# Do you believe in aliens?



## JohnnyV (Jun 17, 2003)

Yes/No/Undecided


Just wondering what you believe...are there other worldly creatures out there?  Are they watching us?


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## Ricky (Jun 17, 2003)

There is absolutely no way we're the only ones out there.


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## Arden (Jun 17, 2003)

I can't imagine that, in all the billions of galaxies in the Universe, in all the billions of years all those quadrillions of metric tons of matter have been spinning and coalescing, there is no other location of intelligent life, or even life at all, than the Earth.  If not, it's an awful waste of space (to paraphrase Contact).


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## habilis (Jun 17, 2003)

Amen my brothers, just look at the results of the NASA Deep Space Field(You do your own google research) There's somthing in the region of trillions upon trillions of stars and possible solar orbits and planets out there. We are no alone, take conciliation in that. The vast multi-million light year distances are not able to be transversed by any means we now know(albiet multi-dimensiional-space-fold). give it time my brothers, unfortunately. we will all be dead, but contact will happen some day.

Look into the meaning of Spinoza, and Spinoza's God, the Dutch philosopher that gave birth to this idea.


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## Arden (Jun 17, 2003)

Wow, 4 yes's and only 1 maybe:  no no's!  Amazing, all ye of much faith!


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## JohnnyV (Jun 17, 2003)

So who is our maybe?


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## dlloyd (Jun 17, 2003)

Me  (Really!)


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## wdw_ (Jun 18, 2003)

I voted yes. I've seen a UFO. It was a few years ago. I went outside and looked up and saw something up in the sky. I could tell it was very big, very, very high up and not moving at all. I looked a for a minute and then went back inside to get my mom. She was buy, so I went back outside and it was gone...or was it *bum bum buuuuum*

Didn't they already discover life in space? I thought I heard about scientists finding a red fungus growing on the outside of the MIR space station.


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## Darkshadow (Jun 18, 2003)

Yes, I think so...but I don't think they're watching us.


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## chemistry_geek (Jun 18, 2003)

Perhaps the thread should have been named "Do you believe in extraterestrial life?"  While I'm confident it's out there (bacterial, fungal, algael, or other), I don't believe there are any local "aliens" in the vicinity of Earth.  If such a race of aliens were found to exist (bipeds like ourselves, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, etc...), then they likely originated here on Earth and for whatever reason left the Earth, a pre-Adamic race so to speak.  I would liken this to the children/young leaving the nest and exploring the world/universe on their own.


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## pds (Jun 18, 2003)

I am an alien, have to register at the immigration department here in Egypt every 12 months...

Life? absolutely - intelligent life? absolutely, hey even slugs display some sort of intelligence -  Human or humanoid? not in this galaxy, least not till we get there.

The Contact like projects have been listening for what 60 years now, with no results (that is they haven't found any kind of repeating patterned frequency at all)

60 light years and no-one has heard of Elvis


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## chemistry_geek (Jun 18, 2003)

Supposedly a few candidate signals were captured by SETI and the US government granted SETI 24 hours of time at Aericebo (sp?) to investigate them further.  I recall reading this about a month ago.  I don't know when the time was granted or even if the investigation is complete.

One thing to consider when looking for "alien" civilizations is that electromagnetic radiation loses energy rather quickly as it propagates through space, and more importantly there will be interference from other radiation sources.  Detecting a signal from a galaxy viewed through the Hubble Space Telescope is like trying to detect any electromagnetic information about an atom on the other side of the Earth, it's impossible simply because of the faintness of the signal, distance, and interference from other sources.  The laws of physics can't be broken.

To get an idea of the relative size of the solar system on a human-scale, go here:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/17/218243&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160

and here:

http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/030617solar.shtml

Enjoy!


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## toast (Jun 18, 2003)

I answered 'no' because what does not come from my planet I don't call an alien but a 'distant neighbour'


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## pds (Jun 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by chemistry_geek _
> *To get an idea of the relative size of the solar system on a human-scale, go here:
> 
> http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/17/218243&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160
> ...



40 miles, that beats the one we just finished in my school, 40 meters. We used two scales, one for planets and one for orbits, but the plan is to do a single scale model next year.

Another site to check out is the Sagan Planet Walk in Ithaca NY... 

www.sciencenter.org/SaganPW/ 

the site will help anyone thinking about making a model.


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## chevy (Jun 18, 2003)

I think that they may be alien life forms.

Will we considere these life forms as "alien" in the regular sense ????


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## Arden (Jun 18, 2003)

Do aliens from another planet need a green card to live in the United States?

Or would it blend with their skin too easily?

Toast, if you came to visit me, I would call you an alien.


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## Gimpy00Wang (Jun 18, 2003)

Do I believe that aliens have visited Earth? Maybe...but not likely. Do I beileve that there are other living organisms in the universe? Of course there is. If Earth is the only planet with life, that's an sad waste of 'space'. 

- G!mpy


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## toast (Jun 19, 2003)

> _Originally posted by arden _
> *Toast, if you came to visit me, I would call you an alien. *



LOL at that, Arden ! 
Let's meet at the Apple Expo, again


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## Stridder44 (Jun 19, 2003)

I look up into the night sky and stair at the stars....and stair...and wonder what is truly out there...it blows my mind...trying to think of the vastness of space. I would love to explore space, and I dont mean our solar system, I mean Waay the hell out there......*sigh*....


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## Arden (Jun 19, 2003)

Toast:  Again?  When have we met in the first place?

Stridder:  So you "stair" at the stars; do you wish you could take a "stareway" to heaven?


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## toast (Jun 19, 2003)

'Again' because that's the second thread where I call for a genereal regroup at the Expo.


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## habilis (Jun 19, 2003)

Aliens have been here, and still are here, don't be fooled by the limits of conventional science. I doubt the believabilty of most contacts, but 'aliens', through methods that we cannot collate with our ultra-immature brains have been here, seen us, study us, and still are here right now, may even be living among us. It is way too arrogant to assume otherwise.

We are just begining to touch technology - macine, organic, and otherwise. Alien races out there have had thousands, sometimes hundres of thousands of years embracing technology of all shape. 

Fifty thousand years ago a supernova destroyed a planetary system that had inteligent life on it, developing technologically for maybe 200,000 years. They had to build massive ships - like Noah's arcs - that would send them across the millenia of time to eventaully find a new habitable planet. So on... 

I've said it before, these signals, these patterns that SETI is looking for are long gone. They cannot survive these vast multi-million light year expanses in space to get picked up by alien beacons and recievers.

To deny aliens existing is like when they told Columbus the Earth was flat.


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## Scott_Bernard (Jun 19, 2003)

I WANT TO BELIEVE...::alien::


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## MDLarson (Jun 21, 2003)

Wishful thinking.


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## Arden (Jun 21, 2003)

MD:  What, does the concept of aliens conflict with your Christian ideology?  Okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't bring up another thread.

habilis:  Extra-terrestrials may be out there, somewhere, but that does not mean in any way that they have visited the earth or are still here.  What would they want with us anyway?

Toast:  Which expo, in that case?  MWNY (yeah, like I'm going to New York this summer!)?  MWSF (possible, but it's in January)?


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## MDLarson (Jun 21, 2003)

> _Originally posted by arden _
> *MD:  What, does the concept of aliens conflict with your Christian ideology?  Okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't bring up another thread.*


Yes.  Yes it does!  

The belief in aliens is pretty much linked to the theory of evolution, which I don't believe in.

Kinda funny... some of you claim that I take a "leap of faith" to believe what I do, but you folks who vote "yes" seem to be taking the leap...

But anyway, enough Cafe time for me - I wanna get into the Mac side of MacOSX.com!


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## Darkshadow (Jun 22, 2003)

Um...how does the belief in aliens tie in with evolution?  That doesn't jive to me.

And read your bible again.  There's actually hints in there about other worlds.


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## JohnnyV (Jun 22, 2003)

Where in the bible? Could you provide some passages please?


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## larry98765 (Jun 22, 2003)

> _Originally posted by wdw_ _
> 
> Didn't they already discover life in space? I thought I heard about scientists finding a red fungus growing on the outside of the MIR space station.



That fungus grew inside the MIR was real but not alien. Here's the "straight dope" from Cecil Adams:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010713.html

And the question "Do You Believe in Aliens" should be broken down into three questions: a) Do you believe there is life elsewhere? b) Do you believe there is "intelligent" (open to interpretation) life elsewhere and c) Are we being "visited" by alien life (i.e. UFOs.)

My feeling: a) Definitely. b) Probably. c) Unlikely.


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## chevy (Jun 22, 2003)

I agrre with Larry with
a) most probably
b) it's possible
c) very, very unlikely

We still miss a good definition of "life". Even on earth, some forms are between mineral and life... so how will we decide that when it's alien ?


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