31,573 Alien Civilizations in our Galaxy

It depends on what people define as a "alien".
For all we know, we could be the only "Intelligent" creatures out there.
However there may be bacteria on another planet in a galaxy far far away.
I doubt our governments would inform us anyways, the idea of other life may scare some weak minded people into anarchy.

While the evidence for any advanced civilizations in the Galaxy besides our own is lacking, it might be interesting to look at the notion in a different way.

Over the years, I've come to consider that time and space are certainly not as "solid" as we perceive them to be. As little evolved monkeys, barely out of the trees, we have a very limited perception of the structure of spacetime. As I've said before, I like to envision it as resembling a pot of boiling water, only with the addition of multiple dimensions we can't see and have a very difficult time even comprehending (at least I have difficulty). Bits of spacetime in various sized bubble up and through. Pieces pop in and out of virtuality and reality according to the influences of conscious observation, per Heisenberg and Schrodinger. Mass/energy can become trapped in microuniverse bubbles, external to ordinary spacetime, and pop back into our reality at any time or place. And so on.

So considering the idea of potential advanced civilizations within the confines of a temporally static framework might not be the way to look at the possibilities to begin with.

It might be more fruitful to consider how our own advanced civilization manages to exist within spacetime. For instance, suppose the reality of our civilization is only really a matter of a consensus of consciousnesses, going back to the beginning of time. We evolve, grow and advance slowly, because it takes time for new consciousnesses to come into being with new definitions of reality, and for the old consciousnesses to die out. We define ourselves as living within a particularly solid patch of spacetime, and gauge our movements through that.

But if spacetime is not like that at all, and our reality and civilization is only a "convenience" of consciousness, that leaves the door open for all kinds of other possibilities. If time is not linear, which it probably isn't, then any advanced civilization that exists in the galaxy -- including those that ever existed, AND those that will exist someday -- all exist right now, and at all times. This includes any variation of our own civilization, no matter how far into the future it may be.

That means, as long as we continue to survive and exist, we're in essence constantly generating an entire spectrum of advanced civilizations. If we manage to survive another 10,000 years on this planet, our intelligent machines will be sent out into the galaxy and infect it like a virus. But 10,000 years from now is only relative to our existence here. Out in the galaxy, 10,000 years from now is no different from the present. It's the same "time," only in a different place, and place is only a convenience of consciousness.

Once time and space are no longer factors into something like the Drake Equation, which has a hidden (and misplaced) assumption that the calculation is based on some kind of "now," then the time variables become meaningless.

What this also suggests is that rather than a mere 31,000 advanced civilizations possibly existing in the galaxy, the galaxy is actually continuously full of every number from a tiny 1 (us) to nearly an infinite number (not infinite, because civilization is a structure within reality), with the number again reaching 1 when all matter and energy becomes incorporated into a universal consciousness in the future (or the past, or however you want to look at it).

So why aren't we more aware of these other practically infinite number of civilizations? Mostly because we are still relatively isolated in our own reality bubble, where such things don't really exist. Oh, little bits and pieces of the external realities pop in and out sometimes, maybe because of some kind of subconscious awareness of the greater external reality. That's why UFOs so often never seem to really "go" anywhere, but just vanish. And why they always seem to be so diverse. We just don't have enough of a consensus among us to allow these things to intrude on our little bubble of reality, except for just a few fleeting moments. And maybe we never will. That might be the incomprehensible part of the formula, because it requires an agreement of perception that can't be forced, but has to evolve naturally.

As I've said before, thinking about aliens or alien civilizations as minor variants of our own is a kind of dull and unimaginative way of looking at the possibilities, and is based way too much on our extremely limited perceptions of space and time and reality and consciousness. Folks like Frank Drake grew up as kids with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon (and Star Trek, later), so then tend to think of things in that sort of comic book way of bug-eyed aliens with ray guns who want our women. But after pondering the problem for many years, I'm convinced things are not nearly that simple.

At the moment, we're the only game in town. But in a few years (or centuries), maybe we'll get to a point where we tacitly agree that there are billions of advanced civilizations running around the galaxy, from the distant past into the distant future, and then they will exist. Poof! Just like that.

Confusing enough for you?



[edit on 21-10-2008 by Nohup]

i know there is more life in our galaxy. but for someone to claim that they know how many civilizations in our galaxy there are is just ridiculous

Originally posted by Nohup

Originally posted by mopusvindictus
That we are not alone is in reality a given...

Not so. There's a lot of conjecture, a lot of supposition, and a lot of hope that there is life somewhere else besides Earth. But there's not a shred of proof. So it is hardly a "given."

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Nohup]

Your living in your own reality I like to call denial. Have fun for soon enough you will be the only one there, when the rest of us have finally admitted that we are not alone. To me it seems like you are throwing out all evidence just to stay within your belief.

Personally I think those numbers are way to large. I think the first "big boys" in the neighborhood have been playing Whack-A-Mole for a long time. If a race evolves that doesn't fit their needs, a nice asteroid fixes the problem and they wait to see what comes out of the clay this time...

reply to post by LucidDreamer85


So, you're saying you have incontrovertible proof that there are other intelligent life forms in this galaxy? I would love to see it as would the rest of the world since we've been searching for quite a while now and nobody else has turned up anything. The fact of the matter is all we have is theories regarding extraterrestrial life. There is absolutely no hard proof for it. You can point to UFOs all you want, but from what I see all that shows is that there is something unknown flying in our skies, there is nothing about them that screams alien origin. If anyone is in denial in this thread it is the people who keep saying that we are being visited by extraterrestrials or that there are even intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy, despite the lack of evidence. I'm not saying there's not the possibility, but there are plenty of other explanations that are just as probable and have as much evidence supporting them.

I think the end answer is that.. there may be other intelligent life, there may not be, until there is proof to deem that we are or are NOT alone we can't make any assumptions; it is uncertain either way.

Just because there may be other intelligent life forms doesn't mean they MUST be up to our level of "technology," they could be in their own version of the Iron age.. maybe we're the aliens that will visit them first.

The Problem:

Our Scientist are under the belief that all life needs water and oxygen and this is incorrect, humans need this.

When our government retrieved bodies/beings from mishaps they thought they were helping and gave them oxygen to help them breathe but what they did was kill them because they can not survive to much oxygen kills them.

I have written many times that all those stars up there aren't stars. I look forward to the day that this race discovers how ....... they have been.

Mainstream science and belief has always been egocentric and obstructive. They have set us back 100 years in developments by blocking almost every major breakthrough, the stopped us realising the world was round, they stopped us realising the planets orbited the sun, they have stopped people from realising almost every radical development by being pig headed and smug about what they "know".

the news hasn't been good from exoplanet searches so far either.

when astronomers first thought about what other solar systems would be like they assumed they would be like ours. Rocky planets nearer the star with gas giants on the outside and in a fairly stable orbit.

But when we looked at other systems the first thing we saw was huge gas giants close to the star and systems with wildly eccentric orbits. These chaotic systems would be bad for developing complex life.

Bummer but the universe is what it is. I'm still hopefull of finding systems like ours but they wont be as abundant as we first thought.

[edit on 21-10-2008 by yeti101]

Originally posted by observe50

Our Scientist are under the belief that all life needs water and oxygen and this is incorrect, humans need this.

This is true, we have no clue as to what other life may live on or breathe.

When our government retrieved bodies/beings from mishaps they thought they were helping and gave them oxygen to help them breathe but what they did was kill them because they can not survive to much oxygen kills them.

This is an invalid argument as you have no facts based on evidence to back this claim up. The first few lines were correct but but then went into the fantasy realm of this topic.

I have written many times that all those stars up there aren't stars. I look forward to the day that this race discovers how ....... they have been.

Now what are you talking about

[edit on 21-10-2008 by riggs2099]

[edit on 21-10-2008 by riggs2099]

Originally posted by Acidtastic
that link hurt my brain.

I just like to think of it as "lots"

==!==

It hurts my brain when I study that famous "Deep Space" photo from
the Hubble telescope. Just think, in a few years the replacement for
Hubble will be in orbit. It's several times more powerful. I shutter to
think of the awesome images we'll be treated to!

BTW, as others have pointed out, our limited human minds paint The
Creator of the universe(s) into a very small corner. I don't think this
entity would be limited what type of life he creates, or in what dimension.
We could all be living inside of a life form and have no clue whatsoever,
the same way lifeforms (bacteria, etc..) live inside of us. We could be
just as dumb as the bacteria compared to the lifeform we inhabit. Perhaps
the lifeform is God the creator himself!? -cwm

[edit on 21-10-2008 by carewemust]

hello riggs2099,

I can understand on your part when you wrote I have an invalid argument because we are both looking at this from two different prespectives.

When it comes to this subject I don't write from the fantasy realm, I live it.

There is massive life in this Solar System alone, and the beings are within and one day if the people push more so for disclosure they may just discover first with our Moon and Mars.

I think a good place to start is right here on this Planet, Earth. There are quite a few species the Grey's just being one group of groups that are in the deepest of our waters and they are more Terrestrial to this Planet then we are, they were here long before the human race and they actually consider this Planet to be there's.

The one problem I see is this:

The ships travel well, fast in easy terminology.....so fast the human eye doesn't see them. Sightings occur when they slow up or stop so our eyes are capable of seeing something.

I do believe you would get the proof that most here want by simply slowing the motion the camera captures if possible....I know nothing about cameras, Night Vision/(IF) also.

There are ships that are one seaters and there are ships the sizes of Planets and Moons and carry entire Civilizations.

And one last thing when you look at the stars at night if you are lucky you might see a ship finishing for the night and place itself in position for the night and it's looks like a shining star.

Life isn't what you were taught.

Originally posted by Nohup

Originally posted by Wolf321
Yet so many people still think that the mere idea of aliens is laughable. I think if as a whole, we would acknowledge the probability alone, great things could happen.

There's no way to accurately determine the probability of other life (or civilizations) in this galaxy because we know of only one planet with life on it - Earth - and no clue as to how life got here.

Therefore, given all of the available data known at the moment, the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy = 1. The number of planets with life on them = 1.

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Nohup]

Care to explain yourself? And the reason behind your hypothesis? You sound like a full time skeptic other than a scientist with any base on your calculation.

Planets that where life may abound are calculated based on the specifications of this earth because as you say it is the only planet we know with the type of living beings we know, so scientist have to look for what they know, right?

They've already found planets that look a lot like earth (Gliese 581c for example) which is only .5 bigger in diameter compared to earth, and it's not too far from here either (20 light-years).

So basing ourselves on that fact, your probability of 1 has already increased to 2; not only that, that's one out of only 200 and something planets they've been able to detect, on a single galaxy (our own) will a "bailout" number of stars (on the 100 billion count).

If out of every 200 new planets they discover, 1 looks like almost capable of housing a civilization like ours, out of 100,000,000,000 minimum stars.. I mean, my calculator just broke.

Dare to explain where do you come out with such basics with no idea of what's being discussed whatsoever?... really sorry to act that way but I mean I'm totally confused with your calculations...

Originally posted by Nohup

Originally posted by Wolf321
Yet so many people still think that the mere idea of aliens is laughable. I think if as a whole, we would acknowledge the probability alone, great things could happen.

There's no way to accurately determine the probability of other life (or civilizations) in this galaxy because we know of only one planet with life on it - Earth - and no clue as to how life got here.

Therefore, given all of the available data known at the moment, the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy = 1. The number of planets with life on them = 1.

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Nohup]

That's really not correct at all. There are plenty of ideas how we got here. Heck, there were experiments done more than 20 years ago that proved these theories. There are plenty of ongoing studies at NASA to further study these ideas. Where did you get the idea we have "no idea?" Do we have definative proof? Of course not, that's impossible. But they have a pretty good idea of what exactly happened. And there is no reason what occured on our planet, couldn't happen on others. All the elements and ingredients necessary can be found on many planets in the galaxy.

If you want to dig your bunker solidly into the rocks of cold hard facts, feel free. Science typically doesn't work this way. Many discoveries are made based on ideas, hunches, and guesses. These are studied, and facts are uncovered.

I personally believe any who doesn't feel that there is life on other worlds is living in the same mindset of those who were CERTAIN that the Earth was the center of the universe. Or that the moon was made of cheese.

I hold the belief it would be neigh impossible for there to NOT be life. I don't think we are 'so special' so that we are a unique little snowflake in the galaxy. How egocentric. I think not only are there probably hundreds of not thousands of planets that hold life, of those, there are probably dozens.. or even hundreds that hold sentient, intelligent life.

But it's quite blind to say we have "no idea" how we got here, that's just not true.

reply to post by rocksarerocks


That bold statement I just made is the truth. The truth for millions of people on this planet.
They don't get to have evidence. Just testimony. In many cases, joint testimony of others.
In my family, my marker memory occurred at 5, with both a siting of a live grey (and I had no idea what on earth it was. Though thought it was too cold for a fairie or leprecaun and a little on the ugly side). We had several sightings of crafts. The first was at my grandfathers campsite where many saw the larger object, then several smaller objects come from it and zigzag across the sky. I'm not sure if that was when it started or not, I was 3 then. My father was a math teacher with a mensa IQ, and my uncle a physicist turned teacher. Our childhood involved hard work in our orchard, science digest magazines, lots of current event, political discussions and information on science.

Later, my brother and another employee were driving truck for my fathers produce store when they saw a ufo dart behind a cloud. A moment later it came out the other side and angled off. But that moment was a 2 hour leap in time and the truck was 2 hours ahead on the highway. But I didn't put any of it together. The strange things that happened. My memory which I did examine but always had an instant aversion to it, and would forget about it again. When I watched Jim Spark's interviews I was panicked. His account attracted and terrified me. And after things in the past, I was pretty low key, rarely showing emotion except with the children. I didn't think I was very emotive person, not compared to my friends. But when my eyes dropped on his alien script I nearly burst into tears. Then I tried to examine the feelings and had more floods of memories, groups of children. Instruction of some kind.
But wasn't ready to go near any of that yet. Absolutely not ready.

It all came to an end last spring after moving to Chilliwack. At this point I was on a search for some answers. I didn't understand what was happening. Then while having an internal political rant after reading something about nwo agenda, I was thinking the exact words in comparison about Bush and the elite, versus all the people of the world, its poor children ending with "They (the people) represent humanity." I stood up to get a smoke and was rooted to the ground and couldn't move. The words came loudly in my head with emphasis: "WE represent the human race!" I went outside for my smoke and watched a craft, enveloped in a large red light descend to high above the trees just behind the fence and stay there, hovering, oscillating back and forth for 5 minutes. My four boys aged 6-16 at the time all came out to see it. One said "we come in peace!" One climbed the shed and waved at it. That is the moment when I stopped fighting my memories. Not that I get more than I get right now. But I was really afraid for my children! I knew at that very moment what everything meant, and that they wouldn't have left my children alone. I also knew that there wasn't a thought we had they didn't monitor. These things made me feel angry.
Many more sightings. My children called me out to see the black triangle craft that flew over our roof. When we took a trip to the Okanagan to visit relatives. For the first time, I showed my mother pictures of greys online, she doesn't have a computer. She was visibly startled and said she dreams about these often. She thought they were demons or something. We saw a craft again and my 6 year old was terrified suddenly of sleeping, and definately not near the window. He didn't go to sleep until after midnight and finally told me that he thought we were being followed and didn't want them to take him in the night through the window. Now my 17 year old saw something before feeling compelled to sleep, while the cat stood guard at the door growling and shared vivid dreams and missing time with me. I'm very concerned about the entire thing. And nothing seems to work. I've reported 2 of my sightings. Theres no real group here to help us. And I have an overwhelming feeling of not wishing them harm. After all the sightings I refused to go outside in the evening, thinking if we don't see anything they won't touch the kids. But he's fascinated and always calls me out.
We watched a craft, again covered in a large red light, soundlessly and slowly go about its business. Then a short while later he called me out and we watched a helicopter chase it along the mountains to the northwest. It disappeared on them finally. But I felt guilty. Did they just pick it up on radar or was it my fault for reporting it. The last sighting we saw the craft. It flew high over our roof towards town. Inside I was trying to tell my son that being too interested in these guys was not a good idea and that they were conducting experiments. I had felt a kind of contact. He bolted out of his chair and said, "They're back." He ran outside, I followed. They were very slowly, soundlessly flying over our roof again. Then he pointed to a tree 50 feet away. There was an orb there, probably a probe. I asked him if he felt contacted or pinged or something. He said yes.


[edit on 22-10-2008 by mystiq]

[edit on 22-10-2008 by mystiq]

[edit on 22-10-2008 by mystiq]

reply to post by jazket

They've already found planets that look a lot like earth (Gliese 581c for example) which is only .5 bigger in diameter compared to earth, and it's not too far from here either (20 light-years).

lol no Gliese 581c or 571d are nothing like earth. Tidally locked to the star and at such a size they are probably alot more like a mini-neptune.

any planet in the HZ of an M class star will have huge tidal forces exerted on it causing massive internal and surface disruption.

If your going to mention a system that may be like ours i'd go for HD154345. It has a jupiter size planet in a jupiter like orbit with low eccentricity and the star is the same type and age as sol. The big question is does it have smaller rocky worlds closer to the star like our solar system?

What exoplanet research has taught us so far is that nature is more complex than we ever imagined. There could be literally millions of diffirent solar system configurations which are nothing like ours. The earth could be an outlier in terms planets in our galaxy

my prediction is the kepler telescope will find alot less planets like ours than they think.

[edit on 22-10-2008 by yeti101]

Originally posted by jazket
They've already found planets that look a lot like earth (Gliese 581c for example) which is only .5 bigger in diameter compared to earth, and it's not too far from here either (20 light-years).

So basing ourselves on that fact, your probability of 1 has already increased to 2; not only that, that's one out of only 200 and something planets they've been able to detect, on a single galaxy (our own) will a "bailout" number of stars (on the 100 billion count).

From that information you can only calculate the probability of Earth like planets forming. You would need to know of a number of planets that have already developed life to calculate the probable number of planets in the Universe that have done so.

Since this is my first post on this board, I'm not too sure how it will be taken. But this thread caught my eye and made me register for an account because I have one issue with intelligent life on other planets that tends to get missed quite a lot when me and my friends debate the issue.

That issue is time. And I'm not talking about how long it takes for life to take form on a plent, but moreso the fact that as far as we know, "time" has been around for billions of years. And if we take into account how long the average "life span" is for different forms of life on Earth, I think you can safely say that TIME is the biggest way to discredit the belief that there is life out there.

What I'm trying to get across is that, lets say the average life span of any species is... (Just to throw a ballpark number out there) 1 million years. (This is by far over exaggerating.) With that number alone, to expect that life would exist somewhere else in the universe at the same given time that we exist is the hardest concept to swallow. I mean, we can be here for millions of years, but in the scope of things that is milliseconds in the life of the universe.

So to say, 31,000+ other life may exist, isn't so hard for me to accept. But it is hard for me to except that of that number, how many are intelligent, and to add, how many are intelligent that will exist at the same time we do, is a much harder number to swallow.

(For the record I fully believe in intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, I'm just having a hard time accepting they are at the same point - or beyond- as we are, even during our entire span of existance.)