Poll of the Day > Gotta couple friends who are stoked over UFO shit lately

(+) Yeah! (+)

I believe there must be more intelligent life beyond earth. I have no reason to believe they've ever visited earth. UFOs are always birds, balloons, airplanes, etc. Never alien spacecrafts. Even the recent declassified videos of UFOs are clearly just birds, considering their size and distance.

I believe there must be more intelligent life beyond earth. I have no reason to believe they've ever visited earth. UFOs are always birds, balloons, airplanes, etc. Never alien spacecrafts. Even the recent declassified videos of UFOs are clearly just birds, considering their size and distance.

It's pretty much a statistical certainty that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy.

But we're never going to meet each other.

People really underestimate how BIG space is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Even if the closest star system to us had life on it, and they flew here at the maximum possible speed allowed by the laws of physics, it would take four years to get here. That's a very long time for a ship to be running at maximum speed, especially consider the insane amount of energy that would be required to power the trip.

And that's assuming the closest star has life. It's far more likely that the nearest alien race is hundred or even thousands of light-years away. The alien crew would have to be put into some kind of biological stasis for the trip, and by the time they got here, eons would have passed on their home planet, making it essentially a one-way trip. They would never see their families again. Nobody on their home planet would probably even remember them. Who would be willing to make that sacrifice just to visit a comparatively primitive race like us? Hell, the human race might even be extinct when they arrived.

Everything we've learned about physics has told us that traveling faster than light is literally impossible. So unless aliens discover some technology that can break the laws of reality itself, they can't get here. Or even know we exist. It's kind of like if the entire earth was uninhabited except for one person in China and one in America. How likely is it for those two people to find the other exists, let alone travel to them?

I do believe there's alien life somewhere in the galaxy. But they've never been to Earth. And it's very unlikely they ever will.

I think you meant to say universe and not galaxy.

I think there is a high chance life started here on earth by some microbe that hitched a ride on an asteroid and crashed into the ocean or something.

It's pretty much a statistical certainty that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy.

But we're never going to meet each other.

People really underestimate how BIG space is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Even if the closest star system to us had life on it, and they flew here at the maximum possible speed allowed by the laws of physics, it would take four years to get here. That's a very long time for a ship to be running at maximum speed, especially consider the insane amount of energy that would be required to power the trip.

And that's assuming the closest star has life. It's far more likely that the nearest alien race is hundred or even thousands of light-years away. The alien crew would have to be put into some kind of biological stasis for the trip, and by the time they got here, eons would have passed on their home planet, making it essentially a one-way trip. They would never see their families again. Nobody on their home planet would probably even remember them. Who would be willing to make that sacrifice just to visit a comparatively primitive race like us? Hell, the human race might even be extinct when they arrived.

Everything we've learned about physics has told us that traveling faster than light is literally impossible. So unless aliens discover some technology that can break the laws of reality itself, they can't get here. Or even know we exist. It's kind of like if the entire earth was uninhabited except for one person in China and one in America. How likely is it for those two people to find the other exists, let alone travel to them?

I do believe there's alien life somewhere in the galaxy. But they've never been to Earth. And it's very unlikely they ever will.

1. This is the fermi paradox, and something a lot of people talk about.
2. The technology for FTL, or similar lighthugging technology to accelerating to .9c is something we can work on. There are always other avenues than just shooting something into space.
3. There's other ideas, including the great barriers and the dark forest theory that explain why things are so quiet. I'm partial to the dark forest theory right now, I think it's got a lot of good points.

Lets say there is some intelligent species that has figured out a viable means of interstellar travel.
I expect they put as much thought toward earth as we do toward an anthill on the side of a major highway.
You'd notice it if you looked, but why do that?

Lets say there is some intelligent species that has figured out a viable means of interstellar travel.
I expect they put as much thought toward earth as we do toward an anthill on the side of a major highway.
You'd notice it if you looked, but why do that?

Or at least poke them with a "stick"

Depends on how common life actually is in the universe

Have you seen how many people study anthills?

It's pretty much a statistical certainty that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy.

People really underestimate how BIG space is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Depends on how common life actually is in the universe

I believe there must be more intelligent life beyond earth. I have no reason to believe they've ever visited earth. UFOs are always birds, balloons, airplanes, etc. Never alien spacecrafts. Even the recent declassified videos of UFOs are clearly just birds, considering their size and distance.

So our radio signals have now traveled over 100 light years and encompasses a volume of over 4 million cubic light years. There are at LEAST 59,722 visible stars within this range

Only Earth has intelligent life.

laypeople

1. This is the fermi paradox, and something a lot of people talk about.
2. The technology for FTL, or similar lighthugging technology to accelerating to .9c is something we can work on. There are always other avenues than just shooting something into space.
3. There's other ideas, including the great barriers and the dark forest theory that explain why things are so quiet. I'm partial to the dark forest theory right now, I think it's got a lot of good points.

"This leads to all civilizations attempting to hide in radio silence."

That theory already fails since humans already broke that.

"This leads to all civilizations attempting to hide in radio silence."

That theory already fails since humans already broke that.

There's a difference between general AM/FM radiowaves and pointing at a nearby star that potentially could hold life, and directionally blasting humanitys personal information.