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An alien artifact like the Voyager probes' "Golden Record," which contains coded information about Earth as well as recordings of earthly sights and sounds, would probably elude our attention if it were in our solar system. In fact, we might not even detect the Voyager probes.
After analyzing our capability to detect objects in the solar system, researchers have come to a conclusion that should be fairly obvious: Even if extraterrestrials left something in our solar system like the artifacts we’ve sent out into deep space, we almost certainly wouldn’t know they were there.
"The vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial origin would likely remain untouched," Penn State researchers Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ravi Kumar Kopparapu write in a paper accepted for publication by the journal Acta Astronautica.
The claim that there are plenty of places where alien robots or monoliths could lurk comes as no surprise to Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the California-based SETI Institute. "That's standard wisdom in the field," he told me today.
Our messages to the cosmos
The latest research quantifies just how unexplored different parts of our solar system are, but the bottom line is that we haven't searched the prime areas closely enough — particularly if we're looking for objects ranging from 1 to 10 meters (3 to 33 feet) in size. That's roughly the size range for the human-made objects that are on their way out of the solar system, including the Pioneer and Voyager probes.
Those particular '70s-era spacecraft were equipped with objects that could conceivably tell extraterrestrial civilizations that intelligent entities inhabited at least one planet in our solar system: The Pioneer 10 and 11 probes carried plaques that bore pictures of a human male and female, along with symbols representing our cosmic location. The Voyager spacecraft had "Golden Records," pictogram-bearing phonograph records that could be played to reveal the sights and sounds of Earth.
Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu imply that if the aliens were like us, they wouldn't be able to pick out the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, let alone the plaques and the records. "Few if any of the attempts would be capable of detecting a 1 to 10 meter probe," they write.
Even if an alien object were left on Earth, it's not 100 percent certain that it could be found. "The surface of the Earth is one of the few places in the solar system that has been almost completely examined at a spatial resolution of less than 3 feet," the researchers write. Nevertheless, non-terrestrial objects could lurk on the ocean floor, or in the depths of a jungle, or inside a deep cave. There's even a chance that the probe would just look like a rock.
And when you're talking about the whole solar system, the task is analogous to "finding a needle in a thousand-ton haystack," the researchers write.
Signals vs. artifacts
Vakoch said that's why scientists involved in the search of extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, tend to focus on radio signals (or laser pulses) rather than physical artifacts. "It's much less energetically expensive," he said. "In a way, it's easier to search for intelligence across the galaxy than it is in our backyard."
Similarly, SETI researchers don't hold out much hope that E.T. will come across our the Pioneer plaques or the Golden Records, much less figure them out. "There's a minuscule chance that any of the things we've sent so far will ever be detected by even the hardiest extraterrestrial civilizations," Vakoch said.
Vakoch observed that the research suggests "one possible response to the Fermi Paradox." Back in 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues discussed the prospects for alien life, and speculated that if intelligent beings could arise in other planetary systems, there should have been enough time for them to visit Earth many times over millions of years. "Where are they?" Fermi is said to have asked.
Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu propose an answer of sorts: "Searches to date of the solar system are sufficiently incomplete that we cannot rule out the possibility that non-terrestrial artifacts are present and may even be observing us," they write.
Maybe there's a cast-off alien plaque sitting just over a hill somewhere on Mars ("We Came in Peace for All Blurxkind"). Or maybe the latest "Transformers" movie had it right after all. What do you think? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
More on the alien search:
- City lights could point to E.T.
- Search for alien 'footprints' on Earth?
- Calculate the odds of finding E.T.
- Gallery: Four decades of SETI
- Alien-hunters add super-Earths to their list
- More from Cosmic Log about aliens ... and about SETI
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or following the Cosmic Log Google+ page. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Thank you, Alan Boyle. Thought-provoking article. And here's one my thoughts. Even if we find an alien artifact, we might not recognize it as such. It would be too, well, alien.
This is even more likely, possibly close to inevitable, if the aliens are lifeforms fundamentally different from us. For example, what if they are based on some element other than carbon? Or their biology depends on some medium other than water?
Or if they're not primarily matter, but rather entities of organized energy. Their handiwork would be the same. How can we humans, who think in terms of ourselves, tell what it really is?
I bet the ideas expressed in this article should be good for several science fiction stories.
I am an alien. I've already reported back to my planet that there is no intelligent life here.
I'd like to see us send a probe to another one of these earthlike planets that's been discovered..... it would take some incredibly complex math, but I think it could be done. Then thousands of years from now maybe we could go find it for real - if an alien civilization didn't already find it that is...
If I were to take a look at an alien culture without raising their suspicions I'd disguise the probe as say, an asteroid and send it on a close fly by of the planet.
On another topic anyone see that asteroid that did a close fly-by of Earth?
Dave...that reminds me of the one about the two aliens orbitting earth:
1st Alien: Humans have evolved to the point that they can create nuclear weapons.
2nd Alien: Are humans an emerging intelligence?
1st Alien: I don't think so. They have them aimed at themselves.
Exactly, AA, a alien lifeform would be alien. Why would they use, send, leave an artifact? Right, we probably wouldn't recognize it as an artifact if we did see something "Out there." It's also possible that being alien we would never see it, and, it might even be the alien lifeform. Well, lol, lifeform is what we describe things alive, alive to us. We hear about how aliens must have built ancient edifaces; Pyramids, Stonehenge, etc." And, we hear about how some structures in the Peruvian Andes must be landing fields for alien craft. Lol, c'mon, if aliens did build those edifaces, and are technologically advanced enough to travel in space, are the edifaces the best they could do? Landing fields? For what? Why would alien space travellers even need landing fields? Now, I'm not discounting a alien presence, but, if they are here we probably would never know it. Well, one thing I hope; "If aliens are in the area I hope they aren't scouting out a new source of protein." Assuming of course that they would even need nutrients.
Makes me want to start sculpting mashed potatoes.
You left yourself out of the observation you know. :)
There must be more of us out there. Somewhere? But if an object as large as a car-sized meteor finds us only about once a hundred years or so....well, the chances are, the chances aren't awfully good.
If we wouldn't recognize an alien as a life form, an alien might not recognize us as a lifeform.
We have enough trouble dealing w/ fellow humans. How are we going to have peaceful relations w/ aliens.
Mmmmm, relations with aliens.
Think of the STDs!!
Tony makes a good point. Although, if the aliens have experience with other life forms, they may have learned enough that their definition of "life" is more expansive than ours.
Why was there no mention of the alien abduction reports when the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation is the topic? It's not like there's so much hard data that we can afford to ignore experiential reports. Of course, such experiential reports are subject to a host of conventional explanations, mental illness, fraud, artifact of hypnotic regression, dreams, etc.. but I recall reading about studies on abduction phenomena published in the proceedings of a scientific convention held at Harvard, sometime back in the 90's I think, that ruled-out SOME of the more obvious sources of possible error, e.g., finding that abductees are not any more psychotic than the rest of us. Other findings were too bizarre to take seriously, e.g., aliens who abducted in South America tended to be large and reptilian while N. Americans and Europeons weremostly abducted by little greys and Nordic types.
Come to think of it, I havn't heard anything more about alien abductions in years. Does anyone know, has that line of inquiry reached a dead end? What was the upshot of that effort? Were all reports unreliable? Just unconfirmable? Career killers?
"Even if we find an alien atrifact we might not recognize it as such because it would be,well,alien." B.S.!!!! That is the sort of circular logic that is a dead give-away that this paticular lw has absolutely no idea of what she speaks.
Oh,wait,I just noticed her user name. "Arkansas" Annie.That explains the total lack of intelligent thought. Hey,Annie,shouldn't you be out hunting for a couple more broken lawnmowers and rusted out cars for the yard of your "luxurious" mobile home?
Alien abductions have ceased because we are past our prime... we peaked! They don't need us anymore because we are on the downslope now.
There are no aliens everything is a lie. According to the White House , I guess they know more. This is why we are like this. NASA is going to the drain and we have to pay for an space station that belong to us.
That's it!
We always suspected that the entire scientific community is alien, know they admit it publicly.
Remember you need public interest, is it too hard for you to have amature sleuths make a fair comment. Or do you prefer them all numb.
Quantum mystery
This is in response to @MikeyMike, who claims that "plenty of scientists" have looked into the UFO phenomenon and concluded that there was nothing to it. That claim is absurd, and easily shown to be so.
The serious study of UFO's has been a career-killer for all but a few scientists since about 1955, so few of them have ventured into the territory. Why? Because of the UFO "taboo." Despite hundreds if not thousands of credible, multi-witness, radar-conformed UFO cases, why does this taboo persist, and where did it come from?
Well, first and thankfully, there is evidence that the taboo is lifting. The above scientific article -- plus another one last week from Ivy League astrophysicists about finding ET "city lights" in KBO's and possible intelligent ET presence in our own solar system -- may be evidence of a crumbling stigma. Additionally, that several esteemed scientists (Michio Kaku, Derrick Pitts, Rudy Schild, Neal Lane, Stuart Appelle, etc., ) recently put it on the line and endorsed Leslie Kean's recent UFO book (which shows the *physical reality* of the phenomenon) also may be evidence of progress in penetrating that taboo.
Where'd the UFO taboo come from?
The Robertson Panel was an early 1950's CIA-formed committee tasked with addressing the UFO issue, and its reports are now declassified. Read them! They clearly state that there may be something genuine at the core of the UFO phenomenon (perhaps 10% of sightings), but regardless, to ease public fears, the Panel concluded that a "public relations" campaign by the Air Force to debunk and ridicule UFO reports and witnesses should be undertaken. Here's a quote from the declassified summary, from Jan., 1953: "The "debunking" aim would result in reduction in public interest in "flying saucers" which today evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual case histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained."
Also, as to the taboo's chilling effect on interested scientists, see the Robert Low ("Trick") Memo, written by the (Air Force-commissioned) Condon Report's project coordinator, who resigned when the memo was made public. The memo unambiguously shows that UFO stigmatization was well-entrenched by the mid 60's. It says so! The project was having trouble finding Ph.D.'d scientists willing to put their credentials on the line. The memo also suggests that *objective* study of the UFO phenomenon would be nearly impossible. Here's a small part of it: "[I]n order to undertake such a [UFO] project one has to approach it objectively. That is, one has to admit the possibility that such things as UFO's exist. It is not respectable to give serious consideration to such a possibility.... [O]ne would have to go so far as to consider the possibility that saucers, if some of the observations are verified, behave according to a set of physical laws unknown to us. The simple act of admitting these possibilities just as possibilities puts us beyond the pale, and we would lose more in prestige in the scientific community than we could possibly gain by undertaking the investigation.")
Before all of this junk -- the Robertson Panel and the Bluebook / Condon Report fiasco -- many U.S. scientists were interested in the UFO phenomenon, and many of those (and even several top U.S. Air Force generals) believed that the UFO's were most likely inter-planetary... i.e., the product of ET intelligence.-Go read those Air Force official studies -- Bluebook Special Report 14 (look at the data by Battelle: 22% *high-reliability* unexplained!), and the Condon Report. And then ask yourself how an obviously real physical phenomenon, which routinely shows up on radar, somehow became 'absurd' and 'ridiculous.'
The answer is in the prior paragraphs: an *acknowledged and documented* campaign to "protect" us, the poor public, to ease our fears, and to ensure that we all don't go loony when we realize that there's life out there (and here, apparently surveilling us) that is MUCH more advanced than we are.
So, gee, yeah, given all that, I wonder WHY scientific interest really seemed to wane after 1955!?!?
To summarize: a more accurate statement than yours, MikeyMike, would be something like this: of the few scientists since 1955 who have delved into the UFO phenomenon -- "in the trenches," reviewing all Air Force data, interviewing witnesses, etc. -- those few who HAVE studied it in depth have almost unanimously concluded that there almost certainly IS *a genuine phenomenon* at the core of it all. See McDonald, Hynek, Sturrock, Vallee in the U.S., and plenty of others internationally.... Even some of the *individual* scientists from the Condon Report, though not Condon himself... and even CARL SAGAN acknowledges a small % of UFO's could be real ET craft -- see his 1968 testimony in the Symposium on UFO's before the U.S. House of Reps. Committee on Science and Astronautics... and even the Air Force's own UFO scientific advisor, Dr. Hynek, later admitted that Project Bluebook was simply PR and very poor science, and he ultimately believed that there was something genuine and physically real to some of the multi-witness and radar-visual sightings.
So, to support your claim, MikeyMike, can you name a few scientists who have delved THAT deeply into the UFO phenomenon and concluded that there is simply nothing to it? I seriously doubt that you can.
So let's put 2 and 2 together here:
Add this '2': (+) hundreds of thousands of UFO reports, a small percentage which are very reliable and corroborated, with further data showing that only 1 in 10 sightings are even reported to begin with (because of a well-documented UFO taboo, whose root cause is also well-documented!) ...
to this '2':(+) "we cannot rule out the possibility that non-terrestrial artifacts are present and may even be observing us," from the paper that's the subject of the main article above, i.e., serious, respectable, published science(!)...... and what do we get?
'4'... which is the following conclusion: it is intellectually indefensible to continue ignoring the UFO phenomenon based on the tired old skeptical belief that "they can't get here from there." Clearly, that wall is crumbling.
So, by all means, ridicule the UFO lunatic fringe all you want -- I do, and they deserve it! -- but do not assume, because of those all-too-visible circus aspects, that there cannot be anything genuine, interesting, and physically REAL at the core of the phenomenon. I'm very, very confident that there is.
oskar, a couple of clarifications.
I believe the President simply said there was no proof, as yet, of "aliens" in any U.S. record or file. I did not get the impression he was denying any "alien" life could exist.
NASA is not "going down the drain", unless you discount the enormous success of the current Mars Rovers, the currently underway New Horizons mission and the about to launch new Mars probe (Curiosity) plus the successful ending of the Shuttle program. There is certainly some reorganization going on, much like a sports team in a "rebuilding" period, but to say NASA is "going down the drain" is an extreme exaggeration.
The International Space Station does not "belong to us", or any one nation for that matter. We are a partner in the station, as is Russia and a host of other nations. We are paying our share, no doubt, but we do not "own" the ISS.
The answer is pretty obvious I think. Humans are only just-barely out of the stone-age primitive stage in our evolution and this is especially true if you consider it in geological time. Our science is very young, poorly funded and tenuous (and even opposed by many Americans) and many dominant cultures and countries on this planet still worship ancient make-believe gods from thousands of years ago. We live to consume and really have no vision or purpose as a people or as a planet.
We simply are still too primitive to attract the attention of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.
Or maybe the disc have already been found in Northern British Columbia eh?
Hunh? Be specific instead of intentionally coy. What are you referring?
If there is an alien artifact somewhere in our solar system, finding it would be simply a matter of blind luck. There are still places on our own planet that remain unexplored. We've only scratched the surface on the moon and on Mars. And unless it is the size of a Missouri class battleship, if it is floating in near space we will probably never see it. We have a hard enough time tracking space junk and spent rocket boosters.
That's IOWA CLASS BATTLESHIP!!! Four Sister ships made but the class was named after the FIRST, USS IOWA. Yup, Shes' a biggin'!!!
There's an interesting psychology experiment involving gorillas that suggests most people see what they EXPECT to see. Most magic tricks work by exploiting this glitch in human perception. Following that logic, alien spacecraft and detritus may be all around us, but the objects are SO alien that they don't register in our consciousness--or are otherwise filtered out by the inherent constraints of the system. For example, it's no accident that scientists ignore the implications of the delayed choice experiment because it calls into question their concepts of cause and effect--and time itself. Similarly, it's almost impossible to get a scientist to research UFOs or crop circles. Because of the constraints visited upon them by their professions and life work, these entities don't really exist.
with the gorilla, it is more that if you are focused too much on one thing you will miss another. It is the directions to specifically track the ball being passed that allows the gorilla to go unnoticed. Just watching the footage with no specific focus, the gorilla is obvious.
... they don't have the time or inclination to dream up flying saucers and space aliens.
Plenty of serious scientists have looked at the so called evidence for UFOs as examples of space alien visitation and have almost unanimously determined that it is unconvincing. This doesn't mean that Unidentified visual sightings have not occurred, of course they have, and they are unidentified as to the cause (that's why they're called "unidentified"), and that's all that a serious scientists can conclude until there is more evidence in some concrete form.
Crop circles have been repeatedly demonstrated to be human initiated hoaxes.
Why would extraterrestrials even bother sending devices to monitor the Earth when they could likely just hack the technology we use to monitor ourselves?
Let's hope they arent watching Fox News to get their info on humans or else they'd think we're more primitive than thought ....
Lets hope they aren't watching ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC or PBS or they will think we are all cry-babies.
Aliens have visited earth. They cross-bred with wart hogs, which resulted in politicians.
We are more primitive than thought. I feel that the human race has been making great strides going backwards in evolution for the last 30 years. Pretty soon, we will be using rock tools again. Oh and we are all cry-babies. Gotta be good at something right?!
Well, I have to say, post #5.1 was longer than I thought I'd have to scroll to find the first person to turn this article political.
Jode: It isn't that humanity is taking a general step backwards, but rather that the disparity in global IQ levels is becoming more obvious as they breed.
It has been demonstrated that chimpanzees and orangutans can log-on and use an iPad. But could those animals build and iPad? No, I don't believe so.
@Aliveinsd
If those said chimpanzees and orangutans lived in Asia (where all iPads are built anyway), they probably could. If you took one of those primates that have lived in Europe or the Americas for any length of time, they would be too unionized and want to know how much they were going to make before even getting their GED and community college degree to even figure out that the jobs building the iPads had already been shipped over seas to eastern Asia where said Asian chimps and orang's where already enjoying those jobs building them.
Can most humans build an iPad?
Touche!
Note global, racial, average IQ levels:
Source: Metapaedia
Lower IQ does not = lesser as a person. But it is a huge handicap, union or non-union, notwithstanding. And actual non-Human apes, Pongo pigmaeas & pan Troglodyte, can and do use computers.
We're way off-topic. Goodnight.
Byron: Most of us? No.
But, many of us could.
Remember, to build an iPad from scratch, not only do you need to gather the components, but you also need to manufacture the components and manufacture the material to build the components.
Meaning, yes, an ape could go to Best Buy or Fry's, buy the components and assemble. But even most humans could not, individually, build the needed factories and mine the needed materials to manufacture the chips, screens, diodes, wires, resistors, batteries, lithium, needed to build and iPad, let alone program it.
It takes a lot more than one person to build an iPad.
Ironically if intelligent life is watching humans, it probably doesn't view humans as intelligent. Would you? Here they are flying around space and here are Humans - not much different than many parasites...only we are on a planetary scale. We build structures to live in using our environment, we catch prey, we use other species or "vehicles" for transportation, we gobble up every nonrenewable resource and all the while never giving one thing back to our host (planet).
I would imagine that they were like us technologically speaking and managed to make it through the bottleneck where most intelligent life destroys itself. They would be very interested in watching what path humanity takes and what was it about this life form that influenced that choice.
I would hazard to guess the aliens would have gone through this stage as well before working out they need to move out and off their home planet.
IN the animal kingdom many animals strip an area of food before moving on to another place.
What bottleneck where most intelligent life destroys itself? We have no proof of this. There is no reason to think that it has ever happened or will ever happen. It's nothing but Science Channel pseudo-science babble.
Intelligence is a risky evolution strategy. And intelligence doesn't mean clever.
In fact, the only good thing we could do good to our planet, and perhaps the goal of evolution, is to send life elsewhere.
Johnny and Chris: The earth is not an entity, it is an object. The idea of "giving" something to the earth or trying to "do good to" it makes about as much sense as talking to a pet rock. Failing to "gobble up" our resources would be the best way to demostrate a lack of intelligence. If aliens are more advanced than we are, then it would probably be safe to assume they are past the new-age crapola about Gaia or the "spirit of the Earth" or whatever. Of course we need to protect and conserve our resources, but we do so in order to ensure they are around for us to "gobble up" later, not for some vague sense of maintaining the "natural order" or the "balance of nature" or any other such silliness. Take a good look at "nature" sometime. There is nothing fair, just, or moral about it. It is filled with murder, rape, cannibalism, war, genocide, and every other crime humanity could ever devise; even lying, theft, and fraud. Nature is about eating things before they eat you, that's all. It is absurd to feel guilty about being good at it. I sure don't.
Also Chris, evolution doesn't have a "goal" and I'm pretty sure intelligence DOES mean clever, at least in my dictionary it does.
And Fisher, what "bottleneck" do you refer to? "Most" intelligent life? Since we have a sample size of exactly one, we can't make any statistical statements with any credibility. If we were to extrapolate, we could only conclude that no intelligent life ever dies out, since the only one we've seen hasn't died out yet. Of course, that would be a pretty weak extrapolation since, as I stated, we have only one sample to study.
If the earth dies, we die. If we die, the earth lives.
So maybe the terminology is not accurate and "earth" could be replaced with "ecosystem", but the point made is valid.
In principle i agree with sad, but then I look at my kids, and want to leave them a better place than I had.
The point is not valid. I agree that destroying the earth would be a bad idea, but that was not the point of Johnny's post. He assumes that advanced aliens would consider us "parasites" because we build houses, eat meat, and use vehicles. I wonder how he thinks they would be "flying around space" without using vehicles? Do they have a special warp-drive organ, and a way to live without air as well?
The choice is not between the earth or us, as the quote you ripped off from Keanu Reeves implies. Even if it were, the survival of the ecosystem is irrelevant to us if we are not around to use it. As far as any being is concerned, the universe exists to sustain that being.
Any aliens we encounter will be the product of the same universal laws that produced us. Why would they be substantially different from us? Please note that their being similar to us is not necessarily good news. As Stephen Hawking said, contact with advanced aliens would be similar to Europeans coming to America, with us playing the role of the Indians. That didn't turn out so well for the Indians.
We should not be trying to contact aliens or send out probes with our "address" on it. That's just asking for trouble. How silly is NASA going to feel when the Brain-Eaters show up and say, "thanks for the invitation," and starting chowing down on us?
I'd like to send a probe to Uranus.
Hey Sad, how do you manage to talk out of uranus? Have you experienced the destruction of the Earth? No. So how do you know it would be "bad"? You don't! Nor do you have a clue what aliens need to breath if they breath at all. What if aliens DO have a warp-drive organ?
Do you know that we are not "parasites"? How do you know? Do you know that we are not in a universe inside a person's thumbnail? No.
The fact is you don't know uranus from a hole in the ground. We are speculating and thinking aloud here. Close up that worm hole in the middle of your face, jerk-off.
Very classy. Do you have any meaningful response you'd like to add to your tirade? If you are "speculating and thinking aloud" is that not for the purpose of inviting others to evaluate and comment on your speculations? Your anger is misplaced. It is irrational to be upset with me simply because you cannot come up with a cogent idea of your own. That blame would be better directed at your parents and teachers who so poorly prepared you for intelligent discourse. Yes, I actually DO know.
If Aliens were competent enough to send probes to spy on us we would never find them.
Our space technology is just in its infancy. We have many steps to take and much to learn.
We do not have the technology to get to the nearest star. And the resources to send probes to various star systems could bankrupt us or any Alien civilization.
Lets concentrate on what we are doing now in regards to Seti. In a few hundred or thousand years we will have a much beter idea of what is going on out there.
Our space technology is just in its infancy <-- by who's standards? humans? alien? do you know these aliens and their technology and if you do, why not share with us lowlife humans? and if by this measure you think you can do better by us human standards then by all means go ahead and show us, idiot!
Good grief, Aaron - someone hit a nerve?
Of course our space technology is in its infancy - by our own standards, of course. We've barely gotten people to another celestial body, and we haven't figured out an economical way to continue to do it, or a long-term survivable way to do it.
If we're to hope that all of the things deemed possible by physics, quantum mechanics and such are indeed truly possible, then hell yes we are in the "infancy" of our limits of knowledge and technology.
If our space technology is NOT in its infancy - if we are anywhere close to as mature as this technology is going to get - well, then - we, as a species are doomed - eventually, that is.
Tip: It is never advisable to call someone whose only crime was to state something of such an obvious nature an idiot. Doing that tends to make you look like.... well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest, can't you?
It is possible to extrapolate, within margins of error that we must of course acknowledge, based on what we have already managed, and what the laws of physics appear to allow, what sorts of space technology should be technically feasible.
We can then compare what we are already capable of doing, with this theoretical extrapolation with what is possible.
And that is the standard by which we can say our technology is in its infancy.
And another standard is simply time. Compare how long we have had space technology, with how long we have had other forms of technology - like, say, iron-working, and space technology comes across as pretty young.
aaron....its not good to skip meds
eric u r a straight down dumb dumb cuz im pretty sure u dont know the future
and u've never sean an alien so shut the @!$%# up and go read a book about aliens maybe u'll learn something. elvoid u go 2 oh dont forget if u dont know dont talk cuz u made a complete fool of ur self
araceli, are you drunk or was that post a parody of Aaron? The phrase "diarrhea of the mouth" comes to mind. Punctuation: not just a good idea, it's the law! Look out Georgia, I think at least ONE child was "left behind" by your schools.
I'm with Elvoid. We'd better hope this is the infancy of our space program, or we are in big trouble over the long term. If this is as good as it gets, we will be all done when our sun burns out. Not exactly a pressing problem, but a pretty major one in the long term.
Aaroon whatever.
I must have upset you by spelling better incorrectly.
Sorry about that.
Well, we may have no proof that a higher intelligence than us exists in the cosmos - but I submit we have definitive proof of lower intelligence existing right in our own backyard. (Not that we didn't already know that, but a couple of nameless posters here have provided yet another elegant proof)
Scary thing is - they vote. Yikes!
Why would we intentionally provide aliens with information on our location. If they can find us they are obviously superior to us. Do we think that this alien species is going to befriend us. Where in nature does that ever occur? On this planet the superior species uses the others to do work or consumes them. In the case of dogs and cats we do befriend them, but it isn't an equal relationship. The moment that we become tired of the relationship we can easily have them destroyed.
I don't think the fear of a hollywood-style hostile alien takeover is really a justifiable reason to avoid all possible contact with extra-terrestrials.
We ARE the aliens. We ARE colonials. We ARE who we are waiting to find. Those who left our ancestors here may or may not be back.
MEL
Clark...you're projecting human characteristics on to aliens. If aliens had evolved to the point of being able to send probes through space and back, do you think they would also be as stupid as humans and create weapons, like our nuclear weapons, and then point them at themselves like we do?
"We'll make great pets" -- Perry Ferrell
To quote the old Twilight Zone show, 'The rest of the book To Serve Man, it's... it's a cookbook!'
It's hard for me to imagine an alien civilization that has the technology to reach out and grab us by the throat that also needs for us to publish our location to them.
With our current technology we're going to be much more likely to know of an alien intelligence for centuries longer than we'll ever have a chance to even attempt to reach them physically. And even that is being optimistic.
THere has never been an introduction of a new species where it benefited the native fauna. I'm with Hawking. We don't want to be found.
What I'm saying is that once a civilization should have the technology needed to get to us they won't need us to point ourselves out anymore. So in this way Hawking is wrong.
Hawking's point makes little sense. Fear that aliens will come eat us all makes NO sense. And the situation is nothing like Europeans coming to North America and massacring the native americans!! If that were the case, if we were going to be a meal... then why are we still here?!? We'd likely have been eaten by now. Mathematically, that is the case. We're already on the verge of pinpointing which extra-solar planets host intelligent life... so why wouldn't they have done the same, long ago? They don't need our radio signals or little golden discs on planetary probes to "alert" them....
It's as if many are imagining an alien species that's only a century ahead of us on the technological scale, a species still burdened by the same evolutionary baggage, energy concerns, fights for resources, etc. that we are. But statistically speaking, what is far more likely is a much greater gap: intelligent beings 10's of thousands to millions of years ahead of us, capable of things we can't even comprehend comprehending. (Remember, in a 4.5-billion-year-old universe, even just a 1% difference in species' age is a 45 million year gap!)
Don't you think that a species that can traverse the stars has necessarily substantially 'conquered' energy/resource issues, and can therefore likely take care of its needs without having to resort to planet-plundering? Would not any more evolved species, having survived its own violent period, be not just technically and scientifically more evolved, but also ETHICALLY more evolved? I think so. On average. There may be some very nasty races out there, sure, but I'd put my money on natural selection "selecting" the more ethically advanced, because they'd be the ones least likely to have destroyed themselves via their own aggressions.
Also, as miserable a species as many of you think humanity is(!), if tomorrow we discovered that Venus has beautiful sub-surface oceans, filled with Venusian whale-like and dolphin-like creatures, even WE would not go plunder that planet and destroy its most intelligent life. Not even if it were easy. What reason would we have? As burdened as we are, even we *already* have more "ethical common sense" than that. And within a century or two, we'll be building near-sentient machines that take care of our material problems and do most of the work... and humans have been shown to become much more ethical once their basic needs are met.
Still, you can be sure we'd monitor and want to watch those Venusian species' evolution, right? (I'd want to!) It'd be alien archeology and zoology... with us as the aliens. Which is probably something like what's going on here on Earth: we're the apes, Earth is a zoo, they've got their material needs met, so have nothing to do but sight-see, laugh at the wild-life, and enjoy the finer things. (Perhaps some tiny percentage of UFOs are simply the probing eyes of an ET Jane Goodall?!)
Why would we intentionally provide aliens with a clue as to our location? If aliens are able to find us then they are obviously superior. Are we so lovable that we think we think this vastly superior species wants to befriend us? Where does that ever happen in nature? The superior species on this planet, humans, use the others for work and experiments or we consume them. We do befriend dogs and cats, but as soon as we tire of the relationship we can have them destroyed.
Wow, that is incredibly bleak!!!! I guess in response to "where does that happen in nature" It pretty much happens every day when superior adults change poopy nappies for infants who drool and puke alot. There are countless stories about cross species parenting where one animal takes on the young of another species entirely to save the babies....I guess you can always choose to focus on the negative aspects of humanity...it has been a debate for hundreds of years as to whether manking is inherently good or inherently evil. I am guessing that you on are the side of inherently evil and therefore more and more government restraint is required to keep us all from eating our young, among other things.
"Paranoia, the destroyer..." -- The Kinks
Thats', "Paranoia, WILL DESTROY YA"!" Get it right or don't play.
I agree, posting our address to the whole galaxy is like just asking to be probed. Not a good idea.
Yeah, they might start sending us junk mail.
Destroyer by The Kinks, words and music by Ray Davies:
And it continues on for several more verses, none of which contain the words "Paranoia wiil destroy ya."
Nice try, thank YOU for playing, better luck next time.
I have to agree with rmiller-1. Our government, in particular, has done a pretty good job of denouncing any possibilities for knowing any truth on the subject. Through their close to seventy decades long denial through the effective use of false government "projects" like Blue Book and other means of promoting disinformation to counter even some of the best 'evidence' and to cause science itself to avoid the subject like the Plague! No scientist is willing to step forth and "make themselves look like a fool" because through government denial along with the finger pointing and laughter from a National Press who is absolutely sure these stories are nothing but fodder for their laugh tracks on the six o'clock news.
To approach the subject with an open mind and to research the subject, honestly, like one former NASA scientist IS doing today, is the only way we will eventually know the truth. The government will deny any knowledge forever, until someone digs out the truth. The recent New York Times Best Selling book by Leslie Kane approaches the reasoning used by main stream science's inabilities to tackle this sensitive subject also. Independent research beyond our government's steadfast, decades long Obfuscation needs to be addressed by competent scientists willing to ignore the ingrained finger pointing and outright laughter from the "experts" in the media and an uninformed public.
When someone, anyone, is able to come up with concrete evidence of alien visitation beyond blurry videos of flashing lights and floating pie tins, then the subject will be taken seriously. Until then it falls into the area of delusion and wish fulfillment, not the realm of serious science.
And puh-leeze, spare me the line about they have the evidence and they are hiding it in Area 51. That fiction got old 30 years ago.
You have it backwards again, MikeyMike. How is valid evidence supposed to be produced when serious science, because of an irrational and intentional stigma, can't even openly and objectively examine the problem?
(And if you believe that mainstream science has been free to objectively study the UFO phenomenon, then you've got a LOT of a reading to do! Don't forget the Robert Low memo, and Robertson panel summaries!)
And what's this, you want the evidence before the science? Certainty before expert examination? How?
There is more than enough "pretty good" UFO evidence than is needed to justify science's getting seriously involved. Few will risk it, though it's getting easier to. So first, we must all destroy that silly, fear-based UFO stigma, one fueled and maintained by ignorant people like you, who've obviously not even taken the time to read even the official sources. You do realize that the U.S. Air force studied the phenomenon for over 20 years, right? Go read their reports! (And if it's all 'delusion' and 'wish thinking', shouldn't you be absolutely livid at the Air Force for taking over TWENTY years to figure out that the subject is just so dang ridiculous?!) Any reasonably intelligent person who's actually read Bluebook Special Report 14 or the Condon Report does not simply brush the UFO topic aside with words like "delusion" and "wish fulfillment.")
And guess what? Even still, while working under that wet-blanket of a stigma, several of the Air Force's "hired gun" scientists concluded that the UFO phenomenon was real and mysterious enough to warrant serious scientific investigation.
So please Mikey, go do that reading before spouting any more of your ignorant nonsense, okay?
Thanks Sttpt!
You hit the nail on the head!
"concrete evidence" means something physical. A piece of unidentifiable metallic wreckage. A body. A real one that is, not a lame-ass rubber dummy.
I'm glad the Air Force took this seriously enough to investigate. It's their job to guard our skies and protect us from such threats if they do indeed exist. They should look into it.
No, I haven't read the entire Project Bluebook report. What is it's conclusion? Wait let me guess... "We have a lot of mystifying data and many reports from seemingly reliable witnesses, but nothing definitive can be concluded. Reccommend watchful monitoring." How far off am I?
MikeyMike, you asked what it's "conlcusion" was.
That's the point!!! Read the Condon Report. The conclusion of some of the actual investigating scientists was that there is something real to the UFO phenomenon.
For example... "There is a small, but significant, residue of cases from the radar-visual files that have no plausible explanation such as [radar] propagation phenomena and/or misinterpreted man-made objects."
"The apparently rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation of this sighting."
"The preponderance of evidence indicates the possibility of a genuine UFO in this case." (meaning not just a genuine 'unknown', but a genuinely strange, amazing, seemingly-intelligent physical object. Do not confuse the two. See the context. read the Report!)
And more.... Surprised to hear such things in official USAF studies?
But, sadly, the Condon Report was not science by Committee, and was never meant to be; it was, instead Condon's project, so he got to write the summary, up front, all by himself. (He investigated exactly 0 of the ~60 cases discussed within it... about 30% of which remain strange and unexplained. He also expressed his conclusions a year before the science was completed... with declassified docs showing he had many meetings and close "UFO" ties to the CIA.)
Sometimes human being REALLY DO conspire. They think they're "protecting" us, that's all.
People fail to realize just how difficult it is for intelligent life to evolve - it is almost impossible. A hundred different low-probability but important things have to be exactly right for it to happen - I doubt most people could name even ten of these hundred. As such, I don't believe any substantial number of intelligent aliens exist. I think we're wasting our time in searching for them, and also with human space travel. I believe only in robotic space travel. I'm just a realist. Nevertheless, it's interesting.
What you don't realize is the vastnass of the universe. Yes, it is incredibly rare for life like ours to evolve, however given the scale of the universe your "hundred different low-probability" scenarios have played out many times.
I was restricting myself to considering only our galaxy. Other galaxies will for all intensive purposes remain out of reach for a while. Of course the universe is large enough for all possible events to play out infinitely many times, but we can only meaningfully hope to interact within our galaxy.
intent and purposes
intents with porpoises
What does one mean by "difficult", "low-probability", or "almost impossible"? A probability argument like what you are making requires hard numbers.
But we don't really know exactly how any of these 100 or more factors influencing the evolution of intelligent life. We know they are low, but how low is low?
For example, would you say 1 in 1 billion stars per 4 billion years is low? Almost impossible? At those odds there would be 100-600 alien intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy right now.
There's also for consideration the fact that intelligent lifeforms, like all lifeforms, exponentially multiply. So if only just a few make it through the bottleneck, they can still expand to fill the available space. They could even speciate. A single intelligent species making it to the interstellar colonization stage could go on to be the ancestor of millions, if not billions of new intelligent species, spanning a galaxy.
In fact, to get any reasonable idea on what the real odds actually are, we actually have to find at least one more example, besides ourselves. Without that one extra solid example to base our speculation on, everything is just guess work.
"...your scenarios have [likely] played out many times."
The so-called Drake Equation attempts to quantify the question you raise, by creating a mathematical model of the chance for us to encounter intelligent aliens. The problem is, we know almost none of the variables, other than broad slightly-educated guesses. Depending on who you ask, there are either millions of alien civilizations in our galaxy, or none. We have no way to know at this point who is right. Probably everybody is wrong. We just have to wait and see. Debating the numbers at this point is just pure speculation.
Editorial note, in re: #11.2
The phrase you were looking for is "intents and purposes," not "intensive purposes." Using a longer word doesn't always make you sound smarter.
I appreciate the "intents and purposes" correction. Thanks. I was never trying to sound smart - I only endeavor to be accurate.
You need to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis (and the book) and bear in mind that it is but a watered down version of just how rare intelligent life is.
AB-1981 said "People fail to realize just how difficult it is for intelligent life to evolve - it is almost impossible."
Uhm... how do you know that again? And watch, I can do the same thing... but opposite!
"People fail to realize just how likely the emergence and spread of intelligent life is, being simply an emergent property of advanced chemistry - it is almost inevitable."
Convinced?
(I don't really believe what I wrote, BTW.)
SttPt, please read the Wikipedia article I linked above, and realize that it is in fact missing a significant number of points which reduce the probabilities even further. Don't be one of those people I was talking about.
AB-1981: since I disagree with you, that means I've either not given the matter sufficient thought, or I've not properly reviewed your cited sources, right?
I actually *have* read about the Rare Earth (RE) hypothesis. You do realize that it's by far the minority view among the relevant/qualified scientists? ("Minority view" may even put it kindly; a significant% seem to openly ridicule it.)
Rare Earth theory has several problems, obvious to even the lay-person:
1) its "Goldilocks zone" (star habitable zone) restriction is now known to be much too strict. Take a look at some of Jupiter and Saturn's moons....
2) extra-solar planets now appear to be more plentiful than the RE proponents expected.
3) the Rare Earth proponents overplay what we "know" about extinction events. (In fact, remember: it's only because of an extinction event or two that intelligent life arrived here!)
4) breaking up some lone terms of the Drake Equation into a few new ones does not add accuracy or precision! We still know what we know about biology and chemistry, and we consider it all, whether we list those considerations as one term, or two, or ten in some probability equation. (Do you think that those who dismiss RE theory simply ignore the extinction, complex metazoan, moon, Jupiter, etc., factors that the RE equation makes explicit? No, they don't! They're just writing down "4" instead of the RE equation's "2x2", after performing the same preliminary analyses....)
5) the Oort cloud argument is very iffy, and rarely seems to be accompanied by numbers that show the Rare Earth proponent is truly accounting for the immense times and distances involved.
6) And on and on....
Rare Earth theory is just the latest manifestation of of the anthropocentrism that's always plagued humanity, and in fact held science back for centuries. Fight against it!
The truth is that we have exactly ONE example of intelligent life in this universe. And our farthest reach into space (Voyager 1) is not even 1/20th of 1 percent of the way to our closest star... while that star is itself only about 0.0002 percent (2 parts per a 100 million!) of the way to the next closest galaxy (or major galaxy, at least: M31).
And yet... it's all here for *us*, one species, the Rare Earth people say? We're the lucky ones? These kinds of alien-life probabilities are speculative no matter how you look at it, but that doesn't mean all speculation is created equally. There are wise inferences, and not-so-wise inferences. And I sincerely believe that the people (even scientists) who embrace RE thinking are not REALLY grasping the magnitude of some rather large numbers. (Like 10^22, the number of stars in the universe). Even if intelligent life is a 1-in-a-million fluke, having to overcome lottery-size odds... well, guess what, it's still all over the place!
I realize some people want humanity to be "special"... and no doubt we are, in some ways. But look at the historical trend. Science has been revealing to us, incrementally, for hundreds of years, that we're more tiny and ordinary than we'd like to think. And I see nothing at all in the Rare Earth arguments that reverses that trend.
Nice one, SttPt.
Lets say we are visited by a alien space ship and aliens and people wrote down a description of the alien space ship and the aliens. Would we believe that what they were describing was actually a alien space ship and aliens or would we believe that it was a figment of some ones imagination. What if the aliens left behind a artifact to prove they were here. Would we say the artifact is not alien in origin but was made on earth.
Even if we found a alien space ship or aliens or an alien artifact most people wont accept the fact that aliens may exist. People were taught that people are the only life forms in the solar system and as a result they believe that people are also the only life forms in the universe. Several years ago we believed that the earth was the only planet in the solar system that could contain life and people took that to mean that earth was also the only planet in the universe that could contain life.
As we search farther and farther into the universe we are finding more planets that are very similar to earth and the more planets we find like this the greater are chances are of finding life on other planets.
Once a month, my wife is a extraterrestrial..........thats proof enough for me
And all month long, you're a Martian?
I'm going to sum it up for you folks. One, if any alien crafts have been recovered, then the cat is out of the bag about whether they exist or not. I for one believe that this universe is too big for just us and that they ARE REAL, and they DO exist. Not just in our own galaxy, but in EVERY galaxy, and numbering in the millions of habitated planets. Do not think small because you are small... think BIG because the universe is big. Also, according to one account of information retrieved from a reliable source, the universe itself is one giant living entity. That's up for debate but can anyone prove it wrong? .. Secondly, it's quite obvious that whatever aliens may have visited here, they did so in an exploratory manner just as we would. There is no reason for a race of aliens to come here and destroy us for our resources, when there are millions of other uninhabited planets in the universe to aquire valuable resources from. Not to mention, that space itself is filled with energy and they probably figured out how to tap into the sea of it with advanced technology. Did you think space was really filled with nothing?.... it's a sea of energy... and we're all swimming in it. This is the line of thinking that you must all embrace, or you won't understand anything about the future. Nor will you understand WHY we haven't been invaded by an alien race. They have no need to do that, and neither do we once we reach that level of mentality. My advice to all of you is... quit thinking that an alien race will be hostile, because they will not be if they have the technology to reach us. Now.. on the other hand... if a planet houses a primitive race, we should not approach them because they have not reached the level of intelligence and understandting needed to preserve life. These are warring cultures just like the ones we have had, and still are. No alien race will ever make itself seen by a primitive warring culture... it's just not logical. Now, once we attain the level of understanding that they have and do no need to eat each other alive for resources, then and only then can we stand toe to toe with an advanced, space fareing species. -CM
What he said!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe life evolves at great distances from itself as a universal defense mechanism. Distances such that by the time one interstellar civilization meets another, they have evolved to the point where they don't immediately wipe each other out.
On the other hand, if Earth is taken as a crude model of the galaxy, many civilizations will likely evolve faster technologically than ethically.
Seriously, people get paid dreaming this stuff?
Where do I sign up?
What if they are here, and they are the whales? Or for that matter, any other species? So they don't have opposable thumbs, does that mean they are not an intelligent species? Many species have been shown in the fossil record longer than we have been here. Who knows what or whom might have snuck in in the past.
If they are not just like us, we will find a way to exploit them and eventually wipe them out. There is good reason to stay away from this planet.
If you think you belong in the crowd which believes our government's 'accounting' on this issue, according to the most recent polls, you are in the minority. Having said that, do some in depth research on your own and listen to the accounts of military personnel, cops from around the world and other solid, upstanding individuals with no skin in the game, other than the fact that they were willing to put their reputations on the line while your government, pretty much, calls them all liars. There's a lot more to all of this than disregarding statements by your government.
"Military personnel, cops, and other upstanding individuals..." are all human beings with vivid imaginations and are subject to mistaken conclusions, just like everyone else.
Well said Mikey,
The only question remains, can we allow these mistakes.
I worked in public service, and found out that I have a mind on my own. I think the same way about many other dedicated people. There is not only "yes sir" & "no sir" in a military style. People in general have consciousness and use it accordingly. Also this is not always apparent, because of the fear of punishment the law has created.
Quantum mind
Maybe we, the homo sapiens, are the aliens and the neanderthal were the Earthlings.
And we, the barbarian savages, killed them off and took over the planet.
I dare you refute that, Mr know.
I swear, the next Klingon I meet I will cut off his ba-ba-- ears.
Good point.. who's to say that the species on this planet, is not a conglomeration of many different species from different worlds. We actually NEED to meet an advanced civilization in order to answer some of these questions that I do not think can be solved with science alone. Even if we decode every DNA strand from every animal on this planet, it may not be enough evidence to explain the origin of that species and only serve to remind us that DNA is just the fundamental building block of life everywhere in the universe, and it is universally transportable to habitats that mesh with it's design.
What I mean is.. a fish that lives here, can live on any other planet as long as the environment is the same.
This article brings up some interesting points. I am more and more concerned that the reason we have yet to hear from aliens is because any being that rises high enough in technology eventually destroys itself much like we could very well do via wars, destruction of environment, over population, etc.
There has been thousands and thousands of reported UFO sighting's,I just find it hard to believe that everyone is explainable and or some kind of trick or hoax.Not to say we know what or where they might come from,but I believe a select few in high places within the government,do acknowledge the phenomenon as real.I believe knowledge of a sighting and the study of these vehicles is based on the need to know and few need to know.For all we know ,they could be time traveler's from the future,operating within the laws of physics,they can only observe,they can not interact in anyway with us.In the 1960's traveling in the south west with my parents,I observed a object circling and going around a aircraft in flight,I said to my father,dad there's something flying around a airplane,he repeated what I said to my mom.I was in the right rear seat so nobody else could see it.All my life ,I have tried to come up with a logical explanation to answer the question of what and why a object in broad daylight would be doing loops and circling a aircraft in horizontal flight,nothing makes sense.
They ARE among us - they're just disguised as British Police Call Boxes, that's all.
I guess the fallacy is that we are so intrinsically tied to the earth that we cannot ever seriously think of leaving the solar system unless we are willing to undergo some form of physical change...we are the earth in evolution not humans in evolution...and sadly (and stupidly!) we are destroying our earth environ which means we are committing a form of suicide. But the good news is that the earth has enough time left for an evolution based on another species besides the violent, naked ape to evolve.
Well, didnt you see the alien craft that just past our earth?
it looked like an asteroid!!!
wait, maybe the asteroid was the alien!!!!!!
The chances are slim that intelligent alien life would have a head, two arms, two legs, two eyes. What if E.T. communicated to one another with light or with colors? What if they were not air breathers and lived underwater? Their craft and probes could be beyond anything we would expect. And if we were to find an alien probe maybe it has traveled so long that the aliens who sent it no longer exist. Maybe their planet was destroyed because their Star long ago died.
A species that lived under water would find it difficult to develop fire, gas or tig welding, mining or metallurgy, industrial complexes with electricity, liquid or solid fuel systems or pencils or paper ....and since they lived under water they might never see the stars or wonder what they were.
Ok there is thought transference, but you still need a power source for metallurgy, and you still need to create the tools to build even an underwater plant based society, kelp and seaweed don't make a good screwdriver.
I know it's fun to theorize and fantasize, but still the laws of physics have to be learned in the evolutionary course of time and in this universe they don't seem to vary much at the basic levels needed to get advanced civilizations started.
sponge bob...cooks a mean burger at the crusty crab...
I agree with older than dirt; the laws of physics and chemistry, and thus biology, are universal. The solutions for life, especially intelligent life, on other planets would most likely be very familiar to us.
You know how so many things from Star Trek have come to pass? Maybe we'll finally meet those aliens that look like a man in a rubber mask.
those aliens will probably look ...more like sandy squirrel... and laugh like mr.krab...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1ar8R3gKgM
We have to distinguish between "intelligent life" and "advanced civilizations." An underwater species could be quite intelligent, but be primitive technologically (as we understand technology).
Of course when you consider advanced alien civilizations, they will most likely look very different, even if the aliens look exactly like us. Just look at the variety of civilizations on this planet and how environmental, geopolitical, and religious events have affected human culture in different ways over the past five millennia.