Question For skeptics

do you guys believe there's absolutely no alien life outside planet earth, or you only doubt of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life (due to lack of real tangible proof i started having doubts that there's intelligent life out there) ? there's a difference here and it's important to distinguish one thing from the other.

if there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

reply to post by Picollo30


I think the standard answer is that there is no evidence of visitation. As far as life existing elsewhere in the universe, no one denies that possibility but again, no evidence. Aliens visiting, some would say is not possible others think it could be possible. Its the lack of evidence that's key.

if there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

Very few of us would deny the existence of other intelligent life in the universe.

What many of us would debate is the infallibility of every YouTube video showing "EVIDENCE OF ET!!!! OMG!!!!!" or all these eye whiteness stories of jim down the road who saw a UFO or that old guy who was abducted or whatever crop circle you want to show me

Does intelligent life off our planet exist, well for my money it is a mathematical inevitability.

But again, that does not mean that we have been visited or continue to be visited by ET in his spaceship.

This is a common point raised by people who believe in ET visiting earth, that us skeptics are totally ignorant to believe that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. That is just simply not true, sure I believe that there could exist a species on some distant world that is just advanced or more advanced that our own. However it is a hell of a jump to go from that to saying that this same species is regularly visiting our little blue planet to cameo on your best mates YouTube channel.

Another point i would raise is that when it comes to UFO's i would never say that I absolutely believe 100% that earth has never been visited, I think it is possible that a few thousand years ago we may have been but I have yet to see solid proof of this. What probably labels me a skeptic and others like is that I dont fall over myself with excitement every time i see a high flying plane or "new" evidence on my favorite conspiracy website.

And dont even start me on the Martian Rocks.......

Really if we were being visited by ET as often as some in UFOlogy would suggest then we would not even be having this debate.

The truth is that we are still waiting for solid proof we are being visited by ET.

reply to post by Picollo30


Once had a church deacon tell me imfatically that earth was the only place in the universe with intelligent life.
He ask me why I was smiling, but did not like it when I told him, I had never thought "if there is a heaven" there could be no intelligent beings there.
I have always been told that GOD lived in heaven, not on earth, but I guess someone had not thought the situation all the way through.

Yes, as everyone has said, the question isn't of existence, but of visitation.
The few people whom reject the idea of life being somewhere out there are actually not skeptical at all, typically they fall into the religious category.

I don't know a skeptic alive who does NOT believe that alien life is possible. In fact, it's a mystery why your idea comes up so often. It seems an unreasonable reaction when people point out a particular incident as highly unlikely that you jump to the conclusion that these skeptics somehow believe alien life is impossible. It's also an eye-roller every time someone announces, "Given the great vastness of the Universe it is arrogant to believe we are the only life....blah blah blah." Please give it a break. Really. Nobody believes that. You just made it up, a straw man you can subsequently criticize.

Whoever said that? Perhaps you can dredge up a few cases of hubris where a fundamentalist or a rationalist (strange bedfellows) has said alien life is impossible, but those sentiments, particularly nowadays, are few and far between, and inconsequential.

The real question here is why, when someone sees a light in the sky they cannot identify, they immediately jump to: "Aliens!" And when someone says, "Hey, wait a minute. How do you know it's aliens?" we get your opening statement about how it's impossible for there not to be life elsewhere, etc. It's a very weak sentiment, both philosophically and realistically. Every time I see it, which is way too often, my initial reaction is, "Duh!"

So here's the REAL skeptic response. Just because you see a light in the sky that freaks you out does NOT MEAN they are aliens. Get over it. The issue is not so much "Aliens" as it is "Aliens are here." There are valid reasons for thinking that is unlikely, including the limitations of faster than light travel. According to Einstein, it's impossible, and if his theory is correct, that makes a built-in speed limit to the Universe that would effectively prevent "Aliens" from visiting in numbers that make Earth seem like a nearby tourist attraction.

Now, do we KNOW that Einstein is correct, for sure? of course not, but that's what we've got. If you are going to dismiss Einstein, fine. so you are an unrecognized genius that understands all the implications, but you can't just make up fantasies to replace it and therefore "prove" your theories that "Aliens are here." You've got to do better than that. (And frankly, in my personal opinion, there are some very good and interesting theories out there.)

But this idea that "skeptics erroneously believe there is no life elsewhere." is a fallacy from the get go. No skeptic says it. No skeptic believes it, and the only real mystery is why people continue to attribute such a sentiment to them.

It has bee my experience that the only people who claim alien life cannot exist have made that determination due to religious reasons.

Picollo30
do you guys believe there's absolutely no alien life outside planet earth, or you only doubt of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life (due to lack of real tangible proof i started having doubts that there's intelligent life out there) ? there's a difference here and it's important to distinguish one thing from the other.

if there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

edit on 22-2-2014 by Picollo30 because: (no reason given)

Hi I am probably one of the sceptics of sceptics on here do I believe life exits out there of course it does it's a numbers game BUT and it's a big BUT has or does Mog FROM Zog travel to visit Earth I don't think so.

Statistically speaking it seems hard to think we are the only intelligence out there. That being said their has not been 1 single piece of irrefutable evidence to come out in support of alien intelligence visiting this planet.

Thousands of people have abduction stories but without some way to confirm what they are saying then it is just someone telling a story. Cave drawings are still just drawings of what someone interpreted in the past and someone in the current is now interpreting. Not 1 single clear picture or video that has been released anywhere. Sure maybe some guy in some remote village managed to be that one person to get a clear video , since no one else can, and he doesn't want to post it but until he posts it no one knows about it.

Don't get me wrong , I want to believe but I need more than words to believe it and right now blurry pics/videos and words are the only proof their is.

OtherSideOfTheCoin

if there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

Very few of us would deny the existence of other intelligent life in the universe.

What many of us would debate is the infallibility of every YouTube video showing "EVIDENCE OF ET!!!! OMG!!!!!" or all these eye whiteness stories of jim down the road who saw a UFO or that old guy who was abducted or whatever crop circle you want to show me

Does intelligent life off our planet exist, well for my money it is a mathematical inevitability.

But again, that does not mean that we have been visited or continue to be visited by ET in his spaceship.

This is a common point raised by people who believe in ET visiting earth, that us skeptics are totally ignorant to believe that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. That is just simply not true, sure I believe that there could exist a species on some distant world that is just advanced or more advanced that our own. However it is a hell of a jump to go from that to saying that this same species is regularly visiting our little blue planet to cameo on your best mates YouTube channel.

edit on 22-2-2014 by OtherSideOfTheCoin because: (no reason given)

you are right on that OtherSideOfTheCoin,, the hoaxes and bull# stories are killing the belief of many of us. when i was younger i used to "devour" books related to the ufo/alien phenomena, some of the stories seemed so real and fantastic that it would be inevitable to embrace the subject.

nowadays in the 21st century we have the technological means to prove these things are real, yet we only see fakes, hoaxes, cgi videos,abduction stories that only the gullible believe, as for the proof there's 0 proof. have the aliens stopped visiting us so fast or what?

there's one thing that i find strange though. in the 50's, 60's and 70/80's we had pics taken that showed sauced shaped objects in the sky, even the ww2 plane fighters saw these things. but in the 90's and 2k's these things stopped showing up, why?

there was no cgi or means of faking photos in the 50's and 60's to my knowledge. so what were those things? experimental projects by the us and russians?

reply to post by Picollo30

if there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

There's believing and knowing.

You may as well believe in Jesus floating up to heaven, the seas actually parting, an ark that held every living creature and the earth is 6000 years old, if you believe in aliens, simple for the sake of believing in aliens.

As I have said before, there is evidence, lots of evidence, whether it be radar contacts, to abduction evidence, to markings on the ground where ufo's have been to additional evidence of abductees, and many people who have had close contact with a ufo have had medical conditions from this contact, usually related to radiation burns of some type, and so on. Its your choice, whether to accept this evidence or not.

data5091
As I have said before, there is evidence, lots of evidence, whether it be radar contacts, to abduction evidence, to markings on the ground where ufo's have been to additional evidence of abductees, and many people who have had close contact with a ufo have had medical conditions from this contact, usually related to radiation burns of some type, and so on. Its your choice, whether to accept this evidence or not.

edit on 22pm28pm5091 by data5091 because: (no reason given)

Except all of the items you listed are refutable or can be argued as possibly being something else or are based on someone''s perception of what they are looking at.

I could capture a video of me throwing a rock into a lake and see the rings it forms and that is irrefutable proof that throwing the rock in caused the rings.

If I just captured video from the point the rings showed up people would have multiple different stories what caused it.

data5091
As I have said before, there is evidence, lots of evidence, whether it be radar contacts, to abduction evidence, to markings on the ground where ufo's have been to additional evidence of abductees, and many people who have had close contact with a ufo have had medical conditions from this contact, usually related to radiation burns of some type, and so on. Its your choice, whether to accept this evidence or not.

edit on 22pm28pm5091 by data5091 because: (no reason given)

the evidence i see is nowadays is youtube cgi videos, fake crop circles, fake abduction stories by people who are in need of attention, etc. sorry mate but i need solid evidence and so far i've seen none. the mistery for me is what were those flying saucer shaped things in the 50's 60's and 70's and if they were fake how could they have been faked without the tech.

truth to tell, there has been pulenty of irrefutable evidence......that unknown and unchallengeable aircraft have been flitting about the earth.....
Who or what flies these solid and physical craft is unknown publicly, but I suspect is well known in some circles....
Really its not possible to mistake a "walnut shaped craft, the size of an aircraft carrier) for any earthly object.
Especially since radar and visual confirmation were so plentiful.......
This happened over Alaska....
The facts show that some unknown aircraft are being reported regularly ever since radar became operational on a world wide scale.
People can be fooled but the combined observations of radar and humans cannot be denied.
Other, instances of contact have been relegated to obscurity.
Pescara Italy, was a point of contact in the fifties......much film and testimony supports this.....
Provence France, a miniscule "saucer" landed in a lavender field and was observed and traces were found that indicated the landing......
Early warnings by people like Maj.D Keyhoe, and others have been covered up and marginalised in true government fashion....
Our minds refuse to examine the facts unemotionally.......that's the advantage the denyers use to refute them...

reply to post by opethPA


Will respectfully disagree with you on this. In most cases, the evidence cannot be explained any other way. There are many many cases with evidence that have stood the test of time, not all, but many. There are a couple of good books on the subject, one I read recently by a Ph.d named Don Donderi, who recently looked through all the evidence of many of the biggest cases going back to the mid 1900's, and who has decided that we are indeed being visited by some extraterrestrials, and yes I do believe him. His book is called " UFO's ET'S and Alien Abductions."

reply to post by stirling


then why dont we see these things more often? why in the 50's or the 60's and not now that we have the equiment to record these things and show them to the world?

reply to post by Picollo30

If there are other planets why can't there be conditions for life? i think it's kinda selfish to believe we and our planet are so unique.

The first thing which should be addressed and defined is; what conditions are necessary for life on other planets to exist?
Life has been found here on earth in environments which will easily kill other living organisms which live right next to them. Live has been found in the depths of the oceans and the edges of space around our home planet.
We have the opinion that we are the only "intelligent life" but we are basically the only ones we can really make such a comparison to others around us. Until we can communicate with other species, how will we really know?

reply to post by teamcommander

We have the opinion that we are the only "intelligent life"

Correction: We have the opinion that we are the only "intelligent life" in our solar system.

data5091
Will respectfully disagree with you on this. In most cases, the evidence cannot be explained any other way. There are many many cases with evidence that have stood the test of time, not all, but many. There are a couple of good books on the subject, one I read recently by a Ph.d named Don Donderi, who recently looked through all the evidence of many of the biggest cases going back to the mid 1900's, and who has decided that we are indeed being visited by some extraterrestrials, and yes I do believe him. His book is called " UFO's ET'S and Alien Abductions."

Except I didn't say anything about proof standing the test of time, I said show me 1 piece of proof that can't be argued as:

1. Misidentified
2. Human Error
3. Not based on someones perception.

Again keep in mind that as I opened my first post on this thread with statistically speaking the odds would clearly point to us as not being the only intelligent life but for me to believe they are visiting this planet I need at least 1 piece that can't be argued.