Scientists to Congress - Aliens Exist.

To those that are skeptical about alien intelligence dropping in, well, just look at the basic, well investigated cases... you don't have to swallow the more "wild" claims. The simplest explanation is we were visited for an extended period in the latter half of the 20th century, at least. Discounting that then discounts any knowledge you yourself didn't originate.

People you know and trust may well have sightings and further experiences, too. People are wary about talking. Someone has been veeery effective keeping this (mostly) secret and UFO ding-bats do a good job invalidating it, too, but that core of good cases indicates they've been here.

It IS mind blowing and just opens up a plethora of questions, and some of the wilder claims might be accurate, too, but it's moot. The basic fact remains that alien visitation is the simplest explanation.

Science now agreeing that life is everywhere is just icing.

It is interesting what can be extrapolated about this world and our species from that fact, though. We're likely engineered and monitored ...but that's just educated guessing.

The evidence just tells us they have been here.

originally posted by: EnPassant
a reply to: EnigmaAgent

The idea that life is common in the universe is based on the materialistic idea that life arises spontaneously from matter.

Um,'the materialistic idea that life arises spontaneously from matter' is nowhere near a pre-requisite idea for believing in life being common in the universe...not sure where you got that at all...

In fact, if anything your post just shows an underlying assumption on your part that the universe is pre-eminently matter, if anything.

originally posted by: eriktheawful
I know there can be speculation about life being based on other elements, but for now, and since that is purely speculative, let us stick with "life as we know it", since we know it worked here.

Actually, they have officially discovered arsenic-based life on earth...

www.washingtonpost.com...

Which of course only makes the odds of extra-terrestrial life higher, not that it wasn't nearly certain anyways.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: SonoftheSun
Seth Shostak:


In the same line of thought, I fully disagree with Stephen Hawkin's point of view on the matter.

S&F.

Why? Even with us, do you think we would be the nice alien, or do think we would rape, pillage, plunder and eat their planet into a lifeless hulk?

We don't have a very good track record so far and we are talking about our own planet/species.

change the word we or us to me or I then repeat your view of mankind. Put your father or mother in the equation. Your son or daughter. Do you or they behave the way you described the people of earth. Sure it's always the other guys who are the evil ones. What about a our tendencies to lend a hand, contribute to a worthy cause, kiss a baby, sit and tell stories to children, love our mates, treat an animal with kindness. Don't these qualities that we certainly possess count ? Where do our teachers, our doctors fit into your view?

Yes, the numbers themselves do not actually prove that life is out there, much less intelligent life. Even as big as those numbers are, it does not give us a 100% must be answer.

However, when you think about those number (and they are staggeringly big number), the odds that life does exist elsewhere.......are quite huge.

It's like a horse race. Let's say you have 10 horses. Out of those 10 horses, 9 are quite lame in some way: one has a bad hip, another has a fractured leg that has not healed, 3 of them are near starvation...etc.

But one of the horses is in prime condition with nothing wrong with it at all.

Which horse would you bet on?

That is what those numbers about the stars say: it's a sure thing, or in the bag.

Again, it does not "prove" that life is out there, but here is another thing for anyone to simply think about:

Earth.

Think about the life that we have here. How many different species of plants and animals exist here? Not only in the macro world we see with our own eyes everyday, but thing about the micro world, the amount of different types of bacteria and viruses that are out there.

Then once you've thought about that: now add in ALL the numbers for extinct plants, animals and microscopic life.

The number is again, staggering.

Life itself is very prolific. Think about all the different extinction level events that have happened through the Earth's history, and how life has bounced back from those.

Then think about one more small thing: The Earth and every single thing on it came from......space, or rather the things in space. Every element. Every molecule. It all came together and made the Earth....and life is here.

What are the odds that it only happened here on Earth and no where else?

Well, remember the estimate of how many starts in the universe?

1 in 250 million quadrillion.

I always had issues with Drake's equation...

The "ne" variable of Drake's equation is so wrong... what exactly is a "planet able to sustain life"? What, life as we know it? Carbon based? That breathes oxygen? Even in our own planet we have life that doesnt live by our own "set of rules".

Life can happen anywhere, from any conditions... any planet can be "able to sustain life" - life can begin inside a star or in the void of space for all we know (and we do know of living organisms that can survive in space)...

The Drake equation is probably the last scientific (if we can call it that) formula that is still the same after 50 years - come on, things were so different back then - are we sure we want to keep using something so dated after all the mind blowing discoveries we've done just in the last 10 years, let alone the last 50. He's still alive... and above anyone else he should know his own equation deserves a revision considering the developments in all fields of science.

originally posted by: eriktheawful

originally posted by: eManym
Lets see, there are 500 billion galaxies with 500 billion stars each. That's 500 billion to the power of 2 stars in the universe. So what is the probability of intelligent life forming on anyone one of those stars? If its 500 billion to the power of 20 to 1 then there is not a very likely chance that intelligent life has formed anywhere else by but here on planet Earth.

Uhm.......no. I'm afraid your math is a bit off.

500 billion (500,000,000,000) galaxies with 500 billion stars each would be:

500,000,000,000 x 500,000,000,000 = 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Or 25 x 10^22 stars or 250 million quadrillion stars.

Now go back and check your odds again.

500,000,000,000 x 500,000,000,000 = 500,000,000,000 to the power of 2
500,000,000,000 x 500,000,000,000 x ....18 more times then that equals 500,000,000,000 to the power of 20

There is nothing wrong with my math. 500,000,000,000 to the power of 2 is insignificant compared to 500,000,000,000 to the power of 20.

500,000,000,000 squared and 500,000,000,000 to the 20th power, is quite a difference. My point is, scientist don't know what the probability is of intelligent life forming on a planet because there is nothing to compare or no other planet has been found that has any lifeforms.

You know the Aliens are probably 100,000's of years ahead of us. Probably though at one time they never had saucers. They probably had their Orville and Wilbur Wright had some sort of flying contraptions and advancements in aviation. If they breathe air and are carbon based like us they may have at one point in the far far distant past internal combustion engines. If that is the case coming here would be like a living museum. Then again maybe we are just in a SIM game in some computer 50,000 years from now where they have been able to model the brain in software. Maybe that is why we only use 10% of our brains, LOL less code to write. Maybe if you turn around really quick before the video card has a chance to do a redraw. .....you turned around didn't you

a reply to: JohnFisher

Sure we should not give up looking..i want people to keep looking.

Its just the claims they make are unscientific which is a real shame. 100% chance? ....no. any scientist who is dedicated to the scientific method will agree with me on that point.

I hope there is life out there , i really do. But lets not throw away real scientific investigation just to get funding.

Unique events do happen in this universe, that's a fact..i hope that the creation of life on this planet is not one of them.

The only way to maintain credibility and integrity in the scientific field is to address things that do not fit in with the theory that you are trying to prove. When seti says that the probability of alien life is 100% they are just embarrassing themselves.

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657

change the word we or us to me or I then repeat your view of mankind. Put your father or mother in the equation. Your son or daughter. Do you or they behave the way you described the people of earth. Sure it's always the other guys who are the evil ones. What about a our tendencies to lend a hand, contribute to a worthy cause, kiss a baby, sit and tell stories to children, love our mates, treat an animal with kindness. Don't these qualities that we certainly possess count ? Where do our teachers, our doctors fit into your view?

I agree on an individual level we can have good and bad, but on a collective level we are bad or evil whatever you want to call it.

The point is we are basically carnivores and hunting other things to eat allowed our brains to develop well beyond a grass eater would, so no matter how you dress it up we are still killers.

So I guess we can place bets on how the first detection will be made:

1) Biosignatures.
2) Detection of intelligent activity.
3) The Big Reveal(tm).

a reply to: EnigmaAgent

I don't understand why he says "close to" 100%
There are so many examples that are unquestionably intelligent controlled with credible witnesses and even radar evidence. He should say 100%.

a reply to: Xtrozero


I wonder if killers are given cosmic permission to eat other killers? I guess what I wonder is if survival of the species would over rule compassion and humanity? For example, if we meet a life form superior to humans and that life form is easily able to subdue us, would they be able to kill and eat us, or farm us for food? Would some galactic ruler come and save us from such a gruesome death? I have to look at what ever we do to our animal friends here, and assume this is also what another species would do to us.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: EnPassant
a reply to: EnigmaAgent

The idea that life is common in the universe is based on the materialistic idea that life arises spontaneously from matter. I don't agree. Life probably does exist out there but it may be extremely rare.

I disagree,

Life on earth happened rather quickly after earth solidified, and earth has set life back to basically simple life form a number of time for it to just explode back on the scene with a plethora of higher life forms. This basically suggests that when conditions are right life will happen.

I would say it is more of a norm than not. Can you imagine an earth like planet with rolling seas and temperature ranges conducive to life and it is totally void of all life...I don't see it happening.

if life needs a spiritual intelligence to iniatiate it and evolve it, it will only arise in the universe wherever spiritual beings decide to start it. Evolution is a project overseen by spirits. I don't believe it just arises out of matter by itself.

originally posted by: TheJourney

originally posted by: EnPassant
a reply to: EnigmaAgent

The idea that life is common in the universe is based on the materialistic idea that life arises spontaneously from matter.

Um,'the materialistic idea that life arises spontaneously from matter' is nowhere near a pre-requisite idea for believing in life being common in the universe...not sure where you got that at all...

In fact, if anything your post just shows an underlying assumption on your part that the universe is pre-eminently matter, if anything.

see my post above this one.

If extraterrestrials are "non-existent," then why do they keep making themselves known to people, since ANCIENT times? You can only ignore the pink elephant in the room for so long...

Dan Werthimer from the University of California and Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, testified before congress there is a near 100 percent certainty aliens exist.

I don't think any sane person today would say that alien life is impossible?

The above doesn't say anything about aliens visiting the earth though, that's another topic.

I disagree. There is 100% life out there, we don't have the means to find it, yet. We have to take care of #1, ourselves. If we had unlimited resources, heck yes, we would find it.

In 2 words, Christopher Columbus.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

same bull# every single time they come out and open their ugly mouths... "microbial life" and "good possibility intelligent life exists!" ... c'mon we are not idiots and we already know that intelligent life exist on other planets...you mean that you DIDN*T?!

originally posted by: Irako
I don't get it. If Shostak is so confident in intelligent alien life existing, why is he so skeptical that a few of those intelligent alien civilizations making their way to other planets, like Earth?? You would think that someone who believes there are alien civilizations out there would at least consider the plethora of UFO evidence that has been compiled over the last several decades. But he is just so overzealous in his skepticism, that it doesn't compute for me.

Because the UFO 'evidence' does not support the idea that aliens are visiting us.

Seth Shostak, who i shared a lunch with once btw, has no problem with the idea that aliens could possibly come here. There just is no good evidence that it's happened.

Additionally, from a logic standpoint aliens visiting earth is just a highly unlikely thing given:

1) How vast space is. You really have no idea how vast space is. The distances between the stars are enormous and its not like interstellar travel will be a commonplace thing as shown in shows like Star Trek, for even a super advanced species.

2) There are literally billions of other Earths within our own galaxy alone. Why come to this one?

3) Anything an alien species might want to learn about us can be learned from a distance of many light years, without sending any ships. Yep, super advanced telescopes. The kind we're planning to build ourselves in the near and distant future, which is why these scientists went before congress. We have the technology to find ET now out there. All we lack is money to build the tools we need.

Seth and most people involved in SETI, astrobiology, exoplanet and other related research would LOVE for there to be aliens visiting the Earth. It would make our job much easier and insure funding forever