UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life

kvs wrote:….. I find the idea that something like SETI could find coherent signals to be a bit absurd.   Sure, if there were such civilizations in a sphere with a moderate light-year radius.   But even if they are still in our galaxy but on the far side from us, the amount of signal reaching us would be extremely small…….  I would argue that advanced civilization naturally reduce EM emissions through technological efficiency.   Note how on Earth we went from over the air TV transmission to wired transmission through cable and then the internet.   Over the air is now digital requiring less amplitude for the signal, and we did not experience a progressive increase in TV transmissions
spanning the planet like we could have had.  

Sure and it always seemed a bit absurd to think aliens would communicate the way we do. We're rank beginners. Civilization here is just few thousand years old; ETs might've been around for eons. But I also think it's rash to think ETs would also travel the way we do; to assume our understanding of what is possible and what isn't is the last word. In fact, given the likelihood an ET civilization is much older, a UFO is precisely what we should expect--something so advanced we have difficulty comprehending its means of travel.

As for the existence of other advanced life and civilizations, it would be absurd if we were unique in the universe.   The same physics (including chemistry) occurs everywhere with the corresponding ambient conditions.   We have one periodic table of the elements and not different ones for different regions of the galaxy and over larger scales.   It is now clear that Earth-like planets occur in huge quantities.   I would go as far as to claim that advanced life would have similar characteristics to what we see on Earth.  

Wouldn't be surprising at all. Look at all the examples of homoplasy on earth. If some other morphology--octopoid, arthropod, whatever--were more efficient for an advanced technical intelligence, it probably would've arisen and preempted our development long ago.

  It seems that faster than light travel is sci-fi fantasy, so a space-craft would have to travel for impractically long periods to reach us.

If the spacefarers were purely biological, adapted to a planetary surface, that's probably true, for a number of reasons. I think it's likely, though, spacefarers are AI/cyborgs or something specifically designed for space travel.

Star stuff moved to here

The Russians are the only people worthy of relating to a superior extraterrestrial civilization. The rest of humanity is useless and disappear like the dinosaurs

ArgentinaGuard wrote:The Russians are the only people worthy of relating to a superior extraterrestrial civilization.  The rest of humanity is useless and disappear like the dinosaurs

I don't think any nationality or race has a monopoly on intelligence.

Btw the dinosaurs didn't disappear because of an innate inferiority. They dominated terrestrial ecosystems almost completely before their luck ran out c 66 m.a.

ArgentinaGuard wrote:The Russians are the only people worthy of relating to a superior extraterrestrial civilization.  The rest of humanity is useless and disappear like the dinosaurs

Ohh yes, the old friend that runs by the name "exceptionalism" which walks hand in hand with nazism.

At best it is an *ism with a dead end and worst it is a tool for elites do have an expandable battering ram to get what they want.

History is a viscous reminder for those who forget.

I used to think that ET intelligent life , should be humanoid . Like on Earth , there was up to nine ? ( so far ) human species . Seemed like , this was the preferred blue-print for intelligent life . But I am not sure at all about this . Although life elsewhere would most probably  be based on same chemistry , the environment could be different . For example a planet covered permanently with water , but the same , in every respect to Earth , would not give rise to Fish that crawled unto land , or any land dwelling creatures . Therefore possible that Octopi would evolve there to be most efficient mobile and intelligent creatures ! Over a different timescale . On Earth , perhaps Octopi , would / could evolve human like intelligence , in another few million years ?





Could have arrived late , hence not many relatives on Earth , but still has DNA .

The dinosaurs largely died out because the temperature changed relatively quickly and being very big reptiles they need it to be rather hotter than it became...

We evolved from the same mammal that apes and monkeys evolved from and we just happened to belong to a branch that walked upright and adapted to have a larger brain which allowed more memory and intelligence to be accumulated.

When humans started looking at animals they found lots of animals with bigger brains than humans and they were upset so they changed the criteria to body to brain mass ratio so we got the bigger brains again, but actually when you go through and check things like some birds and even ants have rather good brain to body size ratios and of course we have found in humans that the size of the brain is not directly related to intelligence either.

Creatures like Octupai and Dolphins seem to be rather intelligent and the way dogs can be trained as well as horses suggests they are not dumb either.

If human beings are wiped out or wipe each other out life wont end on this planet... something else will probably become dominant, and what can become dominant might be dictated by air pressure and temperature and gravity etc etc.

The dinosaurs were around for a couple of hundred million years and they didn't advance as much as we have advanced in barely two million years, but perhaps the thing that wipes us out is a comet and while wiping out human life it also adds trillions of gigatons of water to the planet and we become a water world then of course the animals will be gone too and sea life will dominate... or maybe it gets really hot and the oceans evapourate and the atmosphere gets really thick which blocks the sunlight and everything cools down again... while it is thick perhaps birds will get an advantage.

Their might be lifeforms in gas planets that evolved from bacteria that grew and developed wings or flotation sacks that allowed them to hang above the enormously high pressure regions deep below and they flit around on the air currents, which on a gas planet would be enormous and very very long lasting.

We see the enormous variety of animal types and life forms on Earth which does not have much variety in terms of places to live... there are no low gravity areas or indeed high gravity areas, but the weird areas like high pressure and high temperature places near volcanic vents deep under the ocean there is life, there is life in the driest deserts, there is life in ice in arctic regions... in the dry it is mostly dormant but in the ice there is some found that creates its own anti freeze and survives in solid ice...

Would be fun to get a super computer and really explore what combinations of environment and available materials (elements) could possibly form living structures.

GarryB wrote:The dinosaurs largely died out because the temperature changed relatively quickly and being very big reptiles they need it to be rather hotter than it became…

The dinosaurs died out because the Chicxulub impact caused the food chain to collapse. Big, energy intensive organisms were among the most vulnerable. As endothermic animals dinosaurs could exist in cold paleoenvironments such as the Yixian. High latitude or polar dinosaurs are known from Canada, Russia and Antarctica.

If human beings are wiped out or wipe each other out life wont end on this planet... something else will probably become dominant, and what can become dominant might be dictated by air pressure and temperature and gravity etc etc.

The problem is, there isn't much time left for adaptive radiation anymore. Another half billion years and old sol is off the main sequence.

nomadski wrote:Therefore possible that Octopi would evolve there to be most efficient mobile and intelligent creatures !

Oceanic creatures like octopi and dolphins may be fairly intelligent but it's hard to imagine a water-world giving rise to a technical civilization.

On Earth , perhaps Octopi , would / could evolve human like intelligence , in another few million years ?

Octopi have been around since the early Mesozoic. You'd think this would've happened already if it were possible.

starman wrote:

nomadski wrote:Therefore possible that Octopi would evolve there to be most efficient mobile and intelligent creatures !

Oceanic creatures like octopi and dolphins may be fairly intelligent but it's hard to imagine a water-world  giving rise to a technical civilization.

On Earth , perhaps Octopi , would / could evolve human like intelligence , in another few million years ?

Octopi have been around since the early Mesozoic. You'd think this would've happened already if it were possible.

I agree , it is hard to imagine a water world with technical civilisation EXACTLY like ours . But I can imagine a technical underwater civilization nevertheless . The key moments leading to technical civilisation for humans were : The use of tools . The use of fire to cook with and form more tools . Invention of machines . Electricity . Out of all these , there is a problem with fire or combustion , underwater . The rest could be accomplished . Therefore a jump is necessary , bypassing combustion to the use of electricity , in food and later goods preparation and production . The electric Eel , could be one example , where electricity could be made or used underwater . Octopi could keep electric Eels as slaves , to hunt and then as battery packs to power stoves etc . Ants keep slaves , like domestic Cows , and extract nectar as food , so imagining that an underwater animal utilises electricity , generated within their environment , does not seem beyond the realms of possibility !

Regarding evolution to higher forms , it took 4 billion years for nine species of human to appear on planet Earth . What if the natural evolutionary cycle for other forms deviated by only ten percent , to that of humans ? Then we have to give Octopus another 400 million years to blossom ! And the Sun will still be shining for another 4 billion years ! So plenty of time left .

GarryB wrote:The dinosaurs largely died out because the temperature changed relatively quickly and being very big reptiles they need it to be rather hotter than it became...

We evolved from the same mammal that apes and monkeys evolved from and we just happened to belong to a branch that walked upright and adapted to have a larger brain which allowed more memory and intelligence to be accumulated.

When humans started looking at animals they found lots of animals with bigger brains than humans and they were upset so they changed the criteria to body to brain mass ratio so we got the bigger brains again, but actually when you go through and check things like some birds and even ants have rather good brain to body size ratios and of course we have found in humans that the size of the brain is not directly related to intelligence either.

Creatures like Octupai and Dolphins seem to be rather intelligent and the way dogs can be trained as well as horses suggests they are not dumb either.

If human beings are wiped out or wipe each other out life wont end on this planet... something else will probably become dominant, and what can become dominant might be dictated by air pressure and temperature and gravity etc etc.

The dinosaurs were around for a couple of hundred million years and they didn't advance as much as we have advanced in barely two million years, but perhaps the thing that wipes us out is a comet and while wiping out human life it also adds trillions of gigatons of water to the planet and we become a water world then of course the animals will be gone too and sea life will dominate... or maybe it gets really hot and the oceans evapourate and the atmosphere gets really thick which blocks the sunlight and everything cools down again... while it is thick perhaps birds will get an advantage.

Their might be lifeforms in gas planets that evolved from bacteria that grew and developed wings or flotation sacks that allowed them to hang above the enormously high pressure regions deep below and they flit around on the air currents, which on a gas planet would be enormous and very very long lasting.

We see the enormous variety of animal types and life forms on Earth which does not have much variety in terms of places to live... there are no low gravity areas or indeed high gravity areas, but the weird areas like high pressure and high temperature places near volcanic vents deep under the ocean there is life, there is life in the driest deserts, there is life in ice in arctic regions... in the dry it is mostly dormant but in the ice there is some found that creates its own anti freeze and survives in solid ice...

Would be fun to get a super computer and really explore what combinations of environment and available materials (elements) could possibly form living structures.

I don't believe it. The original Russians came from Atlantis which in turn came from a civilization from outer space. lol

Seriously, dinosaurs became extinct with an asteroid impact. Then a greenhouse effect occurred that destroyed the rest of the species.

The problem is, there isn't much time left for adaptive radiation anymore. Another half billion years and old sol is off the main sequence.

We evolved from something that looks like a little ape to what we are now in about 2 million years... half a billion years is plenty of time.

Looking at our ancestors and also at the moneys and apes that also evolved it is humans that are the freaks, which is not to say it is impossible for freaks to become the norm.

A boost in temperature and you could have giant insects starting to dominate too...

Oceanic creatures like octopi and dolphins may be fairly intelligent but it's hard to imagine a water-world giving rise to a technical civilization.

They probably thought the same things of us, until the dinosaurs died out and we started to be a pain in the arse to them.... fucking plastic...

Octopi have been around since the early Mesozoic. You'd think this would've happened already if it were possible.

But that is the problem... maybe it happened a dozen times but that smart octopus got killed and eaten by humans mistaking its attempts at communication as a free lunch.

Maybe they are trying to talk to us now telepathically but we can't hear them...

All the things we know is only exceeded by our ignorance to that we don't understand.

More than half the population of humans think some higher power created life but it is pretty clear a better model for reality is a chinese sweatshop making trillions of products and occasionally a defective one is found to be an improvement so they start to make that instead and most of the old ones stop being made or become food for everything else.

We really don't understand the concept of water worlds, but effectively we know of moons in this solar system that have oceans covered in thick sheets of ice with little above them... vacuum in fact... where moving on to the land out of water is not practical or even a good idea.

Just because it hasn't doesn't mean it can't... we have only been dominant on this planet for a tiny fraction of its existence.

Ironically being suspended in water or a fluid is a good way to reduce the effects of acceleration, so in the future it might be part of space travel... a space ship filled with a water like substance that goes straight through the atmosphere of a planet and hits the surface of an ocean might be the simplest way of delivering life to another far away planet... how about that for scifi...

Regarding evolution to higher forms , it took 4 billion years for nine species of human to appear on planet Earth . What if the natural evolutionary cycle for other forms deviated by only ten percent , to that of humans ? Then we have to give Octopus another 400 million years to blossom ! And the Sun will still be shining for another 4 billion years ! So plenty of time left .

Actually it is not that bad... we are only 2 million years down the evolutionary path from the same things Apes and Monkeys evolved from but they took a different path, which means a modern intelligent creature like a monkey or ape or dolphin or dog or crow or octopus could be 2 million years away from self aware intelligence, these animals have already done all the really hard stuff like breathing and cell division and basically coping with being alive...

Seriously, dinosaurs became extinct with an asteroid impact. Then a greenhouse effect occurred that destroyed the rest of the species.

That is what we think, but it wasn't a green house effect, more a nuclear winter that wiped out most of the food and changed the habitat and made it rather colder which they could not adapt to.

We have a dinosaur here in New Zealand... Tuatara... it looks like a lizard but it is actually related to the dinosaurs directly... they died out but it survived... and it lives here in New Zealand just fine. Very small and not dangerous... they can be traced by about 200 million years... which is 200 times longer than it took humans to evolve from something that was not what we would consider intelligent.

As Starman correctly pointed out some dinosaurs can live in the cold, but it was a combination of rapid radical temperature changes and loss of food access that likely did most of them in.

GarryB wrote:
We evolved from something that looks like a little ape to what we are now in about 2 million years... half a billion years is plenty of time.

Not if you start from a primitive level, if advanced creatures are wiped out.

They probably thought the same things of us,

Civilization requires metallurgy. How can you have a foundry underwater?

But that is the problem... maybe it happened a dozen times but that smart octopus got killed and eaten by humans mistaking its attempts at communication as a free lunch.

It should've happened long before humans but there's no evidence at all.

That is what we think, but it wasn't a green house effect, more a nuclear winter that wiped out most of the food and changed the habitat and made it rather colder which they could not adapt to.

No nuclear winter. The fern spore spike "rules out freezing temperatures and (total) darkness" as one researcher put it to me.

We have a dinosaur here in New Zealand... Tuatara... it looks like a lizard but it is actually related to the dinosaurs directly…

The tuatara belongs to an ancient order of reptiles but it's no dinosaur...

they died out but it survived... and it lives here in New Zealand just fine. Very small and not dangerous…

I heard of conservation efforts and hope they succeed. It would be great to see the tuatara proliferate on the main islands of New Zealand not just the mercury islands. They should exterminate all the rats to make that possible.

As Starman correctly pointed out some dinosaurs can live in the cold, but it was a combination of rapid radical temperature changes and loss of food access that likely did most of them in.

The key factors were hot debris raining down, tsunami waves and above all, loss of sunlight and photosynthesis causing collapse of the food chain.

Starman wrote:Civilization requires metallurgy. How can you have a foundry underwater?

Well how can you have vacuum formed alloys in the atmosphere ?

Vacuum formed alloys aren't the first phase of technical development. They come after "air breathing" foundries.

Yes very good point . In discussions about the hypothetical possibility of intelligent alien life in different environments , it is a good idea to think about the necessary steps , that must follow each other , to lead to progress , in an primitive environment of creatures using basic tools and materials . Therefore taking the Octopi , as an example , it is easy to imagine that they would use electricity in hunting . But to advance more , they need to use electricity for heat to cook with and light . How can a primitive creature in water , create a lightbulb or photocell that is powered by electricity ? Maybe yes ( biological semiconductors ). But heat ? More tricky . Any examples on Earth of electrical powered , heat producing creatures ? Any physical or analytic models ?



How about using electricity in liquid water joule heating ? Or other fluid ? Instant pressure cooker underwater . Can be done with basic clay container or glue -cement , plugged into a few " electric Eels . " Delicious !

nomadski wrote:
Therefore taking the Octopi , as an example , it is easy to imagine that they would use electricity in hunting

Dunno…I'm not aware of this in saltwater creatures.

Not if you start from a primitive level, if advanced creatures are wiped out.

There is plenty of scope for a world wide catastrophe that does not directly and immediately effect the oceans... other than stopping our pollution of said oceans which would be a good thing IMHO.

No reason to believe an extinction level event that wiped out humans would effect anything else except to take off the extinction pressure that we created.

Some sort of zombie virus that kills humans but leaves other animals intact is sci fi, but something that targets humans... perhaps a vaccine that destroys fertility over a period of decades so in 50 years time the world becomes infertile... that could wipe the earths population out very very quickly...

Civilization requires metallurgy. How can you have a foundry underwater?

Bullshit. The maori were rather well civilised... not space tech civilised, but they were pretty modern and learned to speak english and learned to trade and play the game within one generation of contact with white people, yet they were a stone age people because there simply were no metal deposits near the surface they could exploit easily.

It should've happened long before humans but there's no evidence at all.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Maybe our ancestors ate all the smart dinosaurs or lizard people?

Maybe all the smart octupai that came to the surface to talk to the humans were caught in nets and eaten?

Maybe that is still happening?

No nuclear winter. The fern spore spike "rules out freezing temperatures and (total) darkness" as one researcher put it to me.

Does nuclear winter imply total darkness?

We have had volcanic eruptions that have effected the weather around the world for years at a time... not total darkness either, but dust in the atmosphere that effected the light quality and temperature over a large area...

Laughing The tuatara belongs to an ancient order of reptiles but it's no dinosaur...

Well a reptile family that was alive for the period when the dinosaurs were alive, if you want to say it is not a dinosaur I am not sure why it would not qualify.

They say birds are evolved from dinosaurs but they have rather radically changed... unlike the Tuatara.

I heard of conservation efforts and hope they succeed. It would be great to see the tuatara proliferate on the main islands of New Zealand not just the mercury islands. They should exterminate all the rats to make that possible.

Rats, cats, dogs... and people are the problem and I doubt they could eradicate three of those and they wont even try to eradicate the biggest killer... not directly, but building roads and holiday houses where animals like this live kills them as effectively as a rat does.

Vacuum formed alloys aren't the first phase of technical development. They come after "air breathing" foundries.

So you rate civilisation via the technology level it achieves... interesting...

See I would rate a cave dweller as more evolved than a city dweller because if you drop them both on an alien planet I would suggest the cave dweller would have better survival skills than the city dweller.

Most cave dwellers would know how to provide themselves with food and shelter and water, while many city dwellers will sit it out and wait for rescue... or a cellphone signal...

A city dweller would use the fresh water supplies to wash their hair to look nice because that will give them the confidence to survive...

KVS wrote:The real limitation is the physics enabling remote travel and communication.

I think it a good job , since physical contact between species is usually mortal . But Europa is still within reach , as is Titan .

@ Star man

Yes you are right about most fresh water species , developing Electricity to hunt and communication . But this is only because , it is muddy in fresh water , on Earth . In salt water , it is clearer . But there could be planets with muddy saltwater , forcing electrical evolution . BTW , the Eel , produces AC current and in a bucket of salt water , AC current produces efficient boiling of water , electrode boiling ! I wonder what is Alien recipe for Fish Stew ?

kvs wrote:The question of intelligent (civilization-generating) life on planets with life is totally open.    The ratio of such planets within the pool of all life-bearing planets may be extremely small.

Discovery of microbial life on Mars would be virtual proof of that.

 Planets where dinosaur-type species did not experience extinction may have developed intelligent dinosaurs.

Based on a study of Troodon (formerly Stenonychosaurus) Russell thought that possible. The brains of some of the last dinosaurs appear more sophisticated than those of 30 or more ma earlier so if they had survived…But let's suppose dinosaurs would never have evolved high intelligence. They wouldn't necessarily have precluded human evolution. Early primates may have been arboreal i.e. relatively safe, and our ancestors eventually overcame mammalian megafauna so...

Does intelligent life require dry surface species?

 

Intelligence may not require it; I suggest a technical civilization does.

But intelligent alien life most certainly must exist.   Even if humans are an extremely rare evolutionary event, the mind numbing numbers of habitable planets that exist in the universe makes such rare events "common".   The real limitation is the physics enabling remote travel and communication.   In spite of all the dreams of faster than light travel, there is no basis for it to be possible.

Suppose it isn't. When Sagan wrote that a single civilization could colonize the galaxy in a billion years I doubt he assumed travel faster than c.

nomadski wrote:
@ Star man
Yes you are right about most fresh water species , developing Electricity to hunt and communication . But this is only because , it is muddy in fresh water , on Earth . In salt water , it is clearer . But there could be planets with muddy saltwater , forcing electrical evolution . BTW , the Eel , produces AC current and in a bucket of salt water , AC current produces efficient boiling of water , electrode boiling !

Electricity evolved in very few species; it would have to coincide with evolution of high intelligence, which may be very improbable.

If you don't believe there are aliens somewhere else in the universe think about that for a few seconds.

100-400 billion stars in this galaxy alone and this is a small galaxy... at least 2 trillion galaxies... including some that make the Milky Way look like a grain of sand with trillions of stars in it...

4.5 billion years of accidents and we are here... 13 billion year old universe out there... plenty of time for the same thing to happen in all the other places it could happen...

GarryB wrote:
100-400 billion stars in this galaxy alone and this is a small galaxy... at least 2 trillion galaxies... including some that make the Milky Way look like a grain of sand with trillions of stars in it...

Sure and we can now conclude planets are far more numerous than stars.