Anyone believe in aliens or had any encounters with them ?

I read about someone suggesting a past it 37 year old striker being played ahead of Scott Harrison at centre back.

I could only assume he had been abducted.

We can't be the only ones in the universe.
I can remember listening to BBC tees about a year ago when they had a bloke on who was or is a local MP who says he has fathered an alien child and every now and then gets abducted to see this alien child.

All very bizarre stuff.

Believe. Yes, especially as we are closer than ever to discovering how life can arise from inanimate matter, making life almost inevitable given enough energy and evolutionary timescales.
Encounter. No, vast distances are a major problem.

Aliens used to gather in a sort of dilapidated tin shed in a place called Feethams a few years back.

Maybe we are the aliens

This. Not just vast distances, but also, and probably even more so, vast times.
It doesn't take much in the way of a stray asteroid, or stray doomsday weapon, to wipe a civilisation out.
Getting two civilisations from different parts of space to coincide in time is asking a lot.

It's impossible for alien life not to exist.

It's also impossible that any have developed the technology to travel the distances required. Even at the speed of light it's still too much. Been reading a lot of astro physics stuff over the past few years and the theories of what happens beyond the speed of light prove nothing would be able to go past that.

Haven't you even watched Star Trek? We'll just get beamed over. Then we'll chin them and pillage their natural resources.

What about different wave frequencies though?

We won't be surfing so wave frequencies don't matter.

That's always puzzled me though we ant see or know what's going on past the spectrum of our eyes or indeed see radio or microwaves. Who is to say there isn't life there!

its human arrogance to believe that we are the only life in the universe

millions of other races out there , we just aint intresting enough for them to bother with us

We're just too far away. Unless as compo says they're out of any spectrum perceivable to us. Either way we aren't going to meet them.

I've just been reading about Einstein's theory of special relativity because of this thread.
Stop it please! My head hurts!

My theory is quite close to that. They just can't be arsed. Humans are the only species with the Empire-building fault in their make-up.

When I hear people, even eminent scientists like S. Hawking, talking about our need to colonise other planets to ensure the survival of homo sapiens, here's me sitting thinking WTF?
Did the colonisation of Australia somehow guarantee the future of humanity?
And what if humans don't survive another million years; what difference will it make?

On a long enough scale everything returns to 0. No point fucking about with destiny, just make the best of it now.

There is one thing that is not limited by the speed of light though. Space itself. But of course that doesn't help because it's only making the gaps between galaxies even bigger. Meaning we're going to be left with a mere couple of hundred billion stars to explore unless we can hitch a ride on a big bang.

Awaiting Twilights views

I'm sure Mr Gibson probably has since he departed all those years ago!

Or maybe we are the Farmers!!!!

We have (according to records) only been on this planet as a creative race 2000 years, we have moved on so fast technology wise in that time. We're just starting to explore travel using systems such as anti-gravity, rocket power is relatively archaic.
Life is so fragile, if we can avoid major disasters think where we'd be in another 2000 years.

There was 11 players out there last night who were alien to football FFS!!!!!

I do think, based on the drake equation, that life must exist elsewhere in the universe

I'm not entirely convinced though that we are closer than ever to finding out where life came from

The Miller Urey experiment has got us close, but I don't think we're closer to that elusive final stage.

the st john ambulance lass running on Saturday . ( that was not from this planet )

I personally wouldn't base anything on the Drake equation. Its uncertainty factor must be up in the bajillions.
As for Fermi's paradox, if any less well known scientist had asked the question he'd have been totally ignored.

I'm quite supportive of the Weak Anthropic Principal meself (but not the strong one cuz that suggests some kind of intelligent design).
It's a bit of a cousin to "If a tree falls in the forest...". Also the word "Anthropic" is a misnomer. The prefix anthro- in this instance refers to any intelligent being. It doesn't mean there's just us and that's it.
It does implicitly favour carbon/water based life but it stops there; for example, there's no requirement as far as I can make out for living entities to be made out of DNA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Oooohhhh far too biology based for me - I like the drake equation as I can understand the logic behind it - being a physicist

As far as I am aware - the point of the drake equation was to try to prove life must exist elsewhere, rather than number how many - so I agree the uncertainties are huge - the idea that showing there is a strong possibility of life elsewhere is the aim.

As for Fermi - an intelligent guy, but when you consider that galaxies are hundreds of light years wide - and even our nearest star is 4.5 light years away - and after 40 years, 2 man made objects have just left the solar system - then maybe everyone is stuck on their own lump of rock wondering where everyone else is.

Wayyyyy behind you lot... I've only just started to read 'a brief history of time'. Mind boggling enough for me!

What about black holes? Any chance of summit shooting in that and going into another dimension or whatever??

Black holes Wommers

No one has any idea what occurs - there is lots of speculation, but until some drops into one - no one will know - if that does happen, we still won't know as due to the conditions surrounding a black hole - the person entering it will simply appear to be on the verge of falling in for eternity..

Or they may be the pathway into another universe - supporting the multiverse theory

but that's another story.

And hopefully probed

The Drake equation is rubbish in that he has pre determined what he wanted it to show before publishing it. Lots of unknowns shoe horned into a convenient way of expressing yet another unknown.

It is doing the exact thing it was made for - stimulating discussion about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe

as for it being used to show exactly what he wanted it to, isn't that now sadly the case in most areas of science research - scientists rarely run experiments to see what will happen, due to the pressures of funding - they propose an argument and then design an experiment that is intended to show exactly what they want.

they're bashing more particles about in Geneva soon

Bollocks that wommers

they have made that experiment show exactly what they wanted it too

they still haven't really convinced enough hard core physicists that the Higgs exists - 99% there, is not enough for most.

It should spring up more questions than answers.