First Contact

[Franko47]

Feel free to discuss your own options or ideas.

 

 

Lately I've been fooling around and exploring this whole UFO and Ufology thing; merely for the reason of the fact that if even a little bit of it is true or some sightings are legitimate, create many interesting implications.

 

For me, I'm still on the fence. I find some of the testimonies ludicrous, and downright predictable, but other stuff I've come across did interest me. (Like the interview with Bob Lazar; he seems quite down to earth and credible) Other people in this genre quite frankly come off like nut cases.

 

However, to see Buzz Aldrin interviewed and talking about the mysterious object that followed Apollo 11 while emerging from Earth's orbit is kind of interesting. In fact, many of the historical astronauts have seen a variety of unexplained UFO phenomenon.

 

Remember, UFO just means "unidentified flying object" and does not necessarily imply an extraterrestial intelligence. It's more than possible that strange objects could be quantum generated phenomenon or otherwise naturally created wierdness.

 

Feel free to speculate on any aspect of this, but please don't spam with all sorts of links to pictures or video. Pics and video are so easy to fake and almost impossible to debunk at this stage of desktop computer manipulation. I have a friend who made a smokin' fake video of a saucer overhead locally, nicely vectored right down to the digital level. I'm afraid that photos and video are just not credible evidence, especially in these times.

[hereticzero]

Anyone from outerspace lands on earth, the religious kooks will kill them.

[Loren]

Of the options given in the poll, the one that comes closest to what I would expect was the intercepted SETI transmission. Except I didn't check that box, since I've long felt that SETI is barking up the wrong tree.

 

About fifteen years ago, I concluded that, due to Bell's Theorem, if there's interstellar communication, it would be some sort of method taking advantage of quantum supraluminal or instantaneity principles, since true interstellar communication suffers from the same problem as physical travel: The sheer incredible distances involved.

 

Therefor, for us to be searching for communications which use any part of the radio band of EM radiation is comparable to islanders scanning the horizon for smoke signals, and seeing none, concluding that they're all alone on their island, and all the while the radio transmissions of the whole rest of the world are zipping through their bodies all the time. Their conclusion that they're alone would be reasonable and wrong and they'd never know it. That's what we're doing with SETI.

 

Based on simple mathematics, I think that for us to think that we're the only intelligent life in the whole universe is almost insanely foolish. But I don't expect SETI to ever pick up anything but interesting natural and local phenomena.

 

It's possible that there are some advanced civilizations using quantum physics to watch us in real time, but unable to communicate with us because we haven't got the receiving technology.

 

I picture them anxiously jumping from one tentacle to another, impatiently wringing their claws and saying, "C'mon! Get it, you idiots! Get your upper sensory clusters out of your excretory orifices, already! We want to talk with you!"

 

Just think of all the wonderful, exciting advertising that's flying around out there!

 

"Buy one Glorp, get three FREE!!!"

 

"Enlarge your mandibles!"

 

Low, low mortgage rates on backwater solar systems! Get a free estimate!"

 

I suspect that once we do make contact, our best bet for a motto on how to approach the situation would be caveat emptor.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Because there were no good options I'd agree with, I picked the most likely, that we won't find them in this era, yet I don't actually believe that, so make an era be 5 years.

 

If we did make contact, it all depends where, when and how and what are we at the time. If we're still type 0 civilization when we make contact, I doubt it will be a happy moment in our history. They'll just move us and our jungle of primitive religionapes out of the way. Clearing our cities like we do forests to build what they will, or just get the resources like we do with logging.

 

If we're a type 1 civilization, they may demand tribute, or just have us be forced to join them if they're type 3.

 

If we're a type 2 civilization by then, they may just let us be us in our tiny nationstate (i.e. solar system).

 

Though I'm glad we are the only life that's intelligent in our solar system, we dont have to share it when our civilization becomes type 2.

[Ancey]

I'm on the side of Carl Sagan.

 

I do think UFO cases are false: like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Videos are doctored or made up. Even a Frisbee or a dish thrown through the sky and caught on tape looks like a UFO. So I'm extremely reluctant to beleive in UFOs and Little Green Men.

 

But I certainly do think life is out there. But it'd be very far away, likely in the same boat as us (unable to yet travel through interstellar space in a timely fashion), and our only chance to interact with them will likely be through messages that would still take decades to cross space.

 

Certainly life in other places must exist: the known universe is 92 billion lightyears across, filled with billions and billions of stars that probably carry quite a few planets each in their orbit. It's even more unlikely that they will look anything like us or even have senses that function like ours.

 

I'll be truly excited if we make contact with a civilization like ours. It would prove that the universe is not just empty space.

 

I might be there with a "Baw-wheep-graaagnah-wheep-ninny-bong" if that happens. haha.

[hereticzero]

I do not really expect we will find anything that looks like people, maybe animals, maybe simple lifeforms. We may be the only space explorers.

[Dagan]

If there is sentient life out there, it's a long way away.

 

I figure the first communication will be over long distances, perhaps in intervals of many years, communicating mathematical concepts back and forth because numbers are the only truly universal language.

[OpheliaGinger]

The gubmint will execute them all.

[The-Captain]

They'll set down, maybe trade us a few trinkets and then head home. Shortly thereafter we'll all die from some alien virus thus freeing up a lot of real estate. Maybe we'll get a monument when it is all over.

[OpheliaGinger]

They'll set down, maybe trade us a few trinkets and then head home. Shortly thereafter we'll all die from some alien virus thus freeing up a lot of real estate. Maybe we'll get a monument when it is all over.

 

Either that or they will find some way to alter genes so they can breed us out. Tourist d'amore

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

They'd come here and realize most of the population of earth is deluded and use religion to their advantage against humans, saying "we are the gods" or "the god and angels"

[godlessgrrl]

I find it reasonably plausible - quite possible, even - that intelligent life has arisen at some point elsewhere in the cosmos. But the cosmos is a damn big place, so even if civilizations have risen and fallen and other sentient beings lived and died out all over the place, it's not terribly likely that we'll ever know anything but perhaps the last echoes of their dying radio transmissions. Maybe.

 

I voted that we won't make contact within my lifetime, but I do think it possible that we might find some sort of geologic evidence of non-sentient life within our own solar system at some point. Something microbial but extinct, perhaps.

 

If for some wild reason intelligent life did in fact make it here or manage to send a message in real time, what would happen would depend on where they landed or who got the message. Odds are that in any case, some intelligence agency and/or military would be listening in, and would squelch the whole thing ASAP. We'd probably end up quarantining and later vivisecting our visitors, then perhaps developing some sort of biological weapon out of whatever new flora we found, and that would be that.

 

But then I'm also rather cynical, so I could be wrong. Maybe it'd just be a pleasant exchange of ideas and information between scientists, who knows.

[hereticzero]

Earthlings will have new STDs to worry about.

[Legion]

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." - Sir Arthur Eddington

[sciencemike]

In the absence of faster-than-light travel, another obstacle exists for the sheer distance that other alien species must overcome: If they are traveling at sub-light-speed velocities (even up to substantial fractions of the speed of light), they will age differently with respect to their own planet of origin due to relativistic effects. More specifically, those on the ship will age less than those on their own world (the Twin paradox and time dilation). In the process of traveling to Earth, they may lose relatives and loved ones back on their own planet (as they die off from old age in their own reference frame). And when they do finally return to their homeworld, it may be substantially different than when they had left it. These effects would be especially pronounced if they were on a sleeper ship during the journey. Without knowing in advance where their destination will be, it would be difficult to justify the differences in lost time as well as personal sacrificies with respect to their own world to see "primitive savages" like us.

 

Another scary thought, however, is the idea of a massive alien starship moving in our direction at highly relativistic speeds. An impact with Earth would surely impart sufficient kinetic energy to blow out chunks of our crust (and obliterating most life in the process).

[bornagainathiest]

I've just voted for the SETI option on this one, but I'd just like to point out that there's a great deal of scope for the archeological angle to surprise us.

 

No, I don't think that it will, I'm just saying that there's a possibility that it might.

 

My reasoning is as follows.

 

1. Even though the surfaces of the Moon and Mars have been mapped in hi-res detail, the same isn't true for most of the planets, moons, asteroids and comets in our solar system. We've barely scratched the surface, so to speak.

2. The image resolution of our current maps of these locations (Mars and the Moon excepted) is sufficiently coarse for small alien structures, artifacts, spacecraft, etc. to go undetected by our instruments.

3. When I use the word 'small' I'm referring to anything less than the working pixel size of the cameras on our robotic probes. This automatically excludes the possibility of large cities. (Sorry MajorT! Still waiting on your replies, if you'd be so kind.)

4. Also, our non-optical instruments (radar, UV, IR, magnetism detectors, etc.) may not be up to the job either.

5. Many of our probes are kept in 'hibernation' mode for most of their journeys to their target destinations. They don't keep their cameras on constant lookout 24/7. For example, the New Horizons probe to Pluto was launched in January 2006 and won't get there until July 2015. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ It could zip right past an alien probe, small spacecraft or piece of extraterrestrial space junk and we'd never know it.

6. Lastly, I see no reason to assume that anything from another civilization has to be at all large in size. In fact, given our track record of technological improvement and miniaturization over the last half-century, I'd expect the opposite. Nano-scale computing is coming within our reach and who knows what a society that 1,000's of years more advanced than is capable of? So small could well be the order of the day. If that's so, then I think it's appropriate for us to remember that there's a LOT of space out there for us to investigate thoroughly.

 

Please note that I'm not saying that we will find anything of a non-human origin in our solar system. I merely cite the possibility that we could be surprised and that we should keep an open mind on this one.

 

Thanks.

 

BAA.

[Vixentrox]

It's quite feasible that even a race of aliens "only" 500 or 1000 years ahead of us on the evolution of technology would be able to do "imopssible" or unimaginable feats today such as light speed. The people of the year 1510...or 510...could scarecly believe or understand our technology. Impossible magic, the work of gods or devils. Try explaining Youtube or nuclear powered aircraft carriers or an x-ray machine to someone from those more privitive times. Remember on the scale of things, modern humans haven't been around all that long. A race with just a few hundred years on us may be able to do the impossible. Now imagine a race that in the cosmic scale of things only has a tiny 10,000 year head start on us. What wonders might they have developed if they were at the level we are now when we were still living along with neanderthals?

[skepticalme]

Of the options in the poll I chose SETI, though it is still extremely unlikely. Unless a civilization is trying to be detected by broadcast very powerful radio signals into space it is unlikely SETI will find anything. Our own technology is evolving towards doing more with smaller transmitters and networking. The switch to digital TV allows for less powerful transmitters. Networks allow you to contact anyone in the world with a cellphone that transmits only a few watts. Satellites have allowed us to dropped a lot of powerful omnidirectional transmitors in favor of less powerful directed transmitors. Radars are getting more sensitive with less power. If an alien civilization follows the same path they will actually become less visible over time. If they are advanced enough the may not even use radio at all.

 

Either way, I think that technology building civilizations will be extremely rare. We may be one of the first. I think that when we do finally meet another civilization it will be hundreds or thousands of years in the future and we will be the ones showing up at their planet in ships. There certainly may be civilizations more advanced than us but we could also be one of the most advanced. This is just my opinion, but I think that we will find that humans are one of the most aggresive technology building species that there is. We will also that we advance technologically faster than most species. Just look at the last century. We advanced VERY far in a short time and most of those advancements were through war. The vast majority of our science is advanced through weapons research. Nearly every major technological breakthrough is immediately followed by, "How can we kill people with this?" It may be kind of a sad reality, but it is our nature. We are probably the closest species to Predator or Klingons in our galaxy.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

It's quite feasible that even a race of aliens "only" 500 or 1000 years ahead of us on the evolution of technology would be able to do "imopssible" or unimaginable feats today such as light speed. The people of the year 1510...or 510...could scarecly believe or understand our technology. Impossible magic, the work of gods or devils. Try explaining Youtube or nuclear powered aircraft carriers or an x-ray machine to someone from those more privitive times. Remember on the scale of things, modern humans haven't been around all that long. A race with just a few hundred years on us may be able to do the impossible. Now imagine a race that in the cosmic scale of things only has a tiny 10,000 year head start on us. What wonders might they have developed if they were at the level we are now when we were still living along with neanderthals?

You'd get cargo cults appearing in the medieval and ancient world.

 

 

It'd be pretty amazing if we did see someone else's space junk out there, and made contact. Maybe they're only a type one civilization and just got there? That would mean they're only 50 to 100 years more advanced. We might have a powerful ally or a new enemy. Hopefully ally, but I doubt they'd want to attack us right away if that were the case. It's possible. Maybe they live longer lives, and spend many generations on their mother ship.

 

I hope I'm alive when we do find life on another world. Though with our advancement (or theirs) we probably will (or won't).

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Either way, I think that technology building civilizations will be extremely rare. We may be one of the first. I think that when we do finally meet another civilization it will be hundreds or thousands of years in the future and we will be the ones showing up at their planet in ships. There certainly may be civilizations more advanced than us but we could also be one of the most advanced. This is just my opinion, but I think that we will find that humans are one of the most aggresive technology building species that there is.

Knowing how most tool making animals are, I'm inclined to agree. Even Chimpanzees are still in the stone age, some aren't even in the stone age yet. We most likely dominated over Neanderthals and other human species due to our crazy almost compulsive eagerness to develope technology. Even at a cost to ourselves. We've only had 4 other species that did that, all had the same ancestor (homo habilis) (well... javaman might be closer to austrolopithecines, but still).

 

Though how do we know that it's not only the aggressive technology building species that go into outer space? Or that they're far more common, but that in our solar system they just happened to only have come about once?

 

We will also that we advance technologically faster than most species. Just look at the last century. We advanced VERY far in a short time and most of those advancements were through war. The vast majority of our science is advanced through weapons research. Nearly every major technological breakthrough is immediately followed by, "How can we kill people with this?" It may be kind of a sad reality, but it is our nature. We are probably the closest species to Predator or Klingons in our galaxy.

That and the greys, going around a planet to experiment on the wildlife. All our worst nightmare aliens from the movies, are sadly, very very human. Every technology, if not build specifically for war, has found its way into some military usage, very true, unfortunately. That's what scares me. We might just self destruct, the way we behave.

 

All our worst nightmares from hollywood tend to be the darkside of human

[Overcame Faith]

I believe that life is a naturally occurring event in our universe. In the same way that stars are "born" and "die," so does life in those places where the environment allows. Since life is a naturally occurring event, I also believe that evolution is a naturally occurring event where there is life. Since evolution is a naturally occurring event where there is life, it stands to reason that, given the right environment, intelligent life is also a naturally occurring event. Since intelligent life is a naturally occurring event, it stands to reason that there is probably intelligent life elsewhere in our universe. Will we ever make contact with them? Who knows.

 

But I do believe there is good, solid evidence that there are UFOs seen here on Earth which are not necessarily from outer space or piloted by alien beings (though that could be the case) and which defy our known physics and are beyond what we know to be our technological abilities which were probably manufactured by intelligent beings from somewhere. Who are the intelligent beings who made them? Who knows.

[skepticalme]

But I do believe there is good, solid evidence that there are UFOs seen here on Earth which are not necessarily from outer space or piloted by alien beings (though that could be the case) and which defy our known physics and are beyond what we know to be our technological abilities which were probably manufactured by intelligent beings from somewhere. Who are the intelligent beings who made them? Who knows.

 

I disagree with you on this part. All these so called UFO's are, in reality, Misidentified Flying Objects (MFO's), like the "L.A. missile launch". All are quite ordinary things that get misidentified and for some reason (probably just human nature) people immediately jump to the extraordinary conclusions.

 

How do I know that UFO's aren't real aliens;

 

I see only two reasons for an alien race to come to Earth. One is to study us for scientific reasons/exploration and the second is to make first contact. Of the two the first is orders of magnitude more likely. If a race is here to study us then it would make sense for them to not interfere with our societies which would necessitate that they remain undetected to us. Any civilization that can cross the vastness of space would easily have the capability to do this. Hell, for all we know they can make their probes/ships out of "dark matter", or mirror its properties, that is completely invisible to all forms of EM and can pass though solid objects at will. They wouldn't be flying around for all to see and letting people take pictures of them with their cellphones.

 

If they wanted to make first contact then they would broadcast some sort of signal from a distance that would be obvious to everyone to anounce their arrival then land on the White House lawn for all to see.

[Legion]

I think it would be very difficult to guess at the full motives of alien species which might be significantly more evolved than we are. It might be like a mouse trying to guess at human motives. Having said that however, I agree with Stucker that if they are already here then among the things they will likely want to do is study us. And if so, then they will likely want to keep a low profile so as not to "contaminate" the study.

 

I also agree with OF. I think it is highly likely that there are intelligent alien species for all the reasons OF mentions. This is speculation on my part, but I think it is reasonable speculation. It seems absurd to me that only our planet will have given rise to intelligent life. However, I think it is unreasonable speculation to guess at their technology. If we could accurately predict future technological developments then those technologies would be with us today.

 

In the absence of knowledge about alien species, we are left with speculation. To me then the idea is to distinguish between those speculations which are reasonable and those which are not.

[florduh]

Our best information indicates that there are probably other life forms in the universe. There are likely to be some younger and more primitive than we are and some could be much older and more advanced. Why they would even be able to find us and then have any interest in us eludes me. Human ego makes us think we are an important player in this vast universe, but I doubt that's the case. An advanced alien race that has conquered space-time, if such a race exists, would have better things to do than mutilate cattle and abduct humans on planet Earth. I doubt they would even do a fly by.

[Legion]

If they had the capability to come here then I think they might be interested in studying us. Ego? I don't believe so. The point is not that we are an important player in the universe, but rather that we are an emerging player.