"Are We Alone?" The Great Debate

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JLConawayII

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Message 997832 - Posted: 22 May 2010, 9:42:19 UTC

It's rather amazing how a subject with so little evidence to support either side of an argument can spawn such massive speculative debates.
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Message 1001457 - Posted: 7 Jun 2010, 11:40:29 UTC

Just keep taking the tablets, Guys.
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Message 1001599 - Posted: 7 Jun 2010, 22:17:07 UTC

Could life be as close as Titan?

PASADENA, Calif. - Two new papers based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft scrutinize the complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. While non-biological chemistry offers one possible explanation, some scientists believe these chemical signatures bolster the argument for a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized "methane-based life."


http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/titan20100603.html


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Message 1002131 - Posted: 9 Jun 2010, 14:27:57 UTC - in response to Message 997832.  

It's rather amazing how a subject with so little evidence to support either side of an argument can spawn such massive speculative debates.



GLOBAL WARMING


someone please load some tapes to be split. thanks.
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Message 1002242 - Posted: 9 Jun 2010, 21:35:20 UTC

I think that aliens exist
somewhere in this wide, huge universe
something tells me that they are better than our sorry excuse fore a planet.
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Message 1004040 - Posted: 14 Jun 2010, 15:00:34 UTC - in response to Message 1003839.  

If humanity survives long enough I think we will find that life is common in the universe. However most of it will be simple single cell life. There will be some planets where more complex life evolves. However complex life doesn't necessarily mean a technologically capable intelligence. Whales and other cetaceans along with some birds like the Kiwi are quite intelligent but don't have any technology. A billion planets could be populated with whale-like intelligences and we would never know about them unless we visited.

Would we recognize an attempt by an ET to communicate? Imagine a person from this planet from 200 years ago trying to understand modern technology. They would have no knowledge of any of the technology that we use to communicate. They wouldn't even be able to detect any of our communication, Try to imagine a civilization 10,000 years more advanced than our own. 10,000 years is the blink of an eye when compared with the age of the universe. If a civilization such as that exists and i am sure that someplace they do they are no doubt aware of us but they simply may not care. They might even debate whether truly intelligent life exists on this planet, at least by their standards

Is SETI worth it? Yes it is. The pursuit of knowledge,to answer unanswered questions is worthwhile as long as the knowledge isn't used to harm our fellow human beings
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Message 1004294 - Posted: 15 Jun 2010, 1:48:28 UTC
Last modified: 15 Jun 2010, 1:49:53 UTC

Each month when my electricity provider's bill arrives I wonder if the KW/h I "donate" to SETI is worth the expense. So far we have no evidence it is. Are there any better/faster/efficient algorythyms in development that will improve "processing" efficiency for users ???
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Message 1004537 - Posted: 16 Jun 2010, 5:55:19 UTC - in response to Message 1004040.  

One might speculate that timelines of civilizations are important to any search for ET life.

Given that premise the coincidence of our civilization exisiting in concert with another or many others along the same timeline therby providing some reasonable overlap of technogical advances is extremely improbable. We can assume that timelines of civilizations have some relationship to their galaxy and stars life spawns. We speculate our planets age on the order of 3.5 billion years or so. Then it is safe to think that a similar civilization to ours would ride along in our universe at about the same or nealry the same age.

Take Carls "billions and Billions and reduce the numbers by applying this age factor and we might even get a number worth digisting and contemplating.

Our ET search is highly speculative. In our own lifetimes we have seen our radio emissions change enourmously in frequency, change in modulation from simple AM spark gap noise to FM to Digital to all manner of digital and super high MW frquencies. We now can use light in the form of lasers, fibers. We are contemplating quantum communications with links at a distance so who knows where we will be in a hundred years. Our current ET search is so limited in scope and frquency that our chances are highly limited of sucess.

Temporal time is indeed a limitation. It locks us all into existence with a reference. Can we even imagine beings that may exist at a faster temporal rate than us or even a slower one.

It's glorius to speculate on life of ET out there? Chances are they arn't even remotely parallel to us in technology and only if we recognize that and open up our recievers to include temporal broadbands beyond us today might we ever encounter an ET's trace communication..
Never engage stupid people at their level, they then have the home court advantage.....
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Message 1008715 - Posted: 26 Jun 2010, 19:46:47 UTC
Last modified: 26 Jun 2010, 19:59:16 UTC

I thought Prof. Michiu Kaku's take on ETI could be a nice addition to this debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99mmFVhV2eM
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Message 1022206 - Posted: 3 Aug 2010, 13:14:02 UTC

Actually way back in 1954 a guy in a RAN Sea Fury was formated on by two "vehicles" which when they left went at 1500mph. A Seafury could get at 400mph in a dive. If that isn't a bit of a revelation maybe you can tell us who carved the helicopter on the lintel over the door of a 2500BC burial crypt in Egypt.
Have you read the old testament of the Bible, Ezikiel, then I suggest you do so.
We are not alone but why the hell they are only giving us hell I'll never know.
MaxG.


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Message 1026188 - Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 19:07:22 UTC - in response to Message 1022206.  

Actually way back in 1954 a guy in a RAN Sea Fury was formated on by two "vehicles" which when they left went at 1500mph. A Seafury could get at 400mph in a dive. If that isn't a bit of a revelation maybe you can tell us who carved the helicopter on the lintel over the door of a 2500BC burial crypt in Egypt.
Have you read the old testament of the Bible, Ezikiel, then I suggest you do so.
We are not alone but why the hell they are only giving us hell I'll never know.
MaxG.


X-1A

X-1A.Ordered by the Air Force on 2 April 1948, the X-1A (serial 48-1384) was intended to investigate aerodynamic phenomena at speeds above Mach 2 (681 m/s, 2,451 km/h) and altitudes greater than 90,000 ft (27 km), specifically focusing on dynamic stability and air loads. Longer and heavier than the original X-1, with a bubble canopy for better vision, the X-1A was powered by the same Reaction Motors XLR-11 rocket engine. The aircraft first flew, unpowered, on 14 February 1953 at Edwards AFB, with the first powered flight on 21 February. Both flights were piloted by Bell test pilot Jean "Skip" Ziegler.

After NACA started its high-speed testing with the Douglas Skyrocket, culminating in Scott Crossfield achieving Mach 2.005 on 20 November 1953, the Air Force started a series of tests with the X-1A, which the test pilot of the series, Chuck Yeager, named "Operation NACA Weep". These culminated on 12 December 1953, when Yeager achieved an altitude of 74,700 feet (22,770 m) and a new air speed record of Mach 2.44 (equal to 1620 mph, 724.5 m/s, 2608 km/h at that altitude). Unlike Crossfield in the Skyrocket, Yeager achieved that in level flight. Shortly after, the aircraft spun out of control, due to the then not yet understood phenomenon of inertia coupling. The X-1A dropped from maximum altitude to 25,000 feet (7,620 m), exposing the pilot to accelerations of up to 8g, during which Yeager broke the canopy with his helmet before regaining control.[10]

Supersonic flight was certainly in progress in 1954. Although I suspect finding out about them was a bit difficult at the time. two jets buzzing
an RAC plane, my guess is the soviets were having fun with them. I bet they had a good laugh.


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Message 1027670 - Posted: 23 Aug 2010, 10:04:51 UTC - in response to Message 1026188.  

Of course we're not alone. To think so is the biggest ego trip of all time! Somewhere out there there are millions, most likely billions, of other life forms. Some intelligent, some not..yet. And others that have come and gone altogether. The reasons given by others of the communication problems should we find an artificial signal are certainly justified....at least as far as our technology goes. But it's quite likely that those beings clever enough to travel the distances involved will not only have a propulsion system and a communications system we can't even dream about. It will, to coin a phrase, be totally alien to us! We are looking for signals that are produced by organic life, but to travel the stars would, as far as we know today, require such long journey times that the ships must be automated and as such would probably transmit in, what we would call, machine code. I think Seti is looking for the wrong type of signal. They know far more about communication than I do, but I think they should be thinking about what other methods of communication there may be and start looking for them. Personally I believe, in fact I am certain, we have been visited by such craft and they must have sent signals home about what they have seen here and elsewhere but we have not detected them...why? Because we are not looking for the right type of signal. It may possibly be a type of communication we don't know about yet and can only surmise it's existance theoretically or not at all. But, what if worm holes are feasible and do exist? That would cut journey times enormously and make exploration perfectly possible. Scientists say it's impossible to travel faster than light...why? Because we can't do it! There is nothing out there to stop a craft accelerating until it exceeds that speed. Of course it may become invisible to us at speeds above the speed of light, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Light is the fastest form of energy we know about. What if there are others that we don't know about? We can't see or detect them because we don't know about them and don't have the technology to detect them, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. We now know there are other planets round other stars within our range of detection. But there are billions upon billions of other galaxies, never mind the billions of stars in each which also must have planets round them. We shall probably never know the answer in our own galaxy so certainly we shan't know about others. But to say we are alone is as I said not only the biggest ego trip of all time but it is also mathematically certain that there is life out there. One day.......................!
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Message 1027704 - Posted: 23 Aug 2010, 13:31:32 UTC

The recent BBC article and interview with Seth Shostak is interesting because, among other things, it questions whether we're looking for the right kind of signal. Any civilisation following a similar technological path to our own will only be detectable by our radio telescopes for a limited period whilst they're using high-power omnidirectional radio to communicate around their planet. If they follow our path, then within 100 years they will switch to using lower-energy more efficient point-to-point communications, or they'll use fibre-optic. If true, that greatly lowers the odds of finding them by using a radio telescope.
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Message 1027719 - Posted: 23 Aug 2010, 14:36:51 UTC - in response to Message 1027704.  

The recent BBC article and interview with Seth Shostak is interesting because, among other things, it questions whether we're looking for the right kind of signal. Any civilisation following a similar technological path to our own will only be detectable by our radio telescopes for a limited period whilst they're using high-power omnidirectional radio to communicate around their planet. If they follow our path, then within 100 years they will switch to using lower-energy more efficient point-to-point communications, or they'll use fibre-optic. If true, that greatly lowers the odds of finding them by using a radio telescope.


From an earlier post by the staff at Berkely, they recognize this and think that the best bet for SETI@Home is to find deliberately radiated signals, "here we are" kind of a thing. Berkeley is also pursuing other methods of detecting intelligence life out there, besides S@H. Take a look at http://seti.berkeley.edu/


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Message 1028061 - Posted: 24 Aug 2010, 11:38:05 UTC - in response to Message 988560.  

50 years of SETI - no signs of life out there. What a waste of time.


Actually SETI is looking for Intelligence, "life" has already been proven to exist in the form of bacteria.
Obviously you're having trouble exhibiting what they are looking for.
No insult intended



I have not seen this evidence of bacteria outside our planet. Do you have a reference? I would like to study it myself.

As to the comment on "waste of time". I have to say I very much disagree on that. Seeking life and intelligence in the universe is a great goal. And I think its very arrogant to assume 50 years is a long time in the scale our galaxy operates at.

For all we know intelligence could have evolved another place a long time ago, or recently. Their radio bubble could not yet have reached us, or maybe even passed by and gone. We do not know. Its an ongoing quest to seek out, and I for one support the effort! :)
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Message 1028221 - Posted: 25 Aug 2010, 7:35:41 UTC - in response to Message 1026188.  

Here is a real life account of an event that happened in 1990. It was during the charleville floods, Queensland, Auastralia. I was part of a respnse group sent out there to help with the evacuations. Around 11:45 pm one night I was awoken by the radar operater who was monitoring the airspace. A kich in the guts wakes you up fast. He pointed to a target on the screen and said watch it. I have to get the commanding officer. So I did he came back after 2 or 3 minuts with his commanding officer. The target was still on the screen. I have never seen anything before that had tha ability to change course as this one did. Four f111's were enroute from an airfoce base to the east to another base to the north of our location. They were ordered to change course and get a visual of the target, Twelve minutes later over the radio came a report that the UFO was nearly within visual range. Thirty seconds later the object changed course and climbed rapidly. According to the radar the object was climbung at an estimated 45 thousand feet per minute. it dissapeared from radar after about 10 seconds later. This is just one of many sightings around that time and area.

Are we alone I truly believe not, when you see something like what I saw on radar it changes your perspective on what is out there.
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Message 1028441 - Posted: 25 Aug 2010, 21:30:07 UTC - in response to Message 1028387.  

According to the radar the object was climbung at an estimated 45 thousand feet per minute.


This is from Wikipedia

The initial rate of climb record for pilot aircraft is held by a MiG-29 at 330 m/s (65,000 ft/min)



Kind of what I was thinking.. high speed military flight. Near impossible changes in direction would also seem to fit.
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Message 1028460 - Posted: 25 Aug 2010, 22:05:01 UTC - in response to Message 1028441.  

I was watching a radar we were repairing when an SR-71 Blackbird took off. We saw three blips, one when he left the runway, one about the middle of the screen, the third barely hit the edge of the screen. It was set to 150 mile range.


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Message 1029563 - Posted: 29 Aug 2010, 23:01:35 UTC - in response to Message 1002242.  

I think that aliens exist
somewhere in this wide, huge universe
something tells me that they are better than our sorry excuse fore a planet.


Don't blame Earth for the mistakes we make. You should've written "sorry excuse for a human kind"
rOZZ
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Message 1033612 - Posted: 17 Sep 2010, 17:23:08 UTC
Last modified: 17 Sep 2010, 17:28:46 UTC

Here’s my take on the big question - and it may explain why we are being ignored.

1. There is extraterrestrial life - everything from bacteria to those whose intelligence far surpasses ours.

2. There are races whose technology is thousands of years, or much-more, in advance of ours.

3. Not all such races live on a cliché, ‘Home world.’ A planet is a dangerous place and is why I monitor the news about Yellowstone Caldera or for NEO’s.

4. Because of this they may have built ships that are hundreds and perhaps thousands on miles in length/diameter with an environment that equals and perhaps surpasses that of a, 'planet.'

5. Perhaps they have even forgotten their roots/home-world.

6. There may be ships that have been genetically engineered within which the crew, enjoy a symbiotic relationship with this living, thinking ship. There may be relationships where the ship is the master with the crew fulfilling the same needs as our blood cells and white cells. For a parallel take our Police Forces – are they not the white cells of society? The politics of the ship would resemble anatomy.


7. They chose not to contact us because such a revelation would destroy us. Where we would demand their science and in doing so – remove any-and-all motivation to pursue the quest for knowledge, it would leave us with no more metaphorical mountains to climb. And what if they refused to give us these answers, these secrets and mysteries that we have built our intellects on?

8. Then we would hate them! But this hate would have begun already when we quickly realized that their intellect towered above ours. It would be an unacceptable blow to our fragile racial pride.

9. Our religions would implode. The question of, ‘What church do they go to?’ in one form or another may result in someone attempting to assassinate one of them – and then what?

10. And... the Stock Markets would collapse in this very uncertain future.

11. Open contact was made in the past, a past that called a, ‘Close encounter of the third kind,’ a miracle or visitation from angels, and so they gave us religion.

12. Our various religions were created by them and given to us. We weren’t obeying our own man-made laws so they put on a firework’s display of thunder and lightning, performed some, ‘miracles,’ and threatened, ‘Hell fire and damnation,’ and there you have it! A well-ordered society.

13. But this only works when the society’s level of technology and sophistication is Bronze Age, today it wouldn’t work.

14. And why would they go to all this trouble? Because of all the wonders and mysteries in this universe, that of intelligent life is the most magnificent.

15. I sincerely hope that if another, "WOW!" signal (or better) is found by SETI or some other, that it is kept very secret indeed - for all the foregoing reasons.

16. I also hope that an alien reads this, I’m easy to find.
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