What I think has happened is simple.
Intelligent life has visited, but:
A) It wants to remain hidden and/or avoid unnecessary exposure
B) People are disbelieving - not educated enough to understand
I really do believe extraterrestrial intelligent life has visited this planet. Some people say if it visited we would have proof. It's all or nothing.
Either they have visited and we have proof or they have not visited and we have none. These people do not believe it's possible for intelligent life
to visit and for it not to leave behind proof immediately. I do not agree with that argument. I instead believe it HAS visited, but for whatever
reason the proof is not available. I am sorry I cannot explain how.
But it WILL become available, with things like this:
1) Increased technology
2) Increased knowledge
3) Increased exposure to intelligent extraterrestrials as we expand outward/inward and the improbability of them remaining invisible
I think we'll find living and/or extinct ET biological or viral or other forms of life. That will probably be via NASA or SETI or some other official
big name organization. We're already halfway there. NASA has already funded numerous investigations into the martian meteorites, for example. It's
still a debate whether the formations are nanofossils or non-biological in origin, but much has been done. NASA has definitely opened the door to past
life on Mars (2-3 billion years ago) that's now extinct - we just have to find it. And they've opened the door to finding ET biology on other planets
like Europa and Enceladus. They've opened the door to other moons being like early Earth because of our knowledge of Titan. They've opened the door to
other Earths because of our knowledge of extrasolar planets. Just imagine what hte next 10,000 years of knowledge will do and how it'll change our
perspective.
We just have to find one ET bacterium.
Someone made a map of the radio emissions from Earth dating from the very first to the latest and what this map shows is our place in the galaxy is
very very small. Only the stars in our closest neighborhood would have any indication we exist at all, assuming they're still monitoring radio
emissions. For all we know, they've been debating over the past 40 years whether to contact us. And the prospects for radio-emissions detection gets
worse because our radio emissions are supposedly shrinking or in the process of shrinking. And maybe the nearest ET civilization is further away and
doesn't even monitor radio emissions anymore. For that matter, they might be so far advanced they view us as we view mice. Any kind of relationship
with them will be unequal and they might be more interested in mud.
There're billions of potential planets where life might now exist. Life could have existed billions of years ago. There're many more moons and rogue
planets where life might also exist. In fact, in our solar system alone there're 160+ moons. Predictions are that there's probably billions of rogue
planets or more. While these will not have the light/heat of a star, they may produce enough internal heat to fuel small scale evolution. And there're
many comets where pre-life ingredients can spread from one place to another.
I think the universe is just too rich for us to be alone. If we're alone, I think it bolsters the possibility there's a God or this is a simulation.
Being alone is probably more startling than not. Being alone doesn't jive with the science. What're the odds life would only form on Earth, a planet
~4.5 billion years old, amongst the billions of galaxies in a universe ~14 billion years old? And this is only in our observable universe, what lies
outside it? The science says this is unlikely, so why believe it? If nature created us through a kind of evolution machine then we're probably not the
only ones!!!! You know how if you find one bacterium, there's usually another?
I think our definition of life will change too. This, for example:
www.simonsfoundation.org - A New Physics Theory of Life...
I saw a "Through the Wormhole" episode where a guy was talking about 3 principles of life. I cannot recall his name, but his research was also trying
to pin down the fundamentals of life. His and others' research might open the door for theories of non-biological life.
Life as a
physics.edit on 1-6-2014 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)