UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life

https://ria.ru/20201024/asteroid-1581238185.html

Interesting but there's no good evidence for intelligent alien origin.

https://scitechdaily.com/first-habitable-zone-earth-sized-exoplanet-discovered-with-planet-hunter-tess/

Doesn't seem very promising. Too close to the zone of excessive flux; add that to tidal locking and it's probably uninhabitable.

GarryB wrote:
"Pray that there is intelligent life somewhere up in space because there is bugger all down here on Earth...."

It's a fallacy to think alien life would be more moral or inherently wiser than us, especially if it's at our current phase of development.

Indeed, we shouldn't expect the "intelligent designers" who created us, among many others out there, to be less intelligent than their imperfect creation.

GarryB wrote:
Any alien life that actually comes to us is probably going to look at us and wonder if we are a plague or a blessing the way we are destroying this planet I would guess the former.  

No species, even if intelligent, is initially all-knowing and all-wise. ETs were probably just as bad when they were beginners.

@ starman

There was programme on TV, about pascagoula incident. And as you said this incident remains very puzzling. As unlike some others, there seems absolutely no motive for those involved, to go to police and report it. They were at the time, not book writers or TV personality.

They are not pilots or police or astronauts or politicians or book sellers or TV film makers, who may benefit by false reporting. And they did not need to go to police, if involved in trouble. There are baffling cases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascagoula_Abduction

nomadski wrote:@ starman
There was programme on TV, about pascagoula incident. And as you said this incident remains very puzzling. As unlike some others, there seems absolutely no motive for those involved, to go to police and report it. They were at the time, not book writers or TV personality.

Blum's Beyond Earth has an account of that. As a policeman said at the time: "Those guys are either telling the truth or they should be in Hollywood."

GarryB wrote:
What I am trying to say is that the aliens in a space ship might be like a family in a camper van on holiday... dad might barely be able to fix the ship himself and when certain parts are damaged or destroyed they might be as unable to fix it as we are...

What sort of moral superiority are you going to expect from such a group?

Any alien civilization able to come here would've almost certainly determined Earth is inhabited well before the first arrival. Considering the longterm importance of interaction with another civilization, they wouldn't send people or entities likely to screw up. This doesn't mean they would be "moral," invariably--many reported ETs are not--but everything would be planned carefully in advance.

GarryB wrote:
Or do they need meat…

No good evidence for this. Cattle mutilation cases are numerous but little is actually taken and none of it prime beef.

or are they lonely and want to interact with sentient beings that don't think the way they do…

Generally the phenomenon is rather secretive.

Are the logical like Vulcans or emotional and preachy like the Americans…

The former I'm pretty sure.

They've probably known about us for millennia, and have intervened in subtle ways albeit only in relatively recent times. I don't think ET created our species.

Earlier, astrobiologists at Albion College in Michigan (USA) found new evidence that life appeared on Earth as a result of the fall of celestial bodies. They exposed the glycolaldehyde samples to a shock pressure comparable to that of a comet impact. It turned out that the substance, which is a precursor of amino acids and the sugar ribose, retains its structure and integrity even under such extreme conditions. This confirms the theory that organic substances necessary for the emergence of life could have got to the Earth along with cosmic bodies, having “survived” the collision with the planet. https://lenta.ru/news/2020/10/30/planet/

The astronomical evidence of basically variants of the Earth being very numerous guarantees that there are intelligent species
in large numbers out there. So the question still remains, why no signals are arriving to the Earth. If there was a scifi-like
space-traveling collective out there, it would produce signals like one of the radio observatory arrays, that is from multiple
sources at once and giving the combined signal much higher chance of not being lost in the noise, even if very weak on arrival.
And the Earth observatories would be ideal tools to pick up these signals. But we have nothing.

At the same time we are supposed to believe that UFOs are arriving on Earth all the time and both hiding from us and being hidden
by the Earth's governments. The ultimate tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Regular visitation that is being hidden. I guess that
would include all the astrophysicists since surely they must be getting all sorts of signals. The problem with such tinfoil is that
way too many humans have to be acting in concert to make such information control possible. Information about some special
ops activity in various hot zones can be controlled. But that is not trivially true for any size of coverup involving civilians.

The other fatal flaw in this tinfoil theory is lack of motive. What would be the point of hiding the aliens? Global panic? Why?
If anything a cosmic threat would be a great pretext to get that one world government with totalitarian characteristics that
many global elites pine for. We see with the US that a foreign "threat" is central to its self-identity and order. Thus we have
fiction about Putin's election meddling and the threat from Iran. Always some threat to America from somewhere. How convenient.
So hiding UFOs from the public is not something the elites (most of them anyway) would do.

kvs wrote:The astronomical evidence of basically variants of the Earth being very numerous guarantees that there are intelligent species
in large numbers out there.   So the question still remains, why no signals are arriving to the Earth.   If there was a scifi-like
space-traveling collective out there, it would produce signals like one of the radio observatory arrays, that is from multiple
sources at once and giving the combined signal much higher chance of not being lost in the noise, even if very weak on arrival.
And the Earth observatories would be ideal tools to pick up these signals.   But we have nothing.

Talk about a failure of imagination--advanced ETs still communicating like we do. Even Sagan had doubts about SETI yielding results.

At the same time we are supposed to believe that UFOs are arriving on Earth all the time and both hiding from us and being hidden
by the Earth's governments.

UFOs aren't "hiding" from us--or else there wouldn't be a UFO phenomenon--just not letting the masses be certain they're real, yet. A slow process of acclimation has been underway for some time.

  The problem with such tinfoil is that
way too many humans have to be acting in concert to make such information control possible.   Information about some special
ops activity in various hot zones can be controlled.   But that is not trivially true for any size of coverup involving civilians.

Actually it's not difficult because ETs themselves don't want to be revealed openly now. No doubt many people were privy to ULTRA in WWII yet the secret was kept not only during the war but for 30 years afterwards i.e. long after there was any strong reason to keep it.
 

The other fatal flaw in this tinfoil theory is lack of motive.  What would be the point of hiding the aliens?   Global panic?  Why?
If anything a cosmic threat would be a great pretext to get that one world government with totalitarian characteristics that
many global elites pine for.

While I'm in full agreement that ET could facilitate rise of a global totalitarian regime, it's too early for that.  There's a difference between panic (hysterical, irrational behavior, based on fear of the unknown) and a realization that Earth must accept unity and discipline to meet a great outside challenge (which are perfectly rational). The point of gradual acclimation is to reduce fear of the unknown, hence ensure a rational reaction. Revealing ET without lengthy acclimation would only make an awful mess of everything. The Alien Grand Design develops these ideas at great length btw.)

GarryB wrote:We have no idea what their dietary needs are... for all we know they might have taken parts we don't even understand in our primative level... we are still learning new things about the human body for goodness sake…

It's highly naive to take most alien activities at face value. Apparent "research" or harvesting are just part of acclimation.

There is insufficient information to be sure about anything... your comment is illogical....  

More like you hope... as do I.

I'm basing it on the phenomenon, all aspects of which are ultimately comprehensible i.e. rational.

They likely observed us long enough to know we are fucking mental and are probably now monitoring our progress and hoping we kill ourselves before we start really expanding into space and killing others.

If they really thought there was no hope for us and they'd be better off with us dead we'd probably be dead already.

... but if it could have developed somewhere else and arrived here could it not also have developed here too... it just sounds unnecessary... are they saying life could have developed on a comet or asteroid in space or on a planet that the life survived the destruction of and then landed on earth to restart development from acids and chemicals into actual life with a water rich environment…

Good points. I never believed in "panspermia."

Revealing ET without lengthy acclimation would only make an awful mess of everything.

It's been announced not long ago that there r planets more suitable & hospitable to life than the Earth- if so, many would have developed advanced lifeforms on them. To deny that would be illogical. Most people r either indifferent or open minded to the possibility of ETs & their presence in the Solar System. There r also UFO cults out there. So, the problem is not admitting that they exist, but how will societies react to the potential threat posed by their involvement in our affairs. To this day, there is no unified strategy/policy by successive governments to deal with this issue. 
We don't even have proven methods to defend us from space rocks yet.

Tsavo Lion wrote:It's been announced not long ago that there r planets more suitable & hospitable to life than the Earth

More suitable??

Most people r either indifferent or open minded to the possibility of ETs & their presence in the Solar System.

Acclimation has made progress, certainly. But almost nobody would be indifferent to an open revelation of ETs here, and too many people would still have a highly adverse reaction.

There r also UFO cults out there.

All or most are pretty foolish, no doubt because, not knowing much about the phenomenon, they make it a creature of their imagination. The late R. Bletchman rightly characterized their ideas as "New Age cockamamie."

So, the problem is not admitting that they exist, but how will societies react to the potential threat posed by their involvement in our affairs.

It is precisely because society is still not ready that admitting they're real and here is for the future.

To this day, there is no unified strategy/policy by successive governments to deal with this issue. 

I think there is. As The Alien Grand Design points out, all ET varieties have essentially the same policy, as do all earthly governments (with regard to the phenomenon at least…).