Why don't aliens initiate contact?

There are countless people who have experienced UFOs in one way or another, and the frequency of sightings with video (albeit inconclusive) are increasing as of late. What are your thoughts about why these UFOs simply do not "announce" themselves to the world and get it over with?

// sufu sci

This has been discussed on here before, but why would they?

If we assume that any alien species capable of making contact with us are considerably more advanced that us there is no reason at all for them to do so.

I would love them to, but unless we have something of use to them or they feel we could be an ally, what's the point?

Some suggest that aliens are already in contact with us but that's a whole other story where we start thinking about coverups and advanced technology that the public don't know about.

So essentially, there are two viewpoints for you to consider.

1 - we are not worth contacting but may do when we are advanced enough.
2 - they already are and we know nothing about it because it is all classified.

What side of the fence do you sit on?

It may be that they can't initiate 'contact'.

There are a variety of reasons.

It could be that contact would be harmful to them. Their chemistry might be such that we are 'toxic'. Similarly, our 'emotions' might be harmful. Obviously, as we noted in H.G. Well's War of the World's our micro-organisms might be harmful to them, or theirs to us.

I could be that they -can't- initiate contact. It might be prohibited for some reason. Or, it might be that we don't inhabit the same dimension, that we are 'ghosts' to them, and they to us. Perhaps we can see them and they see certain aspects of our world, but aspects of physical contact are not possible.

That's just a few. There may be others.

I sit on the fence.

I think the likelihood they would make the journey themselves and not contact us is very small indeed. Why make the journey just to stop before the destination? The distances are too vast, assuming they have the same physics limitations as ourselves which is the only thing we can be sure of at the moment.

I don't buy the government conspiracy theory. If I were a member of a super advanced alien race, I would surely not take orders from bush, or anyone in that crazy place. They are smart enough to build an intergalactic spaceship, surely they can make the decision on their own whether to contact or not. They wouldn't be interested in our resources or anything else the government had to offer, due to our lack of technological development.

I guess I must fall on the "they won't contact us because we aren't worth it" or that their ethics lay on the side of non-interference. But that still leaves me hanging, because why make the journey then? They surely wouldn't make contact with individuals or let themselves be seen if either of these two scenarios are real.

I guess I am searching for a logical reason why. And I can't see it (except that they aren't here at all).

reply to post by sufusci


Uh, you might try reading the post above yours.

I don't think they're here, either, however, if they were, I think without a specific reason to contact us, they'd be better off just being observers.

Yeah, I changed my mind in the middle of the post. I know

I can think of a lot of reasons to observe scientifically, but these don't often coincide with the "sightings". If they must be observers, why would they allow themselves to be seen, therefore ruining the effect?

reply to post by sufusci


Ruin the effect?

It may be that they don't care or the things they are observing are not affected by being seen.

If we're observing an ant colony, do we 'hide'?

Obviously, for a shy species we would use a blind or something so as not to scare them away. For other reasons, for instance not to change their behavior we might try to view a species using disguised cameras.

But for an 'alien' species, they may not be concerned if we catch limited glimpses of them. Perhaps they're only here in a virtual sense, so they know there's no fear of unwanted interaction.

If i was sure that they existed here on earth i would be wondering the same thing also.
BUT, in all honesty, i don't think that they do.

Man has had enough time now to prove that they exist but he hasn't. all those craft that we are supposed to have. You would think that someone, somewhere, would have gotten just a tiny piece out to the media

I must admit though that there are some crazy things out there that haven't been explained yet.
I do believe life exists though in other galaxies.




[edit on 14-2-2008 by jon1]

reply to post by jon1


It makes more sense, due to problems of cross-contamination, for 'aliens' to only visit other civilizations or inhabited planets by advanced 'virtual' means.

Those means may seem 'solid' to us, but they may not be. Thus it would be impossible to obtain any physical proof.

I'm not saying that this is the case or that they're here in any way, just that what we think of as physical contact may not be 'actual', but more like a solid appearing hologram using 'force field' type technology.

They may be able to use advanced virtual methods to cause effects, maybe by solidifying our own matter, or transmuting it, but anything that's created would evaporate when they turn off the virtuality.

I have never heard the "virtual" hypothesis before. Good idea.

By no means am I convinced they are here, I want someone to explain to me why logically they could be here and not make contact. Cross contamination would be a non issue. Assuming they have mastered biology it would pose no threat. And considering they likely are of a different chemical make up our bacteria/viruses etc would be unlikely to be able to cause harm. Perhaps our atmospheric makeup, but even then, a spacesuit would suffice.

The ant idea is good, but it falls down when you think that we are SEARCHING the galaxy for these things, have thousands of telescopes, research projects and video cameras. If they didn't care, we would have seen them, unless we can't recognise them. Even then that is unlikely unless they are von neumann probes or similar.

Look at earth's scientists: We experiment with all creatures we can find to try and find another intelligent species, and scan the universe for signs of life as we know it. Surely others would do the same... "are we alone" is a universal question given the size of the universe.

[edit on 14-2-2008 by sufusci]

I don't think they come from anywhere outside of our own universe, and I doubt they come from anywhere outside of our own planet to be honest. I think they're related to Richard Shaver's Dero/faries/daemons and they're partially dimensional, and partially physical, and live either under the sea (the same ships we see would be suitable for undersea use), or inside the earth.

Given we are all about self preservation and the government has been digging all these holes, I think we stumbled across them and they made up the story themselves, and promised the elite power and riches if they could take a few sheeple now and again for 'preservation of the race' tests or some crap.

No, I don't ever think we the people will be in contact, unless its for them to dissect us, but those who are in the know, already get a good bonus from them for letting them play their games. I guess its hard to find out we're no longer the top of the food chain, and that's why its covered up, because those in the know would either get killed, or anarchy would rain down if anything was disclosed, and ultimately, I think the people in the know, ACTUALLY know now they aren't aliens so they won't disclose because they wouldn't really and truly want half the population to be taken away on 'giant spaceships' and slaughtered for food or whatever we are to them because they loose the taxes and the lifestyles they lead.

So, its just about keeping it all quiet and trying to balance out the fact people have seen them themselves with the story we think is true, against the government saying they don't exist so we aren't truly scared that we might be completely unable to do anything about them as a race. If they can phase in and out of our reality, what can we do to harm them, probably nothing.

Ok, never heard that one either.

Firstly: Why are they there but won't contact? If they are superior it wouldn't matter.
Secondly: Why do you assume every government would be able to keep this under wraps? They can't cover up a blowjob let alone hyperdimensional fairies who feed on us!
Thirdly: Not only are you assuming that *every* change in government would have the same policy, but you are assuming that they would give up in the face of adversity. That isn't how we evolved to where we are, and if it truly is what has happened the human race is doomed. I don't believe it for a second sorry!

Originally posted by sufusci

I don't buy the government conspiracy theory. If I were a member of a super advanced alien race, I would surely not take orders from bush, or anyone in that crazy place. They are smart enough to build an intergalactic spaceship, surely they can make the decision on their own whether to contact or not. They wouldn't be interested in our resources or anything else the government had to offer, due to our lack of technological development.

Maybe they didn't take orders from Bush. Maybe they took orders from Kennedy. I don't exactly agree with your analysis because I believe that if we were an alien race travelling to someone else's planet, we wouldn't do something as stupid as landing in the biggest city and saying, "Look! Here we are!" It would cause chaos. Particularly if the planet had never seen aliens before. What we would probably do is determine the most powerful person/gov't on the planet, make contact with them, and open a dialogue about whether we should reveal ourselves. If he said no, then we probably wouldn't. In our eyes, he can probably better guage whether the people of the planet would be ready better then we can.

For intergalacic travelers, I'm sure that being the *first* aliens to arrive at a planet would be a big responsibility that they probably would rather not deal with. It's like, "Oh, we have to do the whole, "here we are" thing. We have to explain to them new mathematical equations, how old the universe is, if there's an afterlife, etc. etc." It just might not be worth it. And if it is, there's probably a call back to homebase made to brief them, let them know that the planet IS ready, and then a 50-100 year journey to bring the "explainers" in. It's very likely that a lot of these UFOs are driven by really really advanced biochemical robots who aren't built to explain things, only to fly and survey.

Outside of that, there could be about 1 million other alien reasons why they don't make contact. Reasons that we can't undertand because we're not alien.

"There could be a million reasons."
But, in the absence of any information we should take the simplest answer right?

"I don't exactly agree with your analysis because I believe that if we were an alien race travelling to someone else's planet, we wouldn't do something as stupid as landing in the biggest city and saying, "Look! Here we are!" It would cause chaos."
1. The moon.
2. Mars
3... whats next for us?

"Particularly if the planet had never seen aliens before."
Firstly, how would the aliens know they were first? Secondly a huge % of the population believes in aliens right, or believes they have seen them. They would most likely think this is run of the mill if they read ATS

"What we would probably do is determine the most powerful person/gov't on the planet, make contact with them, and open a dialogue about whether we should reveal ourselves. If he said no, then we probably wouldn't. In our eyes, he can probably better guage whether the people of the planet would be ready better then we can."

That is the a good logical reason. Good point. Perhaps they wouldn't go for power but influence/intelligence, as they probably realise power leads to corruption. But determining this would be much harder for them.

Counter point: That would mean that they wouldn't show themselves at all (debunking all the sightings etc) and that they would leave if the government had told them to go. Either way they aren't here right?

"For intergalacic travelers, I'm sure that being the *first* aliens to arrive at a planet would be a big responsibility that they probably would rather not deal with. It's like, "Oh, we have to do the whole, "here we are" thing. We have to explain to them new mathematical equations, how old the universe is, if there's an afterlife, etc. etc." It just might not be worth it. "

Good point. But then there is no point in coming in the first place, and all the sightings/experiences are debunked.

"And if it is, there's probably a call back to homebase made to brief them, let them know that the planet IS ready, and then a 50-100 year journey to bring the "explainers" in. It's very likely that a lot of these UFOs are driven by really really advanced biochemical robots who aren't built to explain things, only to fly and survey."

Von neumann probes. Perhaps longer than that timeframe, assuming they havent broken the laws of physics. Good point. Doesnt explain the sightings etc though.

"Outside of that, there could be about 1 million other alien reasons why they don't make contact. Reasons that we can't undertand because we're not alien."
Thats a cop out I am sure aliens would use Occams razor as well as us.

[edit on 14-2-2008 by sufusci]

I think about the "how can the goverment cover this up when they can't cover up simple things" question too. But the answer might be simpler than you think. True they couldn't cover up Monica Lewinsky, but adultery is something that is very believable. Even if it hadn't been true, people still would've believed it. UFOs are quite a different story. Since no one's ever confirmed one, it's a lot harder to buy. Plus the government has the ultimate cover-up method if someone does leak UFO information: Acting like it's beneath them to even address the issue of someone claiming to have seen a UFO. It's that simple. Cover-up successful. Also, the government actually HAS admitted that they've seen UFOs. Just look at the Disclosure Project. Dozens of high-ranking government officials are saying they saw UFOs. Some even say they've seen aliens (Phillip Corso). But until you grab an alien and run up to George Bush with cameras rolling and say, "Hey President. Are there aliens on this planet?", our president ain't gonna disclose nothing.

Look, here's the simplest and most basic reason for why every government in the world is able to cover this up. Because it's not a collective cover-up. It's individual. IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO UFO TECHNOLOGY/ALIEN INFO, you gain an extreme military edge over your enemies. Even if you didn't want to do this, you would have to, as you would have to assume that your enemies might themselves have access to a UFO/aliens. Therefore you learn the techology, incorporate it, and keep quiet about it no matter what. If we have supreme military power, we continue to be the most powerful country in the world. If other countries gain that info, they increase their chances to become more powerful. Also, you cannot risk that your enemies know that you have access to alien technology. That causes fear. And fear leads to war.

Don't kid yourself that the government can't hide things over many many years either. Look into the FOIA documents and you'll find plenty of stuff that they were able to cover up for a half-century or more. It's clear they know who killed Kennedy. That was even taped. But they've managed to keep that covered up since the 60s.

Do I think UFOs are flying around all the time? No. Do I think they've been here? I'm 95% sure. The way Corso talks and with his impeccable record and how trustworthy the guy seems to be, there doesn't appear to be any reason for him to lie. The *only* thing I can think of is that he has a daughter (I think) and knew he was going to die soon. It looks a little bit like maybe - just maybe - he might have written it to leave her some money. Pure speculation on my part though.

"IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO UFO TECHNOLOGY/ALIEN INFO, you gain an extreme military edge over your enemies"

This would be a great answer, if one country had a significant advantage over another. If USA does have advanced alien technology they sure haven't used it!

I mean come on, have you looked at darpa lately? People are working on cool stuff, sure, but nothing lightyears ahead of everyone else. Maybe 2-5 years.

Another problem with your proposition is that the aliens, who by all rights are smarter than us, would obviously see the USA for what it is, and never in their right minds give them advanced technology.

Disclosure project could be correct, but it doesn't explain why they havent announced. No one on earth trusts the USA, why would aliens?

I still can't get my head around it...

wait, I don't understand. You just want to know why there are sightings?

Here's my take on sightings. I think 99% of sightings have logical explanations. Most people just had a weird experience, strange circumstances, phenomena, experimental miliary craft, they're lying, whatever. As for that 1% (or even less), I believe those could be alien ships. And I believe the reason they're seen is accidental. Yes, I said it. I believe that aliens do make mistakes.

Sure, they have this light-years ahead of us technology, but they are not infalliable. A cloaking device could easily be turned off accidentally. Maybe some lightning. Maybe the wrong switch. I don't know. But to think that all aliens are superhuman and never make mistakes is silly. I personally subscribe to the theory that this may not even be their technology.

Here's a scneario for you. You're an alien race like Earth. You eventually travel out to the third planet furthest from your sun and you discover... gasp... a crashed ship from millions of years ago. You gain everything you can from this ship, and have your people begin to back-engineer it, which allows you to now travel outside of your solar system. Now clearly, this alien civilization is not going to be nearly as good of a space-travelling species as the aliens who built the original ship. So they're going to make some mistakes. However, they do eventually find their way to earth. And when they send out their scout ships, they're a little glitchier than they were back in testing. Some mistakes are made. They're seen. Etc. My point being that we don't know what the history is of these aliens. We're just assuming they have million year old technology and they're super-geniuses. Who knows the unique circumstances that brought them here. Maybe they received their spaceship instructions via intergalactic fax a la "Contact". Who knows???

Another thing you have to remember is the lifespan of these guys is probably a LOT longer than ours. This allows them to be verrrry patient. If they come to our planet, who says they have to make contact RIGHT NOW? Maybe the whole point of observing us is trying to guage when we'll be ready. If these guys live for a thousand years, then they'll have no problem waiting us out another 30 years until we can better handle their arrival. So don't think that just because they haven't announced themselves to us yet that they're not planning on it.

No, I am interested in reconciling why aliens don't make contact, if they are indeed here, yet "seem" to show themselves accidentally. I cant think of any reason that doesn't have big logic problems.

Your story is interesting, but occams razor would say there simply are no aliens at all in our vicinity. I dont like to make assumptions about alien history or lifespan, just what would make sense when they got here. Coming millions of lightyears from a distant system only not to make contact, make a pact with the USA, give USA weapons just doesnt stack up. I am not that smart and it wouldn't take long for me to understand that disclosure would be best for any civilisation, unless you were aiming for annihilation

I just can't see any reason if there are aliens why they wouldn't make contact. Can you think of any others?

[edit on 14-2-2008 by sufusci]

I still think the military reasoning is a very strong one. DARPA? Do you really think the U.S. would make their alien technology public? Any of that stuff is way way under wraps and the reason you haven't seen it is because we haven't had to use it yet. If we went to war with China, trust me, that sh*t would come out.

As for why the U.S.? I mean, I think the way an alien race might see us is as young falliable child. They're not going to expect perfection from such a young planet. I'm sure if they had some magic wand they could wave to make us all happy and gay, they would wave it. But in reality, we probably haven't done anything worse than what was once done on their planet. We need to learn on our own.

I personally believe that all intergalactic alien races are very very peaceful. I believe this because I believe you have to be peaceful in order to survive long enough to leave your solar system. When the bombs get big enough to destory entire planets, the only way you can survive is to find peace. But, at the same time, you cannot impose peace on someone else. They have to learn it for themselves.

As for the military secrecy, I was referring more to crashed UFOs. Not so much an alien race coming in and offering up their newest laser to us.

I don't buy why they WOULD make contact. Ockham's Razor is all well and good, but it's not the end all be all solution. You're assuming it took them so long to get here. If their lifespan is 5000 years and they developed a technology to travel faster than the speed of light and got here in 30 years, then an immediate need to make contact wouldn't seem so important.

Like I said. Maybe they're probe robots (bio robots that look to *us* like aliens). We sent a robot to Mars (be it a primitive one). 500 years from now we'll have robots that look and act like humans. Those are probably the first ones we'd send to another solar system. Those guys could care less if they made contact. They'd just do what they were told and collect data. Once they came back, then we'd send out the human ships. That's a perfectly logical reason for why they don't make contact in my eyes.