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There are petroglyphs on the rocks in New Mexico that depict an object that looks like a space ship with a being coming out of it, the petroglyphs are several hundred years old.

There are Japanese paintings from a thousand years ago depicting UFO's.

WWII piolts saw them often enough to give them a name - Foo Fighters.

To believe we are the only intellegent life out there is arrogant.

The truth is out there!

whyhellothere wrote:

arnie.k wrote: 4. the odds of intelligent life elsewhere than earth right now that are also technologically advanced enough - low (we've had serious technology, that could even pretend to be interested in other planets for about 50 years of the 5,000,000,000 the planet has existed).

6. the odds any of them have visited us recently, and chose to speak with - of all people - some drunk redneck on his way home from a barn dance - nil.

The universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. Humans are approximately 200,000 years old. We're pretty new to the party here, thanks to the damn dinosaurs, luckily a meteor took them out. I don't think it's that hard to believe that maybe another society on another planet got a couple million year head start on us, and in that time developed technology we can't even comprehend.

And you're 6th point is such a cliched misconception. It's not just drunk rednecks who are coming forward with information. Pilots, astronauts, other nasa employees, military, government officials have all reported things.

although, the earth's age at 13.7 whatever years old is somewhat speculative in and of itself.

BigDCardlvr wrote:

whyhellothere wrote:

arnie.k wrote: 4. the odds of intelligent life elsewhere than earth right now that are also technologically advanced enough - low (we've had serious technology, that could even pretend to be interested in other planets for about 50 years of the 5,000,000,000 the planet has existed).

6. the odds any of them have visited us recently, and chose to speak with - of all people - some drunk redneck on his way home from a barn dance - nil.

The universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. Humans are approximately 200,000 years old. We're pretty new to the party here, thanks to the damn dinosaurs, luckily a meteor took them out. I don't think it's that hard to believe that maybe another society on another planet got a couple million year head start on us, and in that time developed technology we can't even comprehend.

And you're 6th point is such a cliched misconception. It's not just drunk rednecks who are coming forward with information. Pilots, astronauts, other nasa employees, military, government officials have all reported things.

although, the earth's age at 13.7 whatever years old is somewhat speculative in and of itself.

Speculative seems like an odd word to use. There's not conjecture going on in determining the Earth's age.

BTW, it's the age of the universe that's estimated to be 13.7 years old, the Earth is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years. Both of those numbers are based on solid scientific evidence and theory. If you're interested, I can explain (as far as I know) how they came around to those numbers.

whyhellothere wrote:A former Governor admits to covering one up:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TNymk6YzQKs

TLC (or a channel along the lines of that) ran a special on the "Phoenix Lights," and I'm 100% sure they're military flares. Two reasons:

First of all, if you have ever seen flares, they look pretty much identical to the alleged UFO's. But lets face it, that's hardly enough concrete evidence... However, that leads me to my second post: in the infamous Phoenix Lights videos, there is a mountain range beneath the lights. The lights eventually appear to "shut off," essentially rendering them invisible. During the special, they go to some computer visual specialists and they superimpose the mountain range onto the video... the lights disappear almost exactly in physical conjunction with the mountains. It's hard to explain, but, basically... if flares were falling towards the ground, you'd obviously lose sight of them as they fell behind mountains, provided the mountains were physically between you and the flares (which, based on research, they appear to be).


OK, now what about my personal opinion on the topic as a whole? Well, it's really tough for me to say.

On one hand,
Yes, I do believe aliens exist. In fact, I would almost guarantee it. But just because I believe that does not mean that I believe they fly around in spaceships here on Earth. In fact, I find that incredibly unlikely. Look at how common place sightings are. It's been like 60-70 years now since this buzz has started. Why is that that we still don't have anything close to resembling some concrete evidence!? I really hate the "government coverup" crap. I just despise hearing that. That is such a weak argument for people to use. Its a crutch that's also available to throw in there at any time.

Back on track though... of all the videos and photos that I've ever seen, I have yet to see anything with some detail or distinction. The ones that aren't obvious hoaxes are usually just blurry lights thousands of feet away. I hardly consider that "evidence." You'd think that if they were here, and were visiting as frequently as is claimed, we would snapped some up-close footage that was nearly impossible to deny. Unfortunately, that's not the case...


But then, again, part of me does believe. There is a lot of eerie stuff floating around there. Like this video, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcrzD0PfyPs

I find that just chilling!


If I had to pick one way or the other, though, I'd say that extraterrestrial beings have not been here. It just seems too unlikely to me. I think ancient pictures and writings can best be explained as either ignorance (weather/space phenomena) or with metaphors (eg: we'd not supposed to interpret what they drew/wrote literally). While there are a lot of military UFO sightings, I'd say that those can be best explained by enemy military spy planes, and things of that nature..


If you believe in UFO's because you've examined the entire body of evidence objectively and have reached that conclusion... fine... but I think there are very too many people out there who force themselves into believing (placebo effect, I guess) due to the fact that an alien-filled world is much more interesting and romantic than one that isn't.

Michael wrote:

stlmark wrote:Yes, I think that we are ignorant to think there's no other life form out there some where.

I think there is other life forms out there I just don't think they are visiting us.

same here.

stlmark wrote:Yes, I think that we are ignorant to think there's no other life form out there some where.

i was just going to say the same thing

i can't believe that this planet is the only one without any life form

Yeah, I believe in UFO's. My kids throw stuff all the time, and I can't figure out which one threw it.

jim wrote:We have guys at work running SETI at home, and even use that as a "burn-in" test for our new computers. So far, no luck. The window of opportunity has probably already passed - if you were going to hear something you probably were going to hear it right away. What are the odds that the signal is just a year or two away?

Sending a radio signals interstellar distances is no easy task. The reason SETI@Home requires so many computers is because its so difficult to find some tiny signal from a particular spot in the sky. The SETI@Home project only looks at a small frequency band, and I think they still have plenty more sky to search. Even if there are extraterrestrials sending signals into space, it would be difficult for us to detect anything unless the beam was being directed at us (why would it be if they don't know we're here?) and we were monitoring the right frequency and the right part of the sky at the right time. Extremely unlikely.

My own view is that while other extraterrestrial intelligences may very well exist, we will never be able to contact them much less meet them. Space is one of those tantalizing things where you know there is all kinds of cool stuff out there but you just can't get at it.

Someone, (I don't remember who) said:
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Interesting results so far. I wonder if the voting would be different if the question was framed in a slightly different way. Like:

Have aliens made contact (in any form) with humans?

Would anyone change their vote to no if that was the question?