UFO's

[JackT]

I Whiley Streiber, Moses, The Pope or the Children of Fatima. It's all the same thing.

Oh yeah I forgot about Whitley Strieber. I read his Communion books. And then there was the Bud Hopkins stuff....

When I was in High School or Junior High, I picked out a copy of The Mothman Prophesies at the library. It was one of those random finds that I absolutely loved.

[Mr. Brian]

What do you mean by that first sentence?

We use irrational beliefs to explain things we don't understand. We all want to believe in something greater than us whether it is advanced alien races visiting us or God or voodoo or astrology. Typically only "chosen ones" get to tell us of the "truths" like a messiah or a psychic or an alien abductee or witness. It's all really the same to me fundamentally.

[withahip]

Not only is there the problem of distance but also time. What are the chances that another civilization will have started along this very specific point in humanity's relatively brief history?

What are the chances this alien race would want to leave their own planet? I think leaving Earth to go live in a tin can in space is pretty much the epitome of suck.

What are the chances an alien race would be interested in meeting us? I think humans would be a bigger headache than they are worth to deal with. "Yeah, Zebar went down there and said hello. The humans shot him with a stun gun and cut him open! You fucking believe that shit?"

As far as humans needing something greater than themselves to explain the world I found a way to deal with that when I was 10 years old. Every morning I get up, look into the mirror and yell, "I HAVE THE POWER!!!!!""

[zabird]

It's about time, it's about space ... if there is life on another planet -- and how could there not be somewhere? -- maybe curiosity would get them in that Wal-Mart-sized tin can and wander this way, even tho they might get shot at by Texans. the same way humans were willing to get on rafts, longships, and those creaky 15th century wooden ships to see what was over the horizon.

A friend of mine believes Earth is nothing but an alien experiment, like a giant ant farm

Loved, loved, loved the X-Files. Saw in paper they're busy filming the new movie in Vancouver (yes! a return to vancouver!).

[insanejane]

It's about time, it's about space ... if there is life on another planet -- and how could there not be somewhere? -- maybe curiosity would get them in that Wal-Mart-sized tin can and wander this way, even tho they might get shot at by Texans. the same way humans were willing to get on rafts, longships, and those creaky 15th century wooden ships to see what was over the horizon.

A friend of mine believes Earth is nothing but an alien experiment, like a giant ant farm

Loved, loved, loved the X-Files. Saw in paper they're busy filming the new movie in Vancouver (yes! a return to vancouver!).

That's strange because my daughter believes the same thing!! ( the giant ant farm )! They could start their own society. She feels there's the bug colonies, then the microscopic ones, then the macro ones and on and on, but that something larger than us is watching us in the same way and it's all for someone or something's amusement.. However, she DOESN'T believe in UFOs.

[insanejane]

We use irrational beliefs to explain things we don't understand. We all want to believe in something greater than us whether it is advanced alien races visiting us or God or voodoo or astrology. Typically only "chosen ones" get to tell us of the "truths" like a messiah or a psychic or an alien abductee or witness. It's all really the same to me fundamentally.

I see what you're saying.

I thought by "similarities in religion" that you meant people that believed in an existence of some God were the ones who usually believed in aliens/UFOs.

[withahip]

A friend of mine believes Earth is nothing but an alien experiment, like a giant ant farm

I agree with your friend! This might be a giant petri dish!

[Fish Hook Girl]

My belief is that it would be extremely arrogant to think that only this planet in the entire universe was able to evolve and sustain life (as we know it). However, if the sanctioned life forms on other planets ever do achieve space travel, I hope they stay far, far away from Earth. As Gene Roddenberry once commented and I now paraphrase, how can we hope to get along with people from other planets when we can't even get along with ourselves.

[Mr. Brian]

Not only is there the problem of distance but also time. What are the chances that another civilization will have started along this very specific point in humanity's relatively brief history?

Almost zero I would guess. There may be life that is millions or billions of years ahead of us. Or behind us. Even just a few years off of where we are changes a lot of things.

Edwin Hubble only theorized 80 years ago that those little "smudges" everybody saw mixed in with the stars are other galaxies separate from our own and not nebulae within our galaxy. In other words prior to that theory, which is now a proven fact, people did not realize that the universe goes way past the Milky Way. So almost overnight, the size of the universe went from 100,000 light years to the current visible universe of over 50 billion light years

We are still in an infant state of our comprehension of what lies out there.

Cool videos to show size in the universe complete with groovy music:


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[watercolors]

Oh come on, where are the believers?! This is no fun.

The truth is out there!

[withahip]

We are still in an infant state of our comprehension of what lies out there.

We may be extinct when someone does show up and/or we do figure it out.

Could we travel via light? Would we be able to see and send light images from a great distance and travel that way? Like a interplanetary fiber optic cable?
Is it possible others have?

[JackT]

We may be extinct when someone does show up and/or we do figure it out.

Could we travel via light? Would we be able to see and send light images from a great distance and travel that way? Like a interplanetary fiber optic cable?
Is it possible others have?

Laser SETI is an existing concept and some work has been done, I believe. Light travels no faster than radio waves, however, and even light takes a very long time to travel the great distances involved.

[Mr. Brian]

We may be extinct when someone does show up and/or we do figure it out.

Could we travel via light? Would we be able to see and send light images from a great distance and travel that way? Like a interplanetary fiber optic cable?
Is it possible others have?

I remember reading that people thought we couldn't travel at the speeds of locomotives that were being built because they thought you would be crushed by the force.

The leading theory about traveling long distances through space is via wormholes which is purely theoretical, but so was a sun centered solar system at one time.
In 1935, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen realized that general relativity allows the existence of “bridges,” originally called Einstein-Rosen bridges but now known as wormholes. These space-time tubes act as shortcuts connecting distant regions of space-time.

On the other hand to be fair, so was the idea that we live on the back of a giant turtle

[Fish Hook Girl]

The leading theory about traveling long distances through space is via wormholes which is purely theoretical, but so was a sun centered solar system at one time.
In 1935, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen realized that general relativity allows the existence of “bridges,” originally called Einstein-Rosen bridges but now known as wormholes. These space-time tubes act as shortcuts connecting distant regions of space-time.

Wormholes -- that's how Capt. Janeway got Voyager home from the Delta quadrant.

And check out the new Enterprise:

http://www.aolcdn.com/aolmovies/star-tr ... prise-full

[black francis]

What was funny is, I was watching one of the eyewitness accounts from Texas, and the dude was saying how he considered shooting at the UFO.

I wish he had shot it, because he probably would have disabled it. You travel 3,000 light years only to end up in Texas and your 5 mile long ship gets taken out by a shotgun.

According to Texas law he probably would have been in his rights to shoot the thing down and kill everyone on board. I love Texas.

Ever wonder why the UFO's never stop by to visit say the Yale or Harvard types but it's always a couple of dudes with a Winnebago and some Bud Lite out hunting?

I might have just answered my own question regarding the existence of UFO's.