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Quigzo · May 18, 2007, 01:47 AM

On my recent holiday to costa rica I was planning to visit a military base on the island of los santos but it was closed for some strange going ons. Apparently it was meant to be a flying saucer crashing into the building. The damage showed this but no evidence was left behind:eek:
I'm not sure whether this a hoax:confused:

JoeCanada76 · May 18, 2007, 02:07 AM

Who really knows. I believe they exist. I think it is a personal belief. Not everybody believes in the same things. It is up to you to decide whether it was real for you or not. Will we ever know the real truth? I doubt it.

Joe

excon · May 18, 2007, 08:38 AM

Hello q:

I don't think it's an either/or. Do I "believe" in them?? No. Do I think they're possible? Not only do I think they're possible, I think they're probable. Here's why: I'm a believer in numbers, and I don't think we're special.

Given the above, there's billions and billions of galaxies out there. There are more galaxies out there than there are grains of sand on the entire earth. And, those are just galaxies. There are billions and billions of stars in each one of those galaxies. There are more stars in one galaxy than there are grains of sand on the entire earth.

Therefore, given those numbers, I think there's no question that there are planets out there just like earth – lots of them. Yes, I think there are other civilizations out there. Do I think some may have the capacity to travel to earth? Why not? Just because we haven't invented it yet isn't a reason to think others haven't.

excon

magprob · May 19, 2007, 12:28 AM

If Aliens can warp space and travel such great distances without dying of old age, I doubt they crashed into a building on a military base. I believe in numbers as Mr. excon does and that tells me they would be much more likely to crash into a Payday Car title loan building or a McDonalds. I think if something that looks like a flying saucer crashed into a military base, it is probably from planet earth and the Japanese didn't build it. Probably a Ford.

ebaines · May 21, 2007, 02:01 PM

Given the distances between stae systems, and the universal speed limit (the speed of light), it seems highly, highly improbable that we or any other civilizations will figure out how to get to Earth (or we to them). excon's numbers and the famous Drake equation say that there must be literally millions of planets in the universe that are inhabited by intelligent beings. One would expect half of them to be more advanced than us, many vastly more advanced. And yet, there is no credible evidence that we have ever been visited. Wouldn't you think that with all those amazingly advanced civilizations out there that at least one would have figured out how to get here? Since they haven't, I conclude it's impossible. However, I do hold out hope that someday soon our radio listening technologies will advance to the point one of the SETI initiatives will be able to detect the presence of radio signals from non-natural extre-terrestrial sources.

magprob · May 21, 2007, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by ebaines

Given the distances between stae systems, and the universal speed limit (the speed of light), it seems highly, highly improbable that we or any other civilizations will figure out how to get to Earth (or we to them). Excon's numbers and the famous Drake equation say that there must be literally millions of planets in the universe that are inhabited by intelligent beings. One would expect half of them to be more advanced than us, many vastly more advanced. And yet, there is no credible evidence that we have ever been visited. Wouldn't you think that with all those amazingly advanced civilizations out there that at least one would have figured out how to get here? Since they haven't, I conclude it's impossible. However, I do hold out hope that someday soon our radio listening technologies will advance to the point one of the SETI initiatives will be able to detect the presence of radio signals from non-natural extre-terrestrial sources.

Very good answer. That is the most logical approach to the subject of Aliens.
Anything that people are experiancing as "Aliens," if they truly are, are from this planet and have been here at least as long as humans, if not longer.
Also, there is the possibility of alternate universes. If they can cross over then I suppose we should be able to also. I don't want to though. I like this one just fine, thank you very much!

excon · May 21, 2007, 09:24 PM

Hello again:

Not only must one consider how many planets there might be, and how many of them may have intelligent life, but one must consider WHEN these occur.

Another factor one must consider, is once life gets going, does it continue? I suggest the evidence (at least on our planet) is that life goes extinct.

On our planet, mankind has been around for about 100,000 years. Lets say that it takes us another 100,000 years for us to learn to go faster than the speed of light.

That 200,000 years is nothing but a blink in time when you consider the age of the universe.

As a matter of fact, the odds of civilizations starting at the same time are unbelievably long. Therefore, the odds that we'd be here when aliens came to visit are equally long.

In fact, we might be aliens.

excon

Capuchin · May 22, 2007, 12:01 AM

Originally Posted by excon

Lets say that it takes us another 100,000 years for us to learn to go faster than the speed of light.

excon, you're missing the point, you can't go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. There are however a couple of weaknesses in ebaines argument. Light travels in straight lines. However there may well be paths across space that are shorter than the straight line distance. This would allow us to beat light in a race, but without breaking the speed of light.

What's the only way to win a race if you're slower than your opponent? Take a shortcut! :D

Secondly, Once you're going the speed of light, time doesn't mean anything. From light's point of view, time is standing still. You can travel instantaneously. If a human could travel at a constant acceleration of 1g (9.8m/s/s), then he could travel to the edge of the visible universe (13.6 billion light years) in his lifetime. If aliens have the technology to do this (not so farfetched), then reaching us is fairly trivial.

I agree that there's no real evidence of visitation. I also agree that there's almost certainly other life out there. I think that they could easily get here with sufficient technology.

I think the limiting factor on alien visitation is actually finding us. There are billions of suns with even more planets out there. Finding life is hard, and finding such a low-tech civilisation such as ours is even harder.