Are we alone?

[Lemon Jelly]

Not that long ago I watched a documentary on British UFO's and this one guy called Nick Pope who worked for the UFO Sightings detp. at the MOD talked about this one sighting that had dozens of witnesses from around the country including police officers and military personal all saying they saw the same thing. From what I remember he said that 99% of sightings were mainly weather balloons, planes, and satellites in the sky, but this one sighting had him going crazy because the speed of the thing was amazing, I think it moved from Wales to the South of England (around 114 miles I think it was) in minutes! The craft was also seen shining lights over certain military instalments where there were nuclear weapons of some kind (I think).

The MOD thought it might of been the US trying out Aurora without telling the British BUT the same thing had been spotted in the US, the MOD had a call from some dept. in the US military asking if they had any test flights.

This case intrigued me more than any others because it was seen by some many people in different parts of the country and that the speed was super fast, to fast to have been a plane.

There is supposed to be 125 billion galaxies in our universe and so far we have found no other life, there must be some form of life like us in one of those 125 billion galaxies!?

[sunken]

It would certainly stand to reason that there would be other life out there, perhaps not quite like us, but other life nonetheless. Otherwise what would be the point of so many galaxies? To me, the world and universe seem to have a grand design and if that is the case, then such a design would be inane if it wasn't to hold other lifeforms throughout the universe.

It makes you wonder if someone or something on another planet is wondering the same thing.

"It's worse than that, it's life Jim..." - Star Trekkin

[JonUK]

sunken Wrote:To me, the world and universe seem to have a grand design and if that is the case, then such a design would be inane if it wasn't to hold other lifeforms throughout the universe.

Design? Like it had an Intellegent Designer perhaps?

The equation for calculating the number of alien civilisations in our galaxy ALONE is called the drake equation - but it still comes down to one variable in the equation, fi - The probabiliy that on a life sustaining planet, intelligent life will evolve - some people say it will always happen and the probability will be one - others say the probability of that is zero.

This comic illustrates the problem.

However, our civilisation exists and we are (questionably) intelligent so fi can't realistically be zero, and even if fi were one tenth of one percent (0.001) there would still be an estimated 5 Communicating civilisations at the present time. And thats just in this galaxy, never mind the 100,000,000 other galaxies.

It is the size and sheer scale of the universe that makes other life so certain - nothing to do with a designer. The universes 'design' would only be inane if its purpose were to hold lifeforms and did not contain any. Since it contains at least one (thats us by the way) either its design is not inane or we are a statistical anomaly in a universe designed for some other purpose. Or, as I believe, the universe was not 'designed' at all, our
planets circumstances could easily be repeated (our star is of the most common type in our observable universe) and life could flourish anywhere and anywhen.

Its only our view of the universe which allows us to make estimates of the numbers in the drake equations - seeing as we haven't heard form anyone in our galaxy yet we may have got the numbers wrong.

Or it might just be the the galaxy is 100,000 light years end to end and our own transmissions into space haven't even reached 100 light years yet....

[lihen]

Life's possibility out there is as high as it's presence on earth.
The only thing which should be asked that are they capable to reach us.
Finding life out side earth will be a great achievement but will go in vain if there is nothing that we can learn from them; if we find microscopic life forms then that will certainly prove life's presence but what will we get to learn from them?
Instead of this if we come across an extra terrestrial civilization which is much more advanced than us, then this would be beneficial for us.

[hidden]

I believe there may be life as in microscpic organisms but besides that I do not imagine there would be any complex life.

[Coop]

I find it very hard to believe that in the grand scheme of things we could possibly be alone. As was said, there are so very many galaxies out there that it seems impossible that we are the only life that is out there. I really wish that we could find a way to travel to other galaxies to seek out that life. It's believed to be impossible but we've accomplished many things that were once thought impossible and I hope that some day, though it won't be in any of our lifetimes, we do gain the ability to seek out other life forms that are as advanced as us.

On the other hand, finding another lifeform as advanced or more advanced as us could potentially be a problem as well. We as one world cannot get along..I can't imagine two worlds getting along at all. However I still hope that during my life we find other life, I've always been very interested in space and what is out there.