UFO's

I have just seen a "confidential UFO report".

Now, while the chances of extraterrestial life evolving elsewhere in the galaxy is pretty certain, we have some factors to be taken into consideration

1) If it does, will it be intelligent?
2) If it is intelligent, will it be bothered with space travel?
3) If it is bothered with space travel, what are the odds of it coming to earth?
4) If it comes to earth, what are the odds it will come here now?

Going back to 3) and looking at the universe as being 15+ billion years old, consider

1) Humans (technologically), have been here for 500 years, of which maybe 100 years have been in any way impacting on the universe (signals etc). This is 100 / 4.5 billion, or VERY small indeed (my odds of beating Ironman31 are higher!)
2) We may very well be extinct of our own making before being around for 100 000 years.

Having said that, intelligent life may be common, but so short lived that two intelligent species in the same galaxy at THE SAME TIME is a remote coincidence.


Any one want to venture that UFO's exist? And that they are visiting us on a regular basis?

Originally posted by Alcra
1) Humans (technologically), have been here for 500 years...

Originally posted by Bowmann
Are you saying that my Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather was a monkey?

Originally posted by jimslyp69
Nope. He's saying your mother is.

What's with the Doctor Who avatar anyway?

Originally posted by Bowmann
What's with the Doctor Who avatar anyway?

Originally posted by D43M0N
It's a members only avatar from some Animation site. It says so.

My dad's friends a while back decided to have fun in the corn feilds in IN. they put on cardbourd shoes, wrapped themselves in tinfoil, and at night they would cross the road in front of a cars. then run into the corn feilds, Finally after several calls from the area over several days, the sheriff went out to investigate, he finally got a picture of them running, but because they were wrapped in tinfoil, it looked like an alien's , soon the FBI was called in, and they had orders to shoot them on site, when the kids heard that they were going to shoot them, they quit appearing, then finally the FBI gave up on them. The FBI classified them as UFO's, and on file if you look at FBI's UFO sighting's they are on that list

There's an alien named Russell who used to post sometimes to a site about pancakes. Proof enough for me.

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~lenzk/pancakes.html

Originally posted by Alcra
I have just seen a "confidential UFO report".

Now, while the chances of extraterrestial life evolving elsewhere in the galaxy is pretty certain, we have some factors to be taken into consideration

1) If it does, will it be intelligent?
2) If it is intelligent, will it be bothered with space travel?
3) If it is bothered with space travel, what are th ...[text shortened]... odds of it coming to earth?
4) If it comes to earth, what are the odds it will come here now?

Originally posted by flyUnity
My dad's friends a while back decided to have fun in the corn feilds...the sheriff went out to investigate...soon the FBI was called in...

maybe its the next evolution of an intelligent species on the earth coming back in time to visit the monkeys who killed themselves after discovering how to make fireworks

on a more serious note, while i agree the chances of life elsewhere in the universe appear almost certain the chances of it coming here would appear slim, however with the universe being so old and the time scale that humans have been around extremely small in comparison then if there were aliens they may have come by the earth at some time just maybe not while we were around

i strongly believe that there is life elsewhere in the solar sytem but i feel it discovery wouldn't be that signifcant, i mean how exciting can a few single cell organisms be, its life ouside the solar system that would excite me more, however with current technology our best chance of discovering any seems to lie with SETI or other detection methods, even then how would we know what we are supposed to be looking for.

I don't believe this question will be answered in my lifetime if at all.

Even if you did have two intelligent species existing in the universe at the same time, by the time any communication made, was received by either party, both species will probably have become extinct.

What annoys me about discussions of this nature is the attitude, 'Intelligent life must exist because it's a matter of probability.' Probability is something one needs to be careful with.

There are too many factors involved and to pile so many volatile variables into one equation is an abuse of mathematics.

How come you joined a chess web site on St Patrick's day? Surely you must have had something better to do!?