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Do you believe aliens exist?

I think it's only logical to think that there is no chance we are alone in the universe. If we are here then I think that's enough proof that there has to be more life out there somewhere.

AA95 3 Jan 14
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31 comments

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0

I agree with you 100%. It's just that I see no credible evidence that any of them have visited us. Not now or in the past.

5

Carl Sagan called our world the tiny blue dot in a great speech. It's extremely difficult to imagine our tiny blue dot being the only place where life exists, especially when you see how it thrives in so many climates, under and above water, in the freezing water under an iceberg to the boiling water around the mouth of an undersea volcano.

The water bear is an excellent example of how life may travel from one world to another in the vacuum of space. If you haven't read about this little bastard, check it out. It's pretty astounding. Read facts 11 through 20 - [factslegend.org]

4

One of my favorite images on the subject.
With that much stuff out there how could there not be other wierd random stuff somewhere?

MsAl Level 8 Jan 14, 2019
3

Belief or disbelief is not appropriate IMO, unless you just like to argue. I am certainly open to the idea of alien life, and there is indeed some evidence. There’s not enough of the kind of evidence that would be persuasive, so I’ll put the question on a back burner for the time being.

3

Here we go throwing around the 'B' word again. How do you define 'believe'? If it means to accept some proposition with inadequate or no evidence, then the answer is an emphatic no.

Here we go throwing around the 'A' word again. How do you define 'alien'? If you equate the word with intelligence wielding technology, then the answer is an emphatic I have no idea.

See, here's the problem. We are working from a sample of one. Based on what we know of how things work (physics/chemistry), we can say that probability would indicate that there is life of some sort somewhere else but here, but beyond that we can draw no conclusions. So, the answer to the question is generally as follows.

Given the presence of the same elements being available throughout the universe, it is reasonable to assume that there might be life somewhere besides here. The key here is 'assume'. We can't know until we find it. If we find a single microbe on a single body here in our solar system, we will have changed the nature of the problem radically. However, that would still not give us reason to think that intelligence capable of technology is out there as well. Intelligence is one thing. Being able to manipulate the environment is another.

3

Drakes Equation pretty much sums is up on the probability of life through the cosmos, and that probability is rather high.
Plus Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson in a book, and many talks show that what life on this planet is chemically made of, is the same 1 for 1 what the universe is made of. Being, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon etc. the list goes on.

With that said, and other things, I can't see how life could not be elsewhere.

But as far as ever been visited by them. I'm not so sure about that.

2

In the sense that something exists somewhere in the universe, it's almost entirely certain.

In the sense that they're visiting Earth to strap people to their Probulator, almost certainly not.

@Donotbelieve I wish I could take credit for it... it was from Futurama 🙂

2

The evidence is there it’s always been there but when you take in account that no one wants to be a cast out or risk defying their government because they’re already conditioned and loyal just as they were under religion.

Which surprises me when people who claim to be non believers of faith are so willing to perpetuate the ideology of the abrahamic faiths that there can possibly be no others because we are god’s Devine creation.

All while every civilization on the planet was pointing at the same constellation and saying that’s where we originated from. We have societies that never met and share little to identical alphabet or vocabulary but they all call those who have come from space the exact same name.

We’re still discovering petroglyphs and other anomaly’s that can only be seen from heights and distances that we weren’t able to achieved until the mid 20th century so once a fucking gain who was meant to see them?

But as I said I don’t ever expect anyone to share my level of beliefs in that we didn’t just show up out of a female chimpanzees birth canal nor did we crawl out of pile of dinosaur dung and the more sophisticated science gets the more it leans towards us not coming from the exact same location on this planet.

So I guess that only time and science will tell but until I’m holding to my beliefs as should y’all if that’s what you truly believe.

"Which surprises me when people who claim to be non believers of faith are so willing to perpetuate the ideology of the abrahamic faiths that there can possibly be no others because we are god’s Devine creation."

Okay, what?
Pretty much a basic tenet of most atheists/agnostics is that all life evolved, not that it was created. Whether it evolved in other places is subject to opinion, since we lack evidence one way or the other.

"All while every civilization on the planet was pointing at the same constellation and saying that’s where we originated from. We have societies that never met and share little to identical alphabet or vocabulary but they all call those who have come from space the exact same name."

This is unintelligible, sorry. I can't even respond to this.

"We’re still discovering petroglyphs and other anomaly’s that can only be seen from heights and distances that we weren’t able to achieved until the mid 20th century so once a fucking gain who was meant to see them?"

When people believed that Gods lived up in the sky, they built designs for them to look at and in order to worship them. It's not necessary to postulate aliens in order to account for the Nazca lines.

"But as I said I don’t ever expect anyone to share my level of beliefs in that we didn’t just show up out of a female chimpanzees birth canal nor did we crawl out of pile of dinosaur dung and the more sophisticated science gets the more it leans towards us not coming from the exact same location on this planet."

You show no understanding of evolutionary theory. Humans never evolved from chimpanzees. We have a common ancestor, the other primates are our cousins, not our evolutionary grandparents. Nor does the discovery of homonid fossils in various locations on the planet mean that humans evolved separately in those locations. Like the chimps, they are our cousins.

@Paul4747 I love this site if for nothing more than to see my words repeated if for nothing more than to make yourself sound smarter. ?

Yeah either way Paul you’ve proven your point ???? Congratulations ? the cookies all yours

2

Yes. But I don't believe they have ever been here.

2

It is statistically impossible that we are alone in this galaxy, let alone the entire universe.

@johnprytz But we don't have a statistical sample of 1. We have a statistical sample of 1.8 million currently, as that is how many known species are living on Earth, which is less than one tenth of a percent of all the species that have already evolved, lived, and gone extinct here. As I said, statistically impossible that there is no other planets with life in our galaxy, let alone the infinitely vast universe. If we were the only species on Earth, "extremely improbable" would apply. But we're not. The more species we discover, the smaller the chances are that we are alone, which is already in the millionths of a percent chance. And, for the record, anything below a one percent chance is considered statistically impossible, as anything between 1% and 0% is pure semantics.

@johnprytz Fair enough.

2

I do. Although there's no actual proof, I think there's life on other planets. In what form? Who knows?

1

Every day aliens are crossing the Mexican border and entering the USA.

1

Here's the odds;

Within our solar system. 0.0001% (bacteria or viral like "aliens" on Mars or the Moon (in the ice). Some frozen ancient DNA in the comets.

Within 5 light years (LY). 1% Only one star system is that close, Alpha Centauri, and it has several planets; but none in a "goldilocks" (G.O.) orbit that we can detect...yet.

Within 50 LY 5%. There are a few star systems - and a couple have "earth-like" planets in G.O. Remember; having an earth-like planet in G.O. doesn't mean intelligent life has evolved. It suggests life is at some stage of evolution...or the intelligent life went extinct.

Within 100 LY; 10%...read the logic, above. There's 500 star systems within 100 LY. of us. Out of those I'm guessing there is 50 (10%) that have evolved some stage of alien life. But communicative, intelligent, radio transmiltting/receiving? I'd drop that down to 10% of the 50, or 5. 100 LY is our limit of concern for two reasons; #1. Radio just started being transmitted around 100 Years ago. #2. If intelligent aliens 100 LY away just heard us - and sent a response - we wouldn't hear from them for another 100 years.

Chances are therefore slim that anyone has heard our TV/radio signals. They haven't been going out there for very long; and not too powerfullly until recently 10-20 years ago).

Now; if you ask me about our Galaxy; I'd say 99% chance intelligent life exists. In fact odds are that they're so abundant that a being on a planet far, far away, is typing on their social media the exact same question.

Oh....one more thing. There's a race of intelligent beings that co-exist with us here. They are in the class mammalia, and they live in the sea. They're so advanced that they abandoned radio and technology long ago. They have no clothes, no buildings, no money, no farms, no hospitals; and the only diseases they get are from us. They're the Cetaceans. The sea Mammals. Their kids eat and play all day, and their adults make love all day. Jealous, yet?

1

Yes, but are likely to be some kind of microbe rather than flying around in saucers.

1

Beats the hell out of me I got other things to worry about ?

1

I dunno, but once while camping in N. Az. I saw ball lights that zigged and zagged in the sky at incredible speeds.... wasn't man made, and it wasn't ball lightning.....

1

Are we a lone?No. Are thet they visiting? No. Reason Simple, tooooooooooooooooooooo damn far. A bunch of other reasons too. But that reason is enough.

1

I can't wait for complicated extraterrestrial life forms to be scientifically proven. I wonder what religious nuts would then have to say about the role of their Gods in all that.

1

of course there is life "out there." it is probably microbial. the thing is, if you want to define life as something that resembles us, or even other animals, then it becomes less and less likely. life can come into being with the right chemical and environmental conditions. intelligent life... that takes more special circumstances, very specific courses of evolution that are unlikely to occur (evolution yes, those specific courses no) elsewhere. so if you're looking for someone who's looking for us, that's quite unlikely. and our existence isn't proof of anything relating to anyone else's existence. it might or might not be evidence. evidence and proof are not the same thing.

g

True, the Drake equation misses out a lot of important details, the leap to eukaryotic cells only happened here once, and could be an almost impossible event, which means bacterial life everywhere.

@Fernapple just as the boobies in the galapagos evolved differently on different islands, life could go in bizarre directions if the environment even required any kind of evolution at all that we would recognize. bacteria that are doing just fine exactly as they are have no likelihood of evolution except by truly random mutation (as opposed to random mutation that survives according to adaptation and thus seems to have a direction -- that's confusing cause and effect but we humans do that all the time!) so all the bacteria could turn blue for no discernible reason, instead of, say, clumping together to fight some enemy and inadvertently, generations and eons down the road, becoming more complex organisms, or just becoming very big and eating up the competition and then dying off because it ate up the competition... and so on. of course then we could come along and either kill them all with a single breath or carry them home and kill off our entire planet (except for the cockroaches; i don't think anything will ever defeat them).

g

0

Yes. They are called bacteria.

0

As much as possible, my "beliefs" are based in evidence. I do have inclinations based upon extrapolation our existence and our observances.

The earth is in just the right orbit in the galaxy. It is in just the right orbit in the solar system. It is just the right size. It is just the right age. It has just the right amount of internal heating. It has just the right amount of atmosphere. It is special. As we are.

Can other such places exist? I think so. And I hope so.

0

Need to see it. Probabilities are strong, but until proven it doesn't matter about belief.

0

Always an interesting thought

0

No, even if some of the people on this site see a UFO, they'll debunk it even though what they witness doesn't match up to what they claim to have seen.

0

Yes

0

Given the unimaginable vastness of interstellar space I am inclined to think that we are not the only life forms in the universe. However, as to what form other life forms might take it remains largely a matter for the imagination.

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