weren't old enough.

The Drake equation states that:

N = (R*)x(fp)x(ne)x(f?)x(fi)x(fc)x(L)

where:

N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R* is the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
f? is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

The equation was devised in 1960, and while the values for each variable are mostly just guesses, rendering the equation's quantitative output rather meaningless, the equation itself still has validity in providing some sort of understanding of the factors involved in coming up with an estimated probability.

kolbi2112 wrote:Seriously.....assuming the earth is the only life-supporting planet in our solar system, the next closest system is about 4 light years away (or 40 trillion kilometers). Doesn't seem very likely that we've had any visitors.....

With emphasis that 40 trillion km is the NEAREST other solar system. Everything else is either farther, much farther, or much much farther away. And distance, I think, is the most significant factor in why we would never have contact with another intelligent life form.

I would say with almost mathematical certainty that there are SOME other planets with SOME life in this galaxy, considering the quantity of solar systems in it. There might even be other places with simple life in OUR solar system -- on moons of Jupiter, perhaps.

The probability of a planet having intelligent life is probably a couple orders of magnitude lower than the probability a planet has any life. But . . .

"The observable Universe contains about 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (30 to 70 sextillion) stars, organized in more than 80 billion galaxies. . . ."
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe )

So, because of the sheer number of solar systems, it seems almost certainty that there is some other intelligent life in the known Universe. And there are probably even some in our own galaxy as well, maybe even hundreds. But the problem with ever even knowing about them is the size of the galaxy and the distances involved between ourselves and other potentially viable solar systems. It is over 40,000,000,000,000 km to the NEAREST other solar system, and our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years (about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km !!!) in diameter.

The place is just so big -- so unpopulated and so spread out -- almost as bad as Pahrump, Nevada. The likelihood of finding intelligent life is about the same too.

Ejnar Fjerdingstad wrote:

kolbi2112 wrote:Seriously.....assuming the earth is the only life-supporting planet in our solar system, the next closest system is about 4 light years away (or 40 trillion kilometers). Doesn't seem very likely that we've had any visitors.....

EDIT: 40 trillion kilometers

Unless they invented some kind of faster-than-light spaceship. There was an article in Science once, claiming that was theoretically possible!

Ejnar!

Warp speed has been around for years. Watch any episode of Star Trek to see that.

butitsadryheat wrote:

squishy wrote:SEE, now we're talking. What's with this crap? It's getting more and more believable...There has to be something to this with so much evidence piling up...has anyone here seen a UFO or have any personal input? That's the missing piece, I don't know anyone who has seen one or been abducted or whatever...you just hear it from the interwebs or TV...but it's getting pretty convincing lately...

Bryan Benn wrote:

Ejnar Fjerdingstad wrote:

kolbi2112 wrote:Seriously.....assuming the earth is the only life-supporting planet in our solar system, the next closest system is about 4 light years away (or 40 trillion kilometers). Doesn't seem very likely that we've had any visitors.....

EDIT: 40 trillion kilometers

Unless they invented some kind of faster-than-light spaceship. There was an article in Science once, claiming that was theoretically possible!

Ejnar!

Warp speed has been around for years. Watch any episode of Star Trek to see that.

Well, I consider Science a slightly more serious source!

jibmaster wrote:I remember in high school, my teachers telling me that when I grew up - everyone would have a phone in their pocket. A hand-held phone that could call anywhere.
I didn't believe them...

Expand your mind

I remember reading a SCI-FI story in the 1950s where everybody had a wrist watch-sized phone. It was terrible, they kept being called everywhere, it didn't seem to have entered the author's mind that the phones could be turned off - or maybe that had become illegal? I forgot.

drjohnso1182 wrote:If space is infinite (seems likely), matter is distributed uniformly (hard to prove, but seems reasonable for now), and the laws of physics are constant throughout the universe (who knows?), then an infinite number of Earths exist, and on an infinite subset of them, an infinite number of yous exist. The expected distance between the Earths is so big it's beyond astronomical, and with high probablility the sun will burn out long before the light from any of those Earths reaches us, but there you have it. Aliens exist, and they look like you.

Even if there are aliens, I very much doubt they would look very much like us. After all, just on earth, evolution has not had the same result everywhere. Think of Australia, populated some 100.000 years ago by only marsupials and monotremes. Given enough time and isolation you might have had intelligent marsupial humanoids there. (After all, kangaroos already move on two legs.) Or just consider the only recently extinct small Flores people, of a different species from all living humans.

It has also been suggested that the dinosaurs were on their way to developing highly intelligent species, that might one day have resulted in human-like behaviour, when they died out. Even if there are an enormous number of habitable planets, they are unlikely to be completely like earth, and therefore it is unlikely that aliens might look completely like us. For all we know the aliens might be octopuses, arthropods, or amphibians, and still possibly more intelligent than us.

Ejnar Fjerdingstad wrote: and still possibly more intelligent than us.

That wouldn't take much.

Given the infinite size of "outer space" and the infinite number of planets etc that inhabit it I find it impossible to believe that there is not intelligent life form "out there". And in great numbers re inhabited planets.

Whether we ever get to see firm evidence of this, and indeed meet up with other such life forms must surely be a function of how far each inhabited race have developed their technological skills.

To us the speed of light is a major limiting factor. And a speed we haven't got anywhere near so far as transportation systems are concerned.

But other civilisations may be so far ahead of us as to have developed transportation that reaches and far exceeds that speed. And maybe one day they will point that transportation system in our direction.

Maybe they already have.

butitsadryheat wrote:

mconnell wrote:BIADH is the voice of reason in this thread.

RARELY has that ever been uttered.

And for good reason!

Ejnar Fjerdingstad wrote:

kolbi2112 wrote:Seriously.....assuming the earth is the only life-supporting planet in our solar system, the next closest system is about 4 light years away (or 40 trillion kilometers). Doesn't seem very likely that we've had any visitors.....

EDIT: 40 trillion kilometers

Unless they invented some kind of faster-than-light spaceship. There was an article in Science once, claiming that was theoretically possible!

According to Einstein form his E=mc2- as you approach the speed of light, both mass and length increase and approach infinite. Therefore not possible.