No proof myself, and only one incident of possible sighting in the night sky above Spain, but if I had to give a yes or no answer, I reckon I'd have to say "yes, why not?".

I'm sure many of you lot have an opinion, so, let's hear them.

Can anybody really prove that they aren't here?

I think CaptainFlash is an alien as nobody has ever seen him, but he seems to move about these forums pretty easily!

😉

Theres one in my garage 😉

Well assuming they can travel at the speed of light we've only been giving out electromagnetic radiation for less than 200 years so in terms of identifing a planet as having intellgent life on, then comming here I doubt they would have had time to get here yet considering the distances to even the closest systems outside our solar system.
There are almost certainly other lifeforms on other planets but the distances involved make it impossible to meet uless you freeze yourself for a very very very long time and travel near the speed of light.

Almost certainly not.

I am sure there are aliens out there – but we are too uninteresting for them to bother with us

mafiafish has pretty much the best answer in my opinion, combined with TJs. Unless they have found a way to pass the speed of light we're too far away for them to have come looking for, though they may have stumbled on us somehow while already passing. Even at the speed of light we're so far away from other solar systems that they'd have to be able to live for an incredibly long time.

No reason why not though, but I'm not sure they'd be popping down in spaceships to see us.

Head says no, heart says maybe, would be "nice". As long as there are no face huggers!

The logical side of me thinks there is the possibility that the Earth is the ONLY planet with life on it. Statistics are all well and good but at the end of the day they are only a tool of indication. The universe doesn't have to conform to statistics, just because it can. Maybe the Earth just happens to be the right distance from the right sun type with exactly the right type of moon and right type of other planets in it's system. And maybe it formed at exactly the right time to pick up a certain composition and maybe the right comets/meteors etc have hit at exactly the right time. Plus all the other little bits and pieces, as per Chaos Theory, that add up to this being the only planet where life has formed and will ever form.

Or maybe not.

Speed of light – isn't it right to say that one cannot accelerate to the speed of light and not that nothing can exceed the speed of light? So if there were/are aliens who is to say they couldn't travel to Earth? Again a lot of human arrogance involved here.

If life has or can form elsewhere who is to say that it will coincide in time with our lives here on Earth?

BTW – I am not trying to claim any original though here, just rehashing ideas that have been around in some cases for quite a time and saying that I agree with some of them.

BTW2 – did anyone see Horizon on Weds? "To Infinity and Beyond" very interesting, mindboggling and thought provoking. If you didn't see it and can iPlayer I recommend a watch.

I think the chances of there 'not' being any other advanced life out there are pretty slim myself. Whether or not they've been here, i don't know, but i also don't think that their means/speed of transport would be limited by OUR understanding of physics, etc.

Other life exist out there, no doubt in my mind.

If it's made it here, why has it only made itself known to dumb hick yanks?

What I love about these arguments, is the fact that everyone falls back upon physics and mathematics to wave fingers at what seems illogical.

Don't forget we are learning everyday, and Maths and Physics are in no way consolidated and defined. So throw your own logic away, and anything becomes possible, which inevitably leads me to conclude there must be millions variations of life out there and some should be able to pay us a visit. Should they? Would we be of interest?

Why do we spend billions on finding bacteria on Mars? Same thing really….

I am sure there are aliens out there – but we are too uninteresting for them to bother with us

This sort of thing alsways bugs me, based on our own behaviour and that of other creatures on this planet, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be interested in us.

I just don't think 'they' know we're here, or if they do, they could be up to 120 light years away (about as far as our transmissions may have travelled since the invention of radio) and would take a hell of a long time to get here even if they set off immediately.

Of course they could be so advanced that they have found a way of getting around the laws of physics as we know them, but, they still have to be aware that we're here in the first place.

Well Yeti, lets take the X-Files stance and assume that if "they" are here and known to big business/government do you think they'd tell us? Buck tooth American country types are the only ones stupid enough to admit to it. Or ex-Goalee/TV Presenters.

I am sure there will be other life forms out there – in that impossible to comprehend immenseness that is the universe how could there not be any other life somewhere?

Whether or not they are little green men with anal probes and a penchant for hick American butt remains to be confirmed.

LOL – I didn't see this post until after I had posted 🙂
why has it only made itself known to dumb hick yanks?

It's impossible for there not to be other life in the universe.
Whether it's intelligent is another matter.
Whether they've developed inter system space travel is yet another matter

But the most important point is, have they devloped the appropriate technology, at the RIGHT time to come and see us. Presumably all intelligent species only survive for a finite time before they kill themselves so aliens would have to reach the appropriate stage of their evolution at just the right time to match ours. Now the chances of that are pretty slim.

OK, so lets assume aliens have the technology and can come and see us.

Why don't they land in the middle of times square and say hello? I don't believe for one instant that there's a unified 'protection of alien species' charter that forbids all aliens from visiting us and explaining how we can avoid blowing ourselves up/killing the planet. There would at least be some renegades who would drop by and provide us with some cool stuff or use us for cannon fodder just for the hell of it.

Too many people think that they're, and us as a species, are so special. We're slightly brighter than average monkeys living on a fairly wet planet circling a fairly unremarkable star on the outer edge of a small galaxy. To aliens who can space/time travel we must look like amoeba.

I'm pretty sure that the thing that seems to live in my Camelbak bladder is not of this earth

Yes, most definitely.
I've been to Asda. They move among us.

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard
or tough.
and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
and you feel that you've had quite enouuuuuuuuugh…

Just
re-
member that your standing on a planet that's evolving,
and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour…
That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,
the sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
are moving at a million miles a day.
in an outer spiral-arm at forty thousand miles an hour
of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
it's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,
but out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.
We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,
we go 'round every two hundred million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,
in this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
in all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light you know;
twelve million miles a minute, that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

I'd say yes there are other lifeforms

I'd be 50:50 as to whether they have/maybe will do make it here. We know nothing (except through some poorly tested theories) of the number and extent of space dimensions. For what seems like scientific mumbo-jumbo to us may just be like popping to the cornershop (albeit through a portal) for them. It wasn't that long ago we believed the world was flat, remember. Why should it be any different for space?

Speed of light – isn't it right to say that one cannot accelerate to the speed of light and not that nothing can exceed the speed of light? So if there were/are aliens who is to say they couldn't travel to Earth? Again a lot of human arrogance involved here.

Only if the laws of physics we know are the limits of all existance. It would be a tad arrogant to say it's impossible to go faster, it's just impossible by what we know.

MF – you worded it better than I did. But I'm v busy with work today.

I do believe that there must be other life forms out there somewhere, wherever 'somewhere' is. I struggle to understand why earth would be the only inhabited planet. I know probes have been out there and done all the tests on 'nearby' planets but given that there is no end to the universe then I really can't see why anyone would be prepared to stand up and say 'there are no other life forms out there.'

Are they as sophisticated as we are, I don't see why not
Do they fly about in large crafts beaming out bright lights, I doubt it.
Are they green with funny shaped heads, they might be, who knows.

I do believe there are people out there just like us but I don't believe they are living amongst us, but I could well be wrong. Mainly because I don't really see why 'they' would want to. We are after all a fairly insignificant spec in the grand scheme of things – maybe.

But then again I also think that ‘our universe’ could well be inside the atom of a table leg or a spec of dust for example and we are a microscopic part of something massive.

But then again I also think that ‘our universe’ could well be inside the atom of a table leg or a spec of dust for example and we are a microscopic part of something massive.

Men in Black get that concept across very well* (the universe in the pendant on the cat's collar)

*For dumb asses like me.

1961Bikie – If you thought the "Infinity" program was interesting, try watching this…
Visualisation of 10 Dimensions
I can pretty much understand up to 6th dimensional space then it all goes a bit wierd. But if what we refer to as aliens are actually 6th dimensional beings then concepts of time and distance are no barriers for them to come and visit us.. I think.
A sufficiently advanced civilisation wouldn't use technology to go faster than light to get here from a long way away, they'd simply fold up space and step through..
As to why, after going to all that effort, they would then kidnap a redneck and laser his cows is harder to explain..:-)

the two key bits of work on this are the Drake equation and the Fermi Paradox –

The drake equation simply states that in an infinite universe there must be other life no matter how rare but that they tend to destroy themselves before we get to know about them

The Fermi paradox discusses why if there are aliens out there that we have not been contacted.

MY prefered answer is as above -that given the infinate size of the universe there are untold multitudes of extraterrestrial intelligent societies but the cost in energy of travelling between them is so great that its not worth their while contacting a rather dull race on an insignificat planet on the edge of an unremarkable galaxy.

either that or we are in quarantine till we grow up. ( the zoo hypothesis)

Yes I believe there's life forms of some description out there, have they visited us? Well not that anyone has proved or not in a time where we've been able to notice or make records of.

Think most other people's post have covered it.

I see a sliver egg shaped object fly in a zig zag across the sky once.
Was uber fast and didnt make a sound.

If you think that every star in the sky is a sun, each one with their own solar system of varying magnitude, then surely there must be another planet that is the 'right' distance from the sun to promote life.

So I'd say 'Yes', in some form or another.

"Maths and Physics are in no way consolidated and defined."

Actually, if you understand energy mass equivalency, and this is what we are talking about with light speed or faster than travel.This is experimentally extremely well supported. then physics is pretty much as well consolidated and verified as it can be, The laws of physics wont change simply because of your race and location within a 4d space time universe.

So, no you can't travel at the speed of light or above.Any talk of traveling through wormholes etc. is just Star trek style nonsense.

Whether or not alien life exists is however an entirely separate issue:)

Try to imagine that we do remain isolated from any other intelligent life, they (if they exist) don't know we exist and we never find out if they do, one day the earth will be destroyed or cease to be habitable (Sun explodes, comet hits earth, nuclear war, etc) and then mankind will be gone forever and it will be just like we never existed.

Not suprising that people are pretty keen to believe that there just has to be something else out there, or that there must be a god for that matter, the alternative has a certain pointless bleakness about it. And while on balance of probablity I'd like to think that there is life out there, I'm not hopeful that we'll ever know for sure within my lifetime or indeed before the human race vanishes, so we might as well be alone….

In the vastness of space and time, the entire lifetime of planet earth (never mind 'intelligent' life) is the tiniest speck of nothing (even smaller than Kylie is, I dare to estimate). So for two civilisations to exist in that same moment in time, to be able to find each other and to be able to communicate with each other is such an infinitesimally small chance as to be almost completely improbable to happen. Not impossible, just very, very, very improbable.

MF – but in an infinite universe the improbable is certain to happen

would we recognise an alien? Who's to say other life has to be carbon based like things on earth (there may be a reason it has to be but I don't know it), who's to say alien life forms can't be invisible or simply just energy. Do all physical/chemical/biological principals governing us have to govern elsewhere in the universe?

I think in many of the points made above the words Universe & Infinity need to be qualified with the phrase "as we currently understand it" which, to be honest, isn't very well 😉

jahwomble…..it wasn't that long ago that people thought the Earth was flat, we had no idea how mountains were created, thought that lightning was some kind of punishment from the gods etc.
People might look back in 1000 years (if we survive that long) and giggle at our primitive ways of creating energy & our basic notion of the way the universe works.
Perhaps we do 'know it all' and really can't travel at the speed of light, or perhaps we think we know it all, but we don't know jack.

I believe completely there must be other life forms out there, but as above, there's so many reasons that we will never be aware of them. Many are probably as advanced as us, many more advanced and many not as advanced.
The main problem I have with stories of 'little green aliens' is why would they bother coming here just to have a nose around?

The main problem I have with stories of 'little green aliens' is why would they bother coming here just to have a nose around?

To see how their experiment worked out ???

it wasn't that long ago that people thought the Earth was flat

Urban Myth. Even Bronze Age people knew the world was a sphere.

Definitely.

the 'right' distance from the sun to promote life

There is life on earth at the bottom of the deepest oceans, . . where no light penetrates at all 😉

MF – but in an infinite universe the improbable is certain to happen

Agreed, but we are talking about two infinites here – space and time. Put simply, take two people stood on a 1 million mile long road, given enough time they will walk past each other. Put those two people in a large field of an equivalent size, they will take much longer to walk past each other because they can walk in more than two directions. They will eventually pass each other but there is just more chance of it not happening.