How would aliens go about finding and studying our planet?

They would look for signs of life...

For example, if you examined the atmosphere of earth from far off, you'd see that levels of carbon dioxide rise and fall......because of seasons.....and the die off of plants during the winter months.

This would be a solid indicator of life of some sort.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


I am not that positive of this, because it depends on how like us their curiosity is and depends on what cost as well as resources means to them on their planet.

If they are at a point where resources are plentiful and have gotten rid of any kind of barter/currency system, then it would not mean much to create a ship to come all the way here and view first hand.

However if they are low on resources and they still have a barter/currency system in place, it would be more cost effective and resource effective to monitor from afar.

reply to post by MarkusMaximus


How easy would it be able to detect these changes from far out in our galaxy or even another galaxy for that matter?

An advanced race a million years ahead of us would at the least be sending robotic probes to all the habitable planets and would be interested in us if not as peers, maybe as zoo creatures. If there is a Grand Council then visitors would have to get permission to come to Earth. Maybe even have to follow a non-interference rule. I would hope that if our planet (and our lives) were ever endangered by an outside force then the aliens would care enough about us to come to our rescue.

reply to post by AlienCarnage


i wanted to see the ones that were drug induced. i think thats what you were talking about. soooo both, to compare. please, that would be awesome

Originally posted by AlienCarnage
reply to post by MarkusMaximus

 

How easy would it be able to detect these changes from far out in our galaxy or even another galaxy for that matter?

This is the problem: the limitation of direct observation is directly correlated to the limitation of our ability to observe in the first place.

Honestly, this kind of observation (atmospheric) is done by our scientists with spectral analysis. We can see fluctuations of gases on exoplanets today, using power telescopes.

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
Of course, they may want to come for a closer look. But would it necessarily be a hands-on look? It follows that any species advanced enough to reach Earth would be advanced enough to monitor us from a safe distance. Doubtful they would need to enter our atmosphere, unless for special circumstances. They could collect specimens for further study, but I doubt this would account for the abduction phenomenon; any species advanced enough to come here (and advanced enough to splice our genes together to make a hybrid) would not need an on going specimen collection program.

Not necessarily. It seems highly possible to me that such a species might want to have a population of humans in "captivity" for further study or use. Now, I am not suggesting they would be enslaving us. But there are two very good reasons for why an alien race might want to sustain their own population of off-world humans.

1) Research. The best way to study a new creature is to be able to perform experiments directly. Now, they don't have to be hostile experiments... humans aren't stupid and would obviously not like to be mistreated. Some creatures in our zoos arguably live very pleasant lives. But the fact that they are raised in captivity allows us to examine them more closely.

2) Relations. If an alien species wanted to someday make contact with us, what would be the best way to do it? Who would make the best diplomats? The answer: More humans. And how do they get humans that they can trust, to speak for them? By raising these humans off-world.

In either of these scenarios, you have a situation where one species is trying to sustain a population of another species. In order to sustain such a population you have to occasionally re-introduce genetic varieties into the gene pool. This, I think, would be a possible explanation for alien abductions: To sustain an off-world gene pool of humans.

When I think about such questions I start where Humans are right now. My "guess" is that in the next 50-100 years we will of found life bearing planets through the technology and projects that come online or are operating right now. So it is very possible that we will find these planets long before we have the ability to communicate or travel to them.

For instance say another Civilization was at our current level of tech. during the end of the Dinosaurs and found the Earth via their telescopes, satillites etc. This Civilization now has to wait 65 million years before the first songs of technology escape the Earth.

That is one long wait.

Ok so now lets say this civilization has survived all this time. I think its safe to say they have outgrown radio tech long ago. I would also hazard to say that after 65 million years of development our race has exactly nothing to offer them except perhaps as a curiosity. So here is this race of ancient beings and their tech is so advanced we could not even ID it as technology, we probably think their constructs are part of the natural universe.

We look to the sky and wonder "are we alone" but little do we realize that Quazars are navigational beacons and that our solar system was "terraformed" by a race even older then then one that found Earth 65 Millon years ago.

In the end its not far fetched to say that the gestation time needed for a bioshphere to reach levels for a technological race to flourish is such that it is very rare for two races to ever meet and have anything in common. However it would be very exciting to live in a solar system where two or more planets in the "Goldilocks zone" have complex life. The people on those worlds would get to see life in ways much sooner then Humans could imagine

reply to post by Helmkat


I can’t imagine our human civilization lasting for 65 million years, which is why I suppose it is hard for me to imagine an alien one doing so as well.

Someone once chastised me for mentioning how out of control our population growth is, but if you look over the past 2000 years alone, how much population growth we have had, if we continue this way for the next 2000 years, we could defiantly populate every bit of space on land on this planet. I couldn’t even imagine what it would look like in say 65 million years at its current rate. People claim that wars help with population control, but that is not entirely true because many soldiers are fathers or mothers before and even after entering military life, not all but many.

We would have to either control the population, which is not always a good idea, or expand out into the universe on planets that could possibly support life that we can confirm the best of our knowledge is lifeless and start terra-forming and populating them.

I suppose if another alien race was in the universe they might have a similar problem on their planet and have the idea to do the same, they may have already started.

They could just follow the stench. Depends if they have nose like organ I guess.

Oh great now I have mental image of a giant alien nose going "Snif Snif"..."NOM NOM"

Originally posted by AlienCarnage
I can’t imagine our human civilization lasting for 65 million years, which is why I suppose it is hard for me to imagine an alien one doing so as well.

One thing is for certain: No society could last for 65 million years.

Even if the biological descendants of a society from 65 million years ago existed today:
1. They would have physically evolved into other types of organisms.
2. Their society itself would have evolved into something else entirely.

reply to post by AlienCarnage


Humans are faced with so many issues right now that it is hard to see past them.

However lets look at the race that found Earth 65 millon years ago and "speculate" on where their advancement may of taken them. I think the biggest advancement that would address their problems (if they were like ours) is the cracking of and manipulation of their genetic code. Once the puzzle of life is solved then so many issues go away and so many perks arrive...

-Lessen/remove the drive to reproduce.
-Lessen/remove the drive to aggression.
-Live as long as you want, at any age you want.
-Improved Intellect

At some point the shape of their bodies no longer has meaning. Members of this society alter their genes to be who they want or live in any enviroment they like. Want to sing like a bird? alter your genes and grow three voiceboxes. Want to live like a mermaid? alter you genes and grow gills and fins.

The line between machine and life has probably disappeared altogether.

I cannot imagine what motivates such a people, perhaps they spend their time looking into alternate universes or create "big bangs" as a form of entertainment.

In any case its not to hard to imagine that our planet holds no real interest for them. They would look at our world and see billions of "wild things" who have not even learned how to control their own instincts. Maybe they would see us the same way we look at mice, with an attitude of "Someday they might be interesting."

If our planet is being visited today and this scenario is something close to the mark it would explain why there has been no disclosure. From the Alien side of things its like "Haha, how do we Disclose our presence to -mice-" and from the Human side of things it would be such a huge blow to our racial egos to discover we are something less then special it could harm us beyond recovery.

reply to post by AlienCarnage


I will simply answer your question here...

How would aliens go about finding and studying our planet?

I do not think they had to find us.. They are the ones who put us here!
They are the ones who made us into the beings we are right now..
We have not even gotten far enough to understand that little point..

The big questions are, where did they come from? Who created them? And how did they come about in this universe..
I fully belive we where put here, and placed.. Thus no need to try to track us in the HUGE universe.. We are in a nursury.

Double post.... Happens when you click reply 2 times really fast thinking you are clicking a damn link..lol

[edit on 22-7-2010 by zysin5]

reply to post by AlienCarnage


oxygen is the most important chemical when it comes to our kind of life. We want the next generation of space telescopes to be able to detect oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets. If we find one thats quite old (3+ billion years) theres only one way we know of that oxygen could be replenished into the atmosphere...life. (photosynthesis in plants & some microbes produce oxygen) so the presence of oxygen infers the presence of life.

earth has been sending out an oxygen signal for 2 billion years any ET with a good enough telescope in our galaxy would know our planet is a good candidate for life. Assuming they are oxygen breathing life forms too.

[edit on 22-7-2010 by yeti101]

Originally posted by monguzi
reply to post by AlienCarnage

 

i wanted to see the ones that were drug induced. i think thats what you were talking about. soooo both, to compare. please, that would be awesome

I apologize, I missed this post yesterday.

The following are links two classic alien pictures

www.ufoevidence.org...
www.ufoevidence.org...

The following are links to paintings I think are similar, though I must say i can not be positive that they are drug induced (could just be good artist imagination), but to me they point to that. These are the first two that come to my mind when I hear alien descriptions.

oaks.nvg.org...
lindykehoe.com...

If you look at the second artists other works they are more of the same eye shape similar to the second alien story above.

[edit on 7/23/2010 by AlienCarnage]

reply to post by yeti101


That would certainly be a more efficient way of searching for life. It would also eliminate the hope that signals used were the same as ours.

If advanced alien life does exist I would hope that they would have realized to use a similar method.

The thing that bothers me with an advance alien race, possibly more advanced than ours, is that we notice on this planet alone it is a fight for survival not just in human life with wars, but even in animals and even some plants, why would in not be the same on an alien planet. Why would they not have the same greed and vanity etc. that has impeded our progress here on earth? Would they have gotten past the point of warring within their own species to a point where they could reach to the stars in ships that could reach us, or would they have wiped themselves out by war and using up natural resources and destroy their planet.

Even if we are able to locate an oxygen signature, it is possible that when we trace it back, we find a barren world that was abuse by its occupants and no longer has the components for maintaining life.

Of course that would be the bleakest possible outcome of the search, hopefully I am wrong about my bleak outlook.

reply to post by AlienCarnage


One thing I take for granted is that any civilization that has reached the interstellar travel phase is that they have a very long range view of things. When they look at the Earth right now they see one spieces in a mad dash to consume all the resources. They also see that for all our conflict, we are much more interested in reproduction (LOL how much Human porn is there beaming across space??!! someday we are going to be SO embarrassed!).

Anyway I would expect the Homeworld of such a civilization to fall into certain models

Groomed: Huge tracts of the planet are terraformed. All very efficent.

Fallow: Once the Civilzation mastered their genecode and interstellar travel, they up and leave. Their constructs are consumed by geological forces of the planet.

The desolation scenario would occur when a species does not gain control of its need to reproduce and consume, it just collapses upon itself.