And by aliens I mean, outer space creatures and UFO. For whatever reason all UFO sighting footage looks either fake or like recorded with a Casio keyboard. And I find hard to believe we don’t have any decent footage of them with all the surveillance and technology we have now.
Edit: 🍿
Probably not. If so, they’re probably intentionally avoiding us for one reason or another.
Do aliens exist elsewhere in the universe?
Almost certainly. Our universe is a very big place.
Is it possible aliens have been here?
Well, sure! Humans like exploring, aliens may also like exploring. If aliens had a similar desire to explore as humans, they’d probably eventually end up in our solar system.
However, that doesn’t mean any of the videos or photos are real, nor does that mean they were here during human history. For all we know, the meteor that killed the dinosaurs might have been sent hurdling towards earth by a bunch of bored aliens who moved on somewhere else after watching the destruction.
I’m not sure, but I’ve noticed all UFO’s seem to come from our planet. Nobody using a telescope has ever said they’ve seen a UFO exclusively from space.
How come almost nobody here is talking about events such as the tictac footage or the Nimitz encounter? There is actual sensor data that proves there is something here. What is it? Why won’t the US gov tell us or show us everything they have? Doesn’t that make you at least a little curious?
“Something” is much more likely to be aircraft from Earth or atmospheric illusions or hundreds of other possibilities and the probability of it being actual aliens is basically 0%.
Why won’t the US gov tell us or show us everything they have?
Isn’t it also funny that all these UFO sightings almost exclusively happen in the US, the country seemingly obsessed with UFOs? And other countries basically don’t see them at all?
Also isn’t it weird that despite giving literally everyone and their kid a smartphone with high resolution cameras, we still haven’t gotten any convincing footage of any alien UFOs? You’d think if there were aliens, someone would’ve filmed them by now (hint: there are no aliens on earth to film).
Doesn’t that make you at least a little curious?
Yes, it is easy to fall into this “I want to believe” trap. Of course it makes us curious. But that should not blind you from what is real.
Not likely. I’m sure life exists out there, it’s just too far away.
It’s very unlikely, given the lack of evidence, and the immense technological base requires to make it across the distances required to get to other systems. The physics of the universe as we understand them alone is a massive mark against the possibility.
People who believe aliens have come from other star systems to visit us must not have a very good idea of the distances involved in the universe.
You can’t imagine how far away other stars are. Like seriously, it’s bonkers far away. The idea that an intelligent civilization would randomly arrive on Earth at this very time where we exist is absurd. And I mean that, because the journey would at least take thousands of years. They would not have come because they heard our signals or anything like that, because at the time they set off, we were in the stone age.
The idea of aliens visiting earth is just absurd if you actually know the distances involved, but unfortunately a lot of people think stuff works like in the sci fi movies and the aliens will just click their warp drive button and instantly arrive because “alien technology” or whatever. But it doesn’t work like that in the real world.
But… Superior technology! It’s really important they come here. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Just sayin.
No amount of technology will let you go faster than light. There’s no reason to believe that technology will just keep expanding and allow us to somehow travel easily to other star systems. Actually our current understanding of physics seems to suggest that we might never be able to do that.
Just because we want it to happen doesn’t mean it will or that we should think it will. Hope is not equal to truth, unfortunately.
You must have missed the implied /s on my comment.
But I’ll bite just for fun. Do you think in medieval times or then current technology allowed for F22 fighter jets? Go.
Saying FTL is possible is equivalent to saying effects can proceed cause, the two statements saying the same thing from different frames of reference. You can demonstrate this with the Taychon pistol paradox (you could use a gun that fired FTL bullets to shoot yourself in the past).
Wormholes could avoid this but only if the mouths of the wormholes moved away from each other at slower than the speed of light.
Has faster than light travel (e.g. via wormhole) been utterly and completely disproven by modern physics? Because if not, I’d say we can’t say that for certain.
The Alcubierre drive is theoretically possible, but requires negative mass to function.
The bigger problem is that these super fast aliens wouldn’t know where to look. We’ve only been weakly broadcasting our location for around 150 years. Less than 2% of the milky way have had the opportunity to see us.
Now, if we were seeded by aliens then that would be different.
We’ve only been weakly broadcasting our location for around 150 years.
When I consider the inverse square law, I think that after a little while any one of our broadcasts may not even be distinguishable from background radiation…
Wormholes is a purely theoretical idea, we have not observed any. There are no scientifically viable FTL drives that fit our current theories. Something like an Alcubierre would require exotic matter with negative mass, which we also have no idea if is even possible. It probably isn’t possible.
Because if not, I’d say we can’t that for certain.
This is Russell’s teapot. You can’t say “we can’t rule it out, so maybe it’s true!”. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Aliens visiting earth is a super duper extraordinary claim. You need extremely convincing evidence to go against the pure common sense that the distances are so vast that visiting other star systems (let alone the solar system) is near impossible.
Wasn’t part of the Fermi Paradox that a bunch of scientists got together and found that you needed super duper extraordinary evidence that aliens hadn’t visited earth; because a civilization capable of building any form of self-replicating exploratory drone would have been able to map our entire galaxy in less than 1,000,000yrs, assuming a speed of 0.1c?
Iirc the fact that we haven’t found a probe, interstellar message, colony ships or artificial extraterrestrial satellites yet is the super duper extraordinary evidence that supposedly disproves their existence. Our galaxy alone is so huge that the fact that there aren’t aliens is the weird part.
Also, part of the reason why exploring the galaxy would be so slow is because humans are too scared of nuclear engines. We’re literally shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to space travel because we’re too paranoid of nuclear to find a safe way of getting a nuclear engine into orbit. Nuclear engines would dramatically reduce the travel time not just within our system but also other systems to something reasonable.
I touched on this a bit here. But basically I think the fermi paradox essentially just tells us that life, multicellular life and intelligent life are much rarer than we think they are.
I don’t know if nuclear engines would change too much when it comes to space travel between the stars. I mean let’s say you could reach even 1% of the speed of light (which is already bonkers honestly). That’s still quite slow all things considered. Just to cover, say 1% of the Milky Way’s diameter (100.000 light years) would be a distance of 1000 light years. With 1% light speed, that would take you 100.000 years. That’s simply not viable.
Iirc a nuclear rocket would cut travel time down to centuries between stellar systems. While cruising the galaxy in one go might not be feasible, travelling to a nearby system would be.
Honestly even centuries is like… a crazy timescale for space travel. There’s so many things that can go wrong and there’s nothing saving you in space. Generation ships is a cool idea but it is that - just an idea, at this point.
I’d go one step further. Not only does our current understanding of the universe not include any possibility for FTL, as far as we understand FTL would completely break reality. Science actively excludes FTL as a thing that can exist.
Wormholes might be an idea, but they aren’t even at the theory level yet. More of a conjecture that fell out of some math, but can’t exist in the real world.
More of a conjecture that fell out of some math, but can’t exist in the real world.
To be fair, you could have said the same thing about black holes at some point. But even if wormholes exist, they may not be “constructable” or anything of that sort. It may just as easily be a hole from nowhere to nowhere and you can’t change it or move it, it’s just there.
I wouldn’t trust people who have no idea what 95% of everything that exists actually is, when they tell me what’s impossible.
I want to believe.
The truth is out there
I know that feel. I also want to believe. Contact is one of my favourite movies. You should watch it, it’s very good. But it’s fiction.
We can’t let our hopes blind us from the truth. I also wish warp drives would be real and I wish I would win the lottery tomorrow. But neither of those things are true.
I think it’s the other way around - people who claim it’s impossible because of “long distances” have problems imagining someone traveling using wormholes or other technologies humans have no clue about.
Usually the response to this is “yeah but why would they visit us, we don’t matter”.
Ever looked at an animal because it’s beautiful or fascinating? Why do you go to the zoo or the park? Why do anything except stay at home since you know what it’s like already?
Humans would absolutely travel to other star systems if we had the technology. Why wouldn’t they?
imagining someone traveling using wormholes or other technologies humans have no clue about
Our current physical theories suggest that there is no “shortcut” to travelling between the stars and it will likely not become any easier with future technology. There is no way around light speed and conservation of momentum.
I don’t doubt that alien civilizations would want to visit if they knew we existed - we certainly would want to visit another civilization if we knew it existed. But the problem is that it’s just not physically feasible. The most likely scenario is that we achieve some kind of radio communication with another civilization.
All due respect, our current theories are probably downright primitive to any advanced life form and there’s undoubtedly blind spots in modern day science, be it in any field.
our current theories are probably downright primitive to any advanced life form and there’s undoubtedly blind spots in modern day science
“All due respect”, this is pure speculation. We may very well be at a close approximation of physics and have a reasonably accurate understanding of the limitations. Or we may not be. But there is not really much of a reason to think that what we know now about the limitations of the universe (like the speed of light) should somehow be upended by new discoveries or theories.
“All due respect”, this is pure speculation.
This entire discussion is pure speculation-- are you really going to be that guy who says "but not my comment!"?
Are you really saying that “aliens have not been to Earth” and “aliens have been to Earth” are equal when it comes to speculation? You would need a lot of evidence to prove the latter and there’s a lot of theory to support the former.
I’m saying both arguments are speculative.
But what you are doing is also speculation. You have a firm belief that aliens don’t visit because it’s too far to travel. Because you speculate that they would use combustion engines and run out of gas, or it would take too long because they have to travel in a line (not using wormholes and whatnot).
I think some people are just more open to looking past those limitations that we have. Just because humans have those limitations does not mean others do.
Our civilization don’t have space exploration as a profession. You and I can’t even leave the planet. We have astronomers looking at things and we have space agencies that tell us what they see. And that’s it.
Us speaking about what other species can do is a bit silly. We really have no idea.
It’s super likely that others have found a way to extract energy from space itself. Humans are still focused on fighting eachother. It’s primitive here.
Honestly, I feel like too many people have a cognitive bias from living in a time of unparalleled technological advancement. We’ve gone from, e.g. mechanical chronometers to calculate longitude on wooden vessels propelled by the wind to GPS-guided international flights in a historical blink of an eye. The pace of technological change even in living memory has been immense.
Not knowing how any of it works, it’s easy to think of it akin to magic, and to extrapolate from “18th century humans -> 21st century humans” to “21st century humans -> alien technology”. The catch is that this technological surge has come about because we’ve figured out how the physical universe works, not in spite of missing out on big chunks of potential knowledge.
All of our technology has plumbed the depths of our physical, scientific knowledge. The same physical knowledge that allows us to do wonders also shows us the limits, and provides the definitive answers as to why there’s not “alien technology” out there that would seem like magic to us.
Put another way, it would be really bonkers if the scientific knowledge that has enabled us to do so many practical things, like create tiny devices like the one I’m using to tap out a message, was somehow totally wrong.
Put another way, it would be really bonkers if the scientific knowledge that has enabled us to do so many practical things, like create tiny devices like the one I’m using to tap out a message, was somehow totally wrong.
The space for functioning systems to co-exist within a wrong underlying model is huge. A Turing machine does not care about mathematics or logic. It just matches a sequence and swaps in a value and maybe ticks in a different direction. You could argue that the patterns themselves require a minimum of math/logic, but truthfully - no, they don’t - for the same reason that you cut cheese without needing to know what the knife is doing at the molecular level: if the input gives an expected output, you can construct entire worlds on that alone.
You don’t need to understand the composition of cheese and bread to make a grilled sandwich.
That’s true, but our theory of physics is far more complex than those simple patterns. It actually consists of many, many interrelated theories that mutually reinforce each other. And that so many of them describe phenomena described with c as a term strongly indicates the speed of causality of pretty fundamental.
In any case, I’d be very interested to learn how it shakes out, but I probably won’t be around in 300 years to do so!
I feel like you’re completely leaving out the gap that there will between what we’ve achieved now vs 1000 years from now. If there’s advanced life out there that’s been around for long enough, I don’t think it’s biased to say that there’s a chance their tech is far more advanced than ours. I understand what you’re saying, but let’s not pretend we’re the true generation where there won’t be any major breakthroughs. There will be, but they’ll just take longer than before. To make technological leaps comparable from the 1800s to now, it may very well take from now to the year 3000, but the point is the notion that we’re past the point of major leaps is unfounded and based on the false notion that I’m saying in 300 years we can expect technological leaps as large as we’ve seen in the last 300 years.
Ah, but “major technological breakthroughs” != “major technological breakthroughs concerning faster-than-light travel”. Certainly, there will be more of the former in the next 300 years, but our understanding of physics precludes the latter.
The quality of our understanding of physics is proved by the technological advances that we’ve already made with it. Yes, we’re missing some major pieces, like how to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics (how to quantize gravity), but the problem that physicists face on this front is actually how stunningly well the Standard Model holds up, and has so far resisted attempts to break it. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll discover anything which completely upends the laws of physics as we know them.
There is no way around light speed and conservation of momentum.
That we know of, yet. We haven’t even had particle accelerators for a hundred years; let’s give it at least 500 years of scientific research and discoveries before we say definitively that we absolutely know, without any doubts, that there’s no way around conservation of momentum.
I ain’t saying there is a way; just that we are very young, and very immature.
Some people think, all that? Less absurd than the notion that humans built the pyramids themselves
Nothing absurd about building the pyramids. It’s just a pile of stones stacked on top of another. Putting one stone on top of another is perfectly doable. Doing so with a million stones just needs more men, more time and more stones.
Oh, I agree. I was commenting on how people claim “pyramids! aliens!” and somehow that feels more feasible than us piling rocks up. Probably didn’t phrase that clearly enough
If they were and didn’t want to be detected, they’re doing a great job. They haven’t gone and done anything stupid like leaving a box of sunglasses that can reveal them and their subliminal messages where former wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper could find them and fuck their shit up.
I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubble gum.
yes
source: trust me bro
There’s no evidence that sentient extraterrestial life has ever made contact with our planet. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. SETI chief says US has no evidence for alien technology. ‘And we never have’
Space is absolutely huge, to the extent it is difficult for us to comprehend its vastness. The universe could be teeming with sentient life, but the planets with sentient life are spaced so far apart that the likelihood of travelling to and from them is low. Not knowing what something is ≠ alien technology.
Well their is the theory that bacteria can theoreticly be used to seed life across the galaxy and that we could be part of that but who knows.
Its like finding life on mars u got 2 options: 1: its simmillar to earth life and we can place it in our genetic tree hence some weird crossovee happened
2: its not simmillar to earth life meaning 2 of the planets in our solar system invented life making the fermi paradox even more paradoxical
That’s within a solar system, where distance, time lines and energy is relatively low.
Any event with enough energy for something to leave the solar system, destroys all life, even microscopic. And even if somehow it does survive and leave the solar system, space is pretty much empty so it will probably never hit anything. But if it does hit something, 99% of what’s out there is stars. So it would end up in a star. And if it does hit a planet, coming in at intergalactic speeds absolutely destroys any life. None of that matters though, because the distance involved is so freaking huge, nothing living can survive that long. Travel times are so long, only fossils would arrive, that’s how long we are talking.
Send tardigrades
If aliens were to visit us it’s a miracle not only in space but also in time.
Space is huge, for some aliens to randomly arrive here would mean they are just about everywhere. We would surely see signs of them in other solar systems, even if they haven’t visited here. There are so many solar systems out there, you don’t just randomly stumble upon ours. And the space in between systems is also so big our brains literally can’t fathom it.
But time is huge as well. Humans as a civilization with electricity and technology has only existed for 200-300 years (being generous). Some say aliens have only been interested in us since the atom bomb, which is not even 100 years. However humans as a species has existed for over 100,000 years. And intelligent tool users have been around for about 1,000,000 years. If aliens visited anywhere in that time they would have laughed at the silly monkeys and have been on their way. For them to have randomly stumbled upon us just as we are enjoying our few hundred years of modern civilization is one hell of a coincidence.
Space is mind bogglingly huge, time as well, for both to line up perfectly for aliens to happen upon us is impossible. Even if life is abundant in our galaxy, the separation of time and space pretty much excludes any chance for contact.
But everyone knows time is money. Maybe these aliens have a lot of money.
I like this explanation. I don’t think we can do a lot better than this one at this point.
I think a fun next step is “forget what’s real, I want to write a story with humans interacting with aliens that’s consistent with what we see now.” What do you have to invent to make it work? Nothing really works for me. But stuff like the dark forest is good. I can suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it.
Several things.
- Everyone seems to be stuck on the fact that travel to get here would be interstellar and that’s impossible. Another hypothesis could be that they’re inter-dimensional or ultra-terrestrial, possibly living in the ocean.
- The famous videos released by DOD and reported on in the NY Times.
- If the accounts of these videos by trained military pilots is to be believed then a) they can accelerate many times beyond what any known military craft can to the point where the structural integrity of any known aircraft would fail. b) They were observed entering and exiting the water.
- If a) then maybe our smartphone cameras cannot see them clearly due to speed or cloaking technology. I’d point to the “Jellyfish” video leaked this year where the UAP was captured by infrared only. Source.. Most normal cameras can’t see lots of things.
- Kirkpatrick was clearly running diversion tactics on this issue before he left to the Department of Energy. He lied about meeting with individuals about Skinwalker Ranch (the individual produced receipts), he’s purposefully deceptive with his wording - “aliens”, “UFOs” when asked specific questions about Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) and UAP, and gets the facts about the most famous cases wrong when trying to discredit them. Most recently he claimed that one of the videos was an optical illusion because it was filmed during the day but the video was in fact filmed at night.
- J Allen Hynek, head of Project Bluebook, which was a government program to debunk UAP. The guy who coined the phrase “Swamp Gas”. He finished his work with Bluebook and basically did a 180 and for the rest of his life claimed the government had pressured him into coming up with debunking theories. He believed in UAP and became an advocate for the rest of his life. Why?
- Rendlesham Forest case, which prompted the US Government to medically pay one of the soldiers who was subject to the phenomenon.
- The former Canadian head of our DOD and other very senior government officials which speak freely after retirement and say that there is a coverup. Recently Harold Malmgren presidential advisor to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, claimed that he was briefed on “Otherworld Technologies.” Obama saying famously in that interview that there are things in our skies and we don’t know what they are. He could have just said no they’re not real - why didn’t he?
- Famous reports in WW2 of fighter pilots seeing metallic orbs, just like the ones still reported today. There was no drone tech back then.
What would be enough proof if what we’re dealing with is beyond our current comprehension? Do they need to trot it out on live TV? Lyme disease wasn’t discovered until relatively recently like the 70s or 80s iirc and it was because a Doctor got it. Up until then they were saying it was juvenile arthritis.
I’m just saying that there has been a lot going on recently if you pay attention.
Either a lot of really high level officials are lying or military/intelligence is. Knowing how going public with this stuff can ruin your life, what possible motivation would they have to lie. There is no big money in this.
You forgot magic. They could be magic. Notice how no one talks about magic aliens? That’s because it’s a cover-up.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, to paraphrase the famous quote.
Yup.
What on dear earth does Lyme’s disease have to do with anything you mentioned?
Point being that they didn’t know what Lyme Disease was until they made the breakthrough discovery.
Smartphone cameras can’t see them but other cameras can? I really hope you’re a troll, cause everything you just said is fucking ridiculous
Your smartphone can’t see viruses or heat but other cameras can. Point being, there’s lots a normal camera can’t see.
Almost assuredly not, but we know so little about abiogenisis, its entirely plausible to consider that there may have been multiple origins of life on earth. The nature of cellularization, and DNA first versus RNA first models for life (or perhaps even some other “3rd” biomolecule? maybe surface level interactions on clay?), or even RNA only models. It may well be that there are other sources for abiogensis that are extraterrestrial, but that doesn’t overcome things like the concentration dilemma (you need some biophysical process to concentration “enough” of these interesting biomolecules to do meaningful stuff).
So extra terrestrial things that stand on legs and have heads and eyes? Almost assuredly not. But it may well be that we’ve been repeatedly (or continuously) colonized by extra-terrestrial bio-molecules. I still hold out for some missions to features like Pluto where there is obviously a kind of deep-ice geochemical cycle happening (freeze-thaw based on coming close/ further to the sun). In these cycles there might be opportunities for basic biomolecules to form and accumulate. Slam a big chunk of it into a planet that is at least cool enough to have liquid water, and a geochemical cycle, that might be all you need.
No. There are none on our planet.
I found this report quite enlightening, especially about the situation in Usa:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/27/sean-kirkpatrick-pentagon-ufo-conspiracy-theory-myths
This guy is is self contradicting.
"the actual conspiracy is being carried out by a group of true believers themselves to get the government involved in the business of investigating aliens”.
Compared with.
“ there’s no evidence of the government conspiracy.”
He also conflates the topics of UFOs and aliens.
There is no contradiction in “they are doing things” and “there is no evidence about them doing things”. Think about it…
How does he know they are doing things if there is no evidence?
The guy doesn’t speak like a scientist. There is no caution in his statements. No possibility of doubt in his own opinion.
How do you know who has murdered your mother in law, if there is no evidence?
Well, you know something has happened. There’s a dead mother in law in the middle of the room.
Not sure where you are going with this analogy.
Ok so I am giving up on you now.
One of my favorite theories about life is that life may not have originated on Earth.
It is likely that Earth stayed molten longer than other planets due to the collision of two large bodies that ended up creating the Earth and the Moon. That could have led to other planets having a head start in creating life. We know that Mars had liquid water on it before it lost its magnetosphere.
We have some evidence that life can survive on meteorites, potentially allowing for the transfer of life across the solar system.
So, it is possible that a meteorite hit Mars, causing debris to get ejected into the atmosphere. From that, one of those rocks with life hit Earth.
