Intelligent life before mankind?

Hey all,

This is my first topic ever on ATS, so I hope it goes well

Any way, I was just wondering. It is generally accepted age of the Earth is around 4.55 billion years (plus or minus 1%). The age of mankind is ruthly 30,000 to 50,000 yrs, so, presuming this is all true (we all know science can be wrong sometimes), is it not possible that there was intelligent life on this very planet before mankind ever evolved?

I understand that much of the 4.55 billion yr life span of Earth and the Solar system may have been the developing stage and that life may not have even got started many billions of yrs after, but it is still possible that there could have been intelligent life before us, there was certainly sufficient time for life to occur and evolve in to something intelligent.

The reasons they no longer exist? Maybe they destroyed themselves, a meteorite, comet or asteroid collided with the Earth destroying them and other life (its theorized that it happened many times before), or just maybe, they upped and left - it is a possibility, presuming they existed.

The reaons we can not find any evidence of their existence? The World has changed significantly over the many millions of yrs. I'm sure any evidence has been destroyed, or maybe, there is evidence, but we have attributed it to something created by mankind? There are other reasons, and I'm sure many of you will bring them up.

I guess this exact same arguement can be used with any other planet in our solar system. Maybe life sprung up on many planets at any time throughout their history, but we destroyed by the many changes planets, galaxies and Universes have gone through.

I believe it is very intriguing just to imagine life right in our own back yard, even if it was destroyed.

Also, what if life comes in many different forms, and not just what we know to exist today and the known past ie. carbon based, etc.

I'm certainly interested in your thoughts and idea's in regards to the above

I believe that all life is intelligent, we just don't understand it. We may be the least intelligent of life. Being able to build large buildings and technology doesn't neccesarily mean that we are the most intelligent species. Just look at what the human race has done and where it's heading. I'd say we're the least intelligent of life.

Hi I See You,

I understand where you are coming from. I guess the word "intelligence" can be too subjective. I was thinking more along the lines of similar intelligence to our own. Its 3:00am here in the UK, so my mind is completely out on me.

I'll try and expand upon what I have already written tomorrow, when my mind is up to speed

Yes, indeed, f by "mankind" you mean "homo sapiens." The entire line of Australopithecenes was intelligent; most of them made tools of stone.

Well, NoobCommander ive had a similar theory for some time now, Now all we need is some type of evidence! Perhaps these Past earthlings Erased there existence for some odd reason!, And just may-be these past earthlings are the greys that so many people speak of, And they return to keep tabs on there old homeworld!!

[edit on 24-2-2005 by PanzerDiv]

'They' exist, but not as flesh & blood creatures.
see, long ago, their nano-technologies/ matter-transformation abilities
led them (as a race/species) to discard the degenerative & corruption prone flesh- also the degradeable/pollution/radioactive weaknesses found in metals (Robot, Cyborg life vehicles were thus discarded)
The container of choice for their life-force became what we know as 'spirit'
'They' cohabit the 4 dimensions of the cosmos along with the worlds we see & know. the only 'evidence' we have of them is found in the philosophies of religions, and our personal & collective subjective experiences. 'They' are AKA Angels, and some 1/3rd were supposed to have 'fallen'....some think the earth became chaotic because the intelligent life forms (Angels) ran weird and malicious experiments [which fossils evidence as the 'Age of Dinosaurs']...these spirit lifeforms colonized many planets etc and ran many experiments creating many diverse lifeforms at many places...air, water, light are only the needs for the kind of 'life' we are capable of recognizing, right now..
Our worldview & intelligence is only a tiny segment of the spectrum of 'intelligent life' to be discovered in this portion of the physical cosmos.

keep plugging away NoobCommando
write that Song

AUM

I dont believe in intelligent life on earth before mankind. It doesnt make sense from an evolutionary viewpoint, except if you dont count major disasters in.. (Like dinosaur wipeout size catastrophes)
And im pretty sure that some would have survived such a disaster, if they were as/more intelligent than humans.

I think we intelligent species like us are more vurnerable thanks to dependancy on tech.

if there were and they had as much technolagy as us it could have been possible that they died from an electomagnatic strom friing all of their techonalgy and right after a major desaster such could have wiped out all of their existace because they had no way to protect from it or forsee it comeing

I use to wonder that until I read this book talking about man's age on Earth. Many sources say that man was here in the dinosaur era. The only reason human skeletons aren't regularly found is because man had to stay hidden from the Giant dinosaurs but they WERE here. Man existed but the spheres were different form today's environment. Humans were in North America more than the other regions and that is why there are human skeletons retrieved from the dinosaur periods found in the U.S. Plenty!

I belive man is much older than what the offical truth claims. I also belive there have been other intelligent beings on earth and having visited earth.

I agree with Terapin and the others who say life will survive and continue through just about anything. We can see examples of life in the most extreme conditions on this planet and we may have recognized signs on other planets.

Can you cite a place where we can all read about the human skeletons dating back to the dinosaurs era?

Ahmen to this man. I think someone was terribly misinformed here, i seriously doubt mankind was alive then. But of course, anything is possible. I would need to see a lot of documentations, and evidence of this before i would consider beleiving it.

You'd probably be suprised at just how much fact is stranger than fiction.

Look back in history ... the farther back you go, the more answers you'll find.

If you want to make an interesting night for yourself, research the similarities between the Old Testament, Sumerian religion, and the Mahbarrata (I'm sure I butchered that word), which is I believe, one of the Indian religions.

Well, there were the invertibrates, and they got hit by a meteor. Then there were the insects, and they got hit by a meteor. Then there were the reptiles, and they got hit by a meteor. Now we are the mammals, and...

Get the picture? We have a window of opportunity. It could be days, or centuries. We will not qualify as intelligent life in the hindsight of those 400 million years from now if we do not make peace, unite, and colonize other worlds. We will only be curious fossils accompanied by a few stone tools (most metals and plastics will not survive that long except as casts).

Somewhere, on some beach will be a grain of sand that, under magnification, has etched architecture.

[edit on 25-2-2005 by Chakotay]

I used to think like you, NoobCommando, about how there was intelligent life before us, just think about this though... wouldnt we have found a peice of an old computer or something by now or something technologically advanced? perhaps its still buried under miles of rock from all the metero stuff, but also, i think all life is intelligent as well as I See You. Did you know you have tiny tiny tiny little mites on your eyelashes that clean and stuff for you, i bet they dont know theyre on someones eyelash... you see where im coming from?

A book called, "Forbidden Archaeology"

Also, yesterday's newspaper had an article about a homo sapiens fossil just found in Ethiopia that was dated to 195 000 years ago.

I can't see any reason why there may not have been other intelligent beings long ago, even millions of years ago. Or human civilizations as advanced as ours, maybe even more than once. 200 000 years is a long time.

I suppose it would depend on a great many things. How do you define intelligent? Could there be an exceptionally brilliant dog out there somewhere whose daydreams could rival the drama in the mind of even Shakespear? The potential for brilliant thought could be FAR more widespread than we believe. Inventiveness and use of tools? Less common but not limited to us. Technologically advanced civilization... trickier. For there have to been a technologically advanced civlization in our neck of the woods besides us, we'd have to be missing A LOT of evidence- it would take alot to completely erase all evidence of an ancient civ.

Whatever the answer, the idea of finding "peers" for humanity, or even evidence of extinct ones would be exciting. A 1-dimensional social life isn't exciting. I like people who see things differently (sometimes) and the easiest way to find that is to look beyond those who are like you.

I too have often thought this was a possibility, so I mentioned it to someone. She said in reply, the bible says, go forth and REplenish the earth. Interesting word REPLENISH. Kind of indicates it was once populated prior to those words given to Adam and Eve.

It is a long story but here is your answer
www.sabon.org...