Do you believe in UFO?

[Allohamus]

Hello to all!

Do you believe in UFO?
(In UFO I mean extraterrestrials)

I hope for serious answers, it's need for social project

Thank you all.

[mx_tifoso]

Did you register on here to make this poll? Or after you registered you thought it would be a good idea to pick our brains about this random subject?

[Red Schneider]

I believe Vettel came from a UFO...

[Cam]

I believe Vettel came from a UFO...

Uno Finger Ostender?

[bhall]

[...]

I hope for serious answers, it's need for social project

Thank you all.

It's virtually impossible that our humble solar system, which exists among ~400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way, which itself exists among ~175,000,000,000 other galaxies in the universe, is the only one that supports life. But, it's equally unlikely that we'll ever know for sure, because the distances involved are simply too damn big. It would take Helios II, which, at roughly 158,000 MPH, is the fastest manmade object ever created, about 18,000 years to reach our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, and it's "only" ~4.24 light-years away.

"Look, Ma! I did math!"
(It's probably wrong, too.)

[Richard]

The distances involved are simply too damn big.

Too big for us... but might not be too big for others with a few more million years of evolution & technology. They'll be zooming around space and time on their Higgs Bosen teleporters. They might even have functional working ERSU boxes

Anyway that probability things works both ways. The scale of the universe means there might well be a more advanced life form capable of interstellar travel, but also the scale of things means our tiny spec of rock with a primitive lifeforms will probably not be noticed.

That leads onto the other questions which is if there is a lifeform capable of interstellar travel, then shouldn't we be hiding from them? It'd be like the Maya sending a note to Madrid requesting smallpox and mentioning piles of gold waiting to be plundered.

Then again we've plundered this planet ourselves, so alien lifeforms probably won't thing we're worth visiting.

Anyway what are the odds of them finding us in the tiny fraction of time that humanity is in existence?

We'll probably be long gone before our tiny spec of rock is found by others. So it looks like we're stuck here.

[bhall]

I'd be far more surprised to learn that "aliens" don't exist than I would be to learn that they've already visited us and "said" (or whatever it is they do to communicate) to themselves, "--- that place. Not worth it."

Then again...

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
~ Douglas Adams

[TDH]

I do think that there is something else, but not in the form we think. If there is an other form of life besides earth. It's probably too big or small, too far away for us to notice.

The fact that there are people who see UFO's is just that we are told by others that it must be from outer space.
It's the same with religion (not judging). If no one ever told that there could be a god, most of the people wouldn't think about it. Most of those things we learn as a child and we just believe them without thinking about them.

So the fact that people say they see UFO's, I do not believe them. There will always be an explanation.

[Pandamasque]

I've seen a UFO once when I was a kid, no idea what it really was. It's not about believing something. I know I've seen it, and there's a good chance I wasn't hallucinating (along with a group of random people staring into the clear blue skies). Nobody at the time could identify it, that makes it a UFO. The thread should start with a definition. An Unidentified Flying Object doesn't have to be a shiny tin alien space craft with disco lights. But its very nature UFO is unidentified.

[TDH]

If you read the first post you notice that he only means things from space.

If you are talking about UFO's in general. If someone never saw a helicopter and a helicopter flies by, for that person he saw a UFO.

[Websta]

In the 4.54 billion years of the Earth, we have only had the capacity to communicate with extraterristrial life for less than 100 years and we have only had the capacity to travel to near Earth objects for 50 years. Within this period of time, we have arguably come pretty close to a mass extinction event (nuclear war) only a few years after our space age began. We now face the issue of whether our technology will develop to a stage where interstellar travel and terraforming/colonising of other solar bodies are possible before we deplete the Earth's resources through overpopulation and industrialisation to a state where technological advancements are no longer possible. How long will our species remain in a position to potentially communicate with extraterrestrials and will we ever progress to a stage where we will be capable of interstellar travel? The former is probably dependent on the latter given how we are steering the Earth towards becoming an uninhabitable environment.

It is the nature of intelligent life to self-destruct. This means that despite the fact that there is a reasonably high chance intelligent life has evolved somewhere in the Universe, it is incredibly unlikely that two forms of intelligent life will evolve simultaneously and for one to have the capacity to visit another (a UFO visiting us in this scenario) during this time frame. Also consider the incredibly low chance such evolution will occur within 1000 light years of one another. Considering that we have only been in a position to communicate with aliens for less than 100 years out of the 13.75 billion years the Universe has existed should give an indication to just how unlikely this scenario is.

It is a fallacy to assume intelligent life will exist forever. There is a strong tendency for relatively rapid self-destruction (compared to the age of the universe). Then consider the low chance intelligent life will progress to a stage where it is capable of interstellar travel (we probably won't). Then consider the even lower chance that two forms of intelligent life will evolve and be in relatively similar technological positions simultaneously. Then consider the obscenely low chance that such evolution occurs within 1000 light years of each other.

There is virtually no chance of aliens visiting us

[Pandamasque]

Way to ruin the fun ^

If you read the first post you notice that he only means things from space.

Well then UFO is a misleading term to use. It should have been 'extraterrestrial visitors' or something.

[autogyro]

But we are here already.

[Richard]

So you're a Fred Hoyle advocate?

His theory was that viruses or enzymes must have travelled here on space dust, because the odds of life spontaneously forming on our planet in its short life is as likely as "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle ... biogenesis

Alternatively, you are referring to Thetans. Fortunately we don't talk about religion on this forum so Thetans are out of bounds.

[autogyro]

So you're a Fred Hoyle advocate?

His theory was that viruses or enzymes must have travelled here on space dust, because the odds of life spontaneously forming on our planet in its short life is as likely as "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle ... biogenesis

Alternatively, you are referring to Thetans. Fortunately we don't talk about religion on this forum so Thetans are out of bounds.

Fred Hoyle brilliant lecturer at St Johns Cambridge in the early 70s.
Often wrongly quoted.