h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

does anybody belive in ufo's

To say we are alone in the universe is in my opinion the height of stupidity. It must be obvious to any sensible person that we cannot be alone. The universe is such a vast creation that we cannot possibly be alone in it. To be alone in the universe would be like a frog saying 'my pond is the only pond in the whole world where there is life' and equally daft!
In fact, not are we not alone but there must be civilzations that are millions of years in advance of ours, for the simple reason that their galaxies were formed before ours. And therefore they have had longer to evolve or to grow.
The next question is - So if they exist where are they? Assuming they have discovered the means to traverse the vast distances of space then they could well be in close proximity. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were observing us undetected and from a safe distance - you can recall the unexplained foo fighters of WWII for a possible example of what I mean.
But the main reason to believe what I say must be that there would be no sense, no rhyme or reason to the universe if we humans were basically all the intelligence that it could suppport. The creation of such a universe merely for the amusement of a small number of homo sapiens for a brief period of time would be totally pointless.
The first step towards moving in the right direction would be to establish a new international calendar, beginning with the day that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. By doing this we would free our minds from dogma and religion which is only serving to hold us back.

The universe is a big place, there's bound to be some other life out there, though it may be so very different that we can't even begin to conceptualize it.

How would I greet an alien? VERY cautiously.

"Are we really alone in the Universe?"

No.

"Do you believe there is life on other planets?"

Yes. Most likely not ones in this solar system, however. Definitely not complex organisms in this solar system.

"If aliens landed on earth, how would you greet them?"

Carefully.

"Why would aliens want to visit earth?"

Research. Exoanthropology. Aesthetic appreciation. Conquest. Food gathering. Boredom.

"If extra-terrestrials do exist, what do you imagine they look like?"

Cameron Diaz.

"If there are aliens out there, how come they haven't paid a visit to earth yet?"

Have you ANY idea how far away even the nearest star is?

"Can you envisage a time when humans may colonise another planet?"

Yes. It will happen within the next 200 years.

"Have you ever spotted what you believe to be a UFO?"

Yes. Four shiny objects in a regular geometric formation, stationary in the sky for a period of several minutes. If they were weather balloons, they must have been strapped together or something. I don't think for a second they were anything extraterrestrial.

"Do you believe stories of alien abduction or is it a load of old nonsense?"

Cobblers, the lot of it. Sleep paralysis and gullible trailer-park morons.

SoRB

Strangely, I don't feel particularly stupid even though I do hold the opinion that we are probably alone.

It certainly isn't obvious to me that we cannot be alone because as far as I'm aware there hasn't been proof of any sort to establish any other form of life anywhere in the universe. When there is, or indeed when the first Earth sized blue/green planet is found, preferably with a largish moon, orbiting its sun sized sun at around 93 million miles, I will probably have to revise that opinion. But until then I'll stick with life, here on Earth is no more than an accident of chemistry. I'm afraid that I have never been able to see the value of holding such certain opinions when extrapolating from a base of 1.

I have seen a UFO, but that that was exactly what it was, an Unidentified Flying Object, at least 'I' couldn't identify it, but I wouldn't want to try to ascribe it to being an alien watching me or trying to make contact. That's a bit too much of a leap of faith for me.

DK

30% of lights in the sky are unexplained. It doesn't mean that they are spies from outer space. I mean they're hardly likely to advertise their presence by flashing lights on and off or whatever it is these UFOs are supposed to do.
By the way I recall that in 1974 an Iranian airforce pilot Parvis Jafari had a dog-fight with a UFO. I don't know if he actually fired his sidewinder missiles but I think he had some strange problems with his aircraft's electronics.
Deke, I think you may safely extrapolate from a base of 1. We've now moved out of the caves and we are heading for the stars. Of course, like the old lady said it may all turn out to be: turtles all the way down.

30% of reported unusual lights in the sky (I mean)

I just did read an article of Stephan Hawking at My Space about the possibillity of other life in the universe;

Quote;
"I think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive."

When one looks up into the night sky it is a very lonely thought that we are looking at nothing, that we and we alone are the only beings in the universe but I am afraid that I believe this is the case. The light which we see today when we look skyward left it’s source many thousands if not millions of years before we looked towards the skies, the distances are that vast. So if there was or is life elsewhere the possibilities are that it died out many millions of years ago or if “alive” today we will never know as it will be another million or so years before that light reaches us.
Too many people treat Startrek as fact not just fiction and Warp speed drive motors do not exist and Scotty would probably blow them up trying to get us there anyway.
Sorry I subscribe to the Lonely old us theory.
Sorry Trekies no offencec meant!

Cheer up Henry, some stars are less than 10 light years away, I think one is only 4.5 years away - and you can be sure there's life out there. It's the raison d'etre for the universe - otherwise there would be no point to it all.

Lucky Llareggub,

As someone who wants to "free our minds from dogma and religion", what makes you think the Universe has to have a purpose? And who gave it a purpose?

Ah “The meaning of life” now that was a good film!

Just another quote, it's so fascinating;

Quote; "The fact that life happened to occur on Earth, is not however surprising or unlikely. It is just an application of the Weak Anthropic Principle: if life had appeared instead on another planet, we would be asking why it had occurred there."

Hello Darwin's poodle, It simply cannot be the case that we few are the only eggs in the basket, fish in the sea, peas in the pod or whatever we like to call ourselves. If the universe had no purpose there would be no life in it - it would be a dead universe.

Life form called "Stealth spy Trojan Horse" just zapped by my computer defences. Where did that one come from? I have no other programmes open.

Does life on other planets have to be aliens? Serously, can it not be something similar to here on Earth?

The chances that just the exact same mixture of gases were present at the big bang and that the exact same amount to radiation reached the surface of the planet and that the cooling rate was the same drawing the surface plates together combine all this with a shift in tilt of the earth’s axis the covering of the surface with ice, then the melt that caused the seas to rise and cut off one continent from it’s neighbour giving us the diverse and varied nature of our planetary life. Well I do not think that such replication is possible. If there is live out there then God knows what it would look like, but it sure won’t look like us.

It might look like dinosaurs or those strange luminous creatures that live on the bottom of the sea and have teeth like trap-doors. Or it might look like silverskin little baldie people with orange eyes. Does it have to be carbon based though?

ha ha ha ha ha !

Yeah, that's right, a dogfight with a UFO!
And some mermaids attacked a Russian submarine.
Then there were those fairies that tried to down that apache in Afganistan.

ETI? I have to say I'm much more sceptical than I used to be.
I worked my way through the Drake equation, let me beg your time to wrok you through my results.
100 billion stars in the Galaxy. I thinks that's about right. I get different results all over the place.
1% of these stars having planets. I don't think planets are very common. I think they're rare.
.5 planets per Solar System to support life. Maybe that's a bit optomitic. They are dozens of factors to take into account or a planet to support life (having said that up 5 bodies in our Solar System could support life).
100% of planets that can support life, life evolves. I have to say that if life can evolve I think it will and the same goes for the next two results, life evolving to be intelligent and willing and able to communicate.
10,000 years I think is suitable life time to be able to communicate in. The next option was 1,000 and I think it may be a bit more than that.
500 communicationg civilisation in our Galaxy. It's 100,000 light years across and our radio tranmission haven't even gone 100 light years yet. If there were 1,000 in our Galaxy the nearest would be 2,200 light years away, if there were 100 the nearest would be 4,600 light years away so if they started communicating the same time as us then we'll have to wait a while to hear from them.
I don't think we'll ever get to contact extra-galactic life.
I think there'e is life but not much. As for our Solar System there is life on Earth but it could also be in the clouds of Venus, in the subsurface water of Mars, in the oceans of Europa and in subsurface oceans on Titan and now there's even chances of it on Enceladus. I don't think any of this is intelligent and the life on Earth centranily isn't civilised. The person writeing this can't even spell.

If you got to the H2G2 Astronomical Society Questions and Answers, I've written an article on SETI. If you want a more readable version then it's on my website. I'll include the address here but if it get's removed to do with house rules then go to My Space and there's a link to it there. Scroll down and near to bottom there's two articles on SETI. Click on the right hand one since the left hand one if fiction.
http://www.maoptp.homecall.co.uk

I don't think life on other planets has to be aliens. Could it not just be animals of some sort? It doesn't have to be identical to what you find on Earth, just some sort of similarity.

Don't know about Mars. We've searched that planet dozen's of times, and we've pretty much concluded that there's nothing up there. Maybe it could've supported life at one time, but not now.