Do you believe in UFOs? Aliens?

[gabrielzero]

In this day and age its so easy for an average person to create some bullshit UFO picture in photo shop, or a videotaped UFO sighting in any movie editing program. So for this reason alone is why i have doubts about damn near every picture or video of a UFO sighting within the last say.. 50 years.. But Ive discovered paintings that date back hundreds of years ago and even cave paintings from thousand of years ago that suggests at the very least the idea of shit flying around in the sky, at time periods in human history when people really shouldn't have been thinking about FLYING OBJECTS ILLUMINATING THE SKY.. Yes flying, not falling like a shooting stars..

So yes, i believe in Aliens, i personally have never seen anything with my own eyes, but if the Universe is as big as they say it is.. I doubt Earth is the only planet in the vastness with intelligent life...Saying that, if there is intelligent life out there, i seriously doubt we are all on the same level of intelligence.. And further more, i really doubt that all of these intelligent civilizations came around to being in existence around the same time. Witch means that i believe its possible that some other creatures may have payed our planet a visit...

Traces of that could be the perfect Maya'n calendar dealing with constellations that humans of that time shouldn't have been able to calculate(unless they were just genius) But to this day we still cant duplicate or come up with one as accurate. BTW the calendar ends on 2012 for some reason or another, research if you care. But even the crystal human skull cut to perfection that was found some time ago, still cant be duplicated.The skull is some thousands of years old.

As a matter of fact I'm a Christian and i believe in God ( or for people of other religions) some sort of over seeing superior being.. Long ago i even thought as far to say that "GOD" could have been an Alien that just created our planet, and us.. But thats a little out there huh?? i mean, we can clone sheep now... Maybe in 10,000 years (if we still exist) we will be able to create our own beings, as well as predict how they will look and act.. So maybe I'm not to far out there... Earth could be some dudes science project.

[Sasquatch]

I feel about "aliens" the same way I do about "ghosts". It's a crock. I wouldn't rule out all possibility, but from what I have seen and what I haven't seen, it's very doubtful that they exist. I believe there's a natural explanation for everything understood to be "alien life".

(I also disagree stronly with spending billions of taxpayer dollars on things like the SETI program.)

[OnOneRyder]

There is no doubt in my mind that we are not alone in our universe and even our gallaxy. There is just so much space and so many planets revolving around stars in similar ways as ours that it would be very unlikely for one to not be capable of supporting oxygen dependant life.

As far as supporting life that has evolved to have created methods of travel between stars and across galaxies, I'm not so sure. In the past few hundred years we've gone from floating chickens in hot air ballons to traveling at 17,500mph towards the moon. A civilization would not have had to come into existence much earlier than ours relative to the age of the universe that have much more advanced methods of travel. In another 100,000 years there is a good chance we'll be able to reach speeds close to the speed of light.

[Setzer]

I'd have to say that I do believe that we are not alone. That there are aliens out there. True we can't totally prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there's something out there, but you nobody can prove that there is no way that we are totally alone. Granted those things like people who have 3 teeth in those no name towns and say how Bobs cow was abducted yeah that's probably a crock, but people who have things on film seem to be able to better prove things. Alot of people have videos of such things, and sure some of them aren't real and are proven to be tampered with, but I don't think that all of them are. I just feel that to think we're the only ones in our entire universe isn't right. Just because we don't see it we don't believe it?

[hellbred]

It's hard for me to say. Reason being as I see most things scientifcally from a religious stand-point so I consult my beliefs first, and have to wonder if it's a possibility second due to my faith.

In this case I'm on the fence. I was thinking about this the other day actually because I'm reading a Christian book right now. Several times within the writings of the bible and other authors, describe God as a God of creation. An Artisian. He's constantly creating, some things us humans couldn't even possibly fathom. So initially, since I believe God created the Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars, Galaxies -- the universe in a whole. I can't help but NOT think God might have possibly put other living beings in the Universe.

Of course I haven't rocketed away on a spaceship to see millions of other plants in the Universe, but from what I've read there are more than likely millions of other "Earth-Like" planets in the Universe, therefore almost impossible to not hold life on at least one, and I think it would considered not being very humble to think Earth was the first civilization ever made, or to come into being.

I could be wrong, I don't claim to be right since I have little education of aliens or extraterrestrial beings. I just think that if another species were to inhabit the planet it would be almost impossible to contact each other, and most of all fly to and from each other's planets.

Planets containing life are nowhere near us from what we've discovered so far. So planets with possible intelligent inhabitants would not only have to have already created the technology to fly to and from Earth, but their length of life would have to be 3, 4, maybe 5 times what a human's is. Simply because this "earth-like" planet would be billions or trillions of light years away making it impossible to travel in one's lifetime.

Although, according to scientists this could be circumvented if the alien specifies found a way to harness the energy of "worm holes" or possibly ever black holes which would allow then to so call..."bend" the two points (point of origin and destination) together, therefore allowing them to almost instantanously be transferred from one end of the galaxy to the other.

I still find this hard to believe, or even possible considering such force could possibly tear a mortal specifies body in half -- but it's the only logical explanation of them being able to visit us, unless their transportation method travelled several times over the speed of light... even then, life expectancy would be little to none by the time the ship arrived, and then we'd be like "WTF IS THIS EMPTY SHIP DOING HERE, DUDEZORS!?!?"

shake

[gabrielzero]

I most definitely believe in life on other worlds, even if its just on the monocellular level. Its just too easy. Slap up a few compounds, add lightning and a couple of million years of trial and error, and you've got amino acids. Add a few more million years and more lightning and you'll eventually reach something that's self-propagating. Now multiply that with the practically infinite amount of worlds...

However, flying saucers and UFOs... for me to believe that I'd have to meet them myself. The proof, isn't as solid as, say, dinosaur bones.

Oddly, the catholic church (I'm Catholic) _does_ have a official stance on aliens. In a nutshell: "If they do exist, they have a place in God's plan." At least they aren't dismissing them.

[Chez Daja]

I'd like to think theres life on other planets, though not "evil" as many movies and people make them out to be. Alien life forms, in my opinion, would probably be very small, bug-like, or even microscopic creatures that may or may not be further then us in the technical world. If they're being of higher intellegence, it'd probably do this world good to be under a threat of a possible "alien attack"... stricter!

Perhaps.

[Omega]

I think it's totally feasible that other life out there exists, in fact I expect it to be something like that one Star Trek movie where in like the year 2500 we are finally visited by another life form out there, maybe more technologically advanced than ours.

Nonetheless it's just more of the mysteries of life, to which we won't be able to prove for many years or perhaps ever.

I believe there is other life out there but I can't say that for sure until I have proof. This is science and not religion, it's not about faith it's about scientific proof.

I don't "believe" in aliens, UFOs; I remain skeptical regarding the accounts and evidence, but I am also open minded. (I don't really like the term "believe in," mind you; like when someone once asked me if I believed in evolution...well, no, there's nothing to believe in: you either accept the data or you don't accept it. Belief has nothing to do with it.)

Expanding on what someone already stated, it is simply not possible that humans are the only uber-self-aware, technological species in the entire universe (thinking we are is arrogance and homocentricity at its worst).

Other species of life obviously exist in the universe, especilly when most scientists agree that if the elements necessary for life are present, then life will take place (but we can't find them sitting here, speculating and hypothesizing. Mars is our best bet--a fulled manned mission there will put an end to this "are we alone in the universe?" rubbish, I think). We've found life on Earth thriving in the harshest possible environments (in the black, cold depths of the deepest oceans; in Antartica; on the tops of mountians) and we've see some types of life survive things that would destroy "higher" beings like ourselves.

The problem is we're infantile and ignorant as a species; we see things only in the context of ourselves (we're self-centered) and incorrectly believe that life on other planets must follow the same glorious path that we have. And thanks to a few thousand years of religion, we have a superiority complex, judging all other life as either intelligent or unintelligent. We also tend to believe that creating civilizations and massive infrastructures with technological advances is part of evolving as a species, when it isn't (even scientists, in using calculations for seeking out extraterrestrial life--see the Drake equation, are baised and limited in their scope, as well as concepts of life and the ability to both travel across huge areas of space and send signals or transmissions over vast distances). How we've come to become domesticated, possessing such large brains which assist us in manipulating our environment, detaching us from the natural web of life here on this planet is open to debate, but it will remain unknown until we encounter another species which has undergone something similar.

For all we know, there are no original species on Earth; it could be that life began here from a few microbes or bacteria embedded within a meteor or something, perhaps crashing down, billions of years ago, before our atmosphere was fully formed (in which case we're all aliens). It's quite possible. (A species of virus, for example, could drift through space, dormant, for eons before finding the right place to "become alive.") It's more than possible; it's very probable.

But our species of young, xenophobic hairless apes will never really know for sure until we get off our asses and do some exploring. Until then, we're just blowing smoke up each other's pant legs.

[hellbred]

Originally Posted by Duncelor

will never really know for sure until we get off our asses and do some exploring.

True statement, however I feel that instead of spending trillions of dollars over decades of searching, for the meantime anyways, we should spend scientific funding available to try to 'salvage' our own planet.

Recent headlines have stated scientific proof gives global warming another century (give or take) before a catastrophic event occurs, and we have about another 10-20 years to start doing something about it.

How can we continue to explore any of the theorys or possibilities above, if we have no planetary origin to explore off of.

[Crazy Chocobo]

I do believe that other life forms exist out there on other planets. I watch a lot of Roswell which probably isn't healthy for me but oh well! My friend has a book that says that aliens take the form of humans and they walk among us on this planet. I thought that was kind of ridiculous but I guess it's possible. I believe that aliens exist somewhere in this Universe. I can't prove they exist, I don't think anybody can really do that. It would be amazing if they did discover something though. I have seen many shows where they try to prove that UFO's do appear in the sky or whatever. Those types of shows are interesting to watch. I also saw one show where people claimed to be abducted by aliens, they sounded crazy to me. A scientist or Doctor said that those people could have been affected by something to make them like that, they were hallucinating or something. I don't know what to believe. I believe they exist but I'm not sure whether they would actually abduct people. I don't know if we'll ever find out that there are other life forms in this universe.

[Chez Daja]

Duncelor. You OWN this thread.

I stick to my first statement.