We are NOT alone.

Researches claim

[cmatcme]

Plenty Of Earths Awaiting Discovery

British researchers are more confident than ever that there are "Earths" out there waiting to be discovered

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4411865.stm
[news.bbc.co.uk]

The researches came there to be billions of "Earth's", surely there can't be billions, maybe one or two thousand?

cmatcme

[ronin]

Well, it's been said for a while that the chance of earth being the only inhabited planet in the universe is likely to be so slim as to be negligible.

However that still leaves a lot of room for lots of planets with amoebae and not much else.

Heaven forbid that we might be the most intelligent life-form in the universe, but assuming that we're not, the biggest question has to be why haven't any of the others got in touch?

1) They wouldn't be inclined to get in touch with us any more than we might be inclined to contact ants.

2) They have already got in touch with us and we're supposed to figure it out.

3) They're busy.

4) They're not that much more advanced than us and don't know about us.

5) They died out a long time ago.

6) We're too much of a good joke to spoil by actually getting in touch with us.

7) They're vaguely horrified at our volatility and will call back in a couple of millenia when we're less adolescent.

[cmatcme]

8) The aliens contacted other aliens, were proud of that and are spending their time researching those.

9) We're googles away from the other creatures and are not worth the money contacting.

10) We were destined to be alone.

cmatcme

[Essex_boy]

why haven't any of the others got in touch? - They did one Saturday in Colchester. Seeing the 3rd battalion, 2 para and 110 Gurkha rifles drunk scared the hell out of them.

The chances of finding life in teh universe is slim, life on earth wasnt a dead cert and could have gone in a different direction with a slight knock either way.

We are a fluke.

[createErrorMsg]

11) They're smart enough to realize that if they did contact us we would probably blow up, shoot, stab, drug, beat, imprison, violate, probe, dissect, spit on, subjugate, and/or humiliate them for their effort.¹ Let's face it. A civilization the human race may be, but civilized we most certainly are not.²

¹For more details, see the sum total of human history.
²Ibid.

[rocknbil]

the biggest question has to be why haven't any of the others got in touch?

12. We smell funny.

13. We're so ugly we're impossible to look upon.

[pmkpmk]

Timeframes. We think in too little timeframes. Think in the timeframe of a universe. Probably our nearest neighbour is just in the stage of Neadertal. It will take tens of thousands of years until they discover radio waves, and once they figure out how to use them, their transmission will travel several hundred years through space. I would not bet that we will still be around to get them...

Maybe the second nearest neighbour has just landed on the moon orbiting their planet. They might have figured out radio transmission, but still it needs some hundred if not thousand years until it reaches us. And even if we will still be around, the answer back takes another thousand years. Speak of lagged conversation.

And even if there is a hyper-intelligent race, who figured out all the good stuff, there's a good chance they are a great deal away. Even Alpha Centauri - the next star - is quite far away. But if they are really smart AND would live on Alpha Centauri, we probably had heard of them already. So these smart guys have to live quite far away. So signals from them may take a million years to come here...

It all boils down to timeframes...

I have read somewhere that once we have nuked ourselves to oblivion, only the cocroaches will survive, because they are the true winners of evolution. Maybe all those other worlds more advanced than we are already on the cocroach level?

[Syzygy]

Read this a number of years ago and had to look it up in my books specifically for this thread. No idea as to whether it's still valid and can't say that I've ever comprehended it in its entirety, but, here goes...

N + R x f_p x n_e x f₁ x f_i x f_c x L.

The Drake Equation.

Was that right?

Syzygy

[pmkpmk]

Yep.

[en.wikipedia.org...]

[vibgyor79]

>>> They're busy

.. building pages. I think the owner of the website above me on the serps is a martian.

[oddsod]

Timeframes. We think in too little timeframes.

Are there no shortcuts though space? If they were then signals could be sent and received in a fraction of the "time".

[pmkpmk]

You watch too much StarTrek.

[limbo]

Are there no shortcuts though space?

Press F12 in a space shuttle and find out

[oddsod]

You watch too much StarTrek.

I know! When Captain Kirk first used his "mobile phone" I thought: Hey, no way, man, that baby got no cables, that ain't ever gonna happen. :)

On a serious note - space does warp and there are "shortcuts" through it. Maybe the physicists (?) among us could shed some er, light.

If that is indeed possible then, and if there are advanced enough civilisations who know this
A: Either they have not contacted us OR
B: That they have contacted us and we haven't listened in the right places.

[2by4]

ronin, createerrormessage, nice to see a realistic view of us, especially us in the eyes of somebody more advanced.

My guess is that if there were more 'advanced' civilizations, which there have also been here on earth, they would long ago have given up on the childish desire to control what can't be controlled, and would have learned to live in at least something of a bit of harmony with their environment. Who knows, stranger things have happened, it's happened here, many times, history just doesn't consider that noteworthy, since those peoples didn't try to decimate or control everything in their grasp. I think we tend to confuse our current slide downwards with 'progress', mistaking movement for advancement. Hopefully we'll grow up, soon.

[tbear]

Reminds me of a short story by Issac Asimov, 'The Sentinel' (where the film 2001 came from). I read it long before the film came out and much prefer it. When earth folks start trying to nuke the sentinel to see whats inside, destroyer UFOs are sent out from beyond our galaxy to destroy us 'violent heathens'. :(

[jecasc]

Somebody once said: The best proof that there is intelligent life out there is that they have not tried to get into contact with us.

[Syzygy]

Somebody once said: The best proof that there is intelligent life out there is that they have not tried to get into contact with us.

Perhaps they have, and the 'right' people weren't listening...

Syzygy

[akmac]

Actually, we've just been waiting for this age old question to be posted in "Foo". Now that it has;

Hello, we come in peace.

[gamiziuk]

Actually, we've just been waiting for this age old question to be posted in "Foo". Now that it has;
Hello, we come in peace.

Would you like to meet our leader? Ooops, that would be Kofi Annan...
:(

[ronin]

Our "leader" in what sense?

In one sense, it would be Bob Dylan.

[Chndru]

>>It all boils down to timeframes...

Brilliant!

[pmkpmk]

Perhaps they have, and the 'right' people weren't listening...

What gives me the creeps is the thought the the "right" people may have listened. Oh I do love good conspiracy theories...

btw: thanks, Chndru,for the compliment...

[Leosghost]

According to Ray Bradbury ( The sands of Mars )..the martians landed years ago and established an embassy on earth ..they called it France ..I can vouch for the truth of that statement .;)