Do you believe in aliens?

[Use_Imagination_here]

Considering we just found a solar system that has two planets within the green zone were life might exist 20 light years away, I think It's impossible that there aren't at least a few hundred intelligent species in our galaxy alone. But the galaxy is pretty fucking big.

 

[Coller]

I don't think my definition of aliens matches the one of the OP. I do think there are other life forms in the universe. I do not, however, think they are flying around looking at rocks in Jarusalem and abducting rednecks.

Also half of those "sightings" in the video coul fairly easily be done with a powerfull search light projector. Kind of like the ones on groud zero of WTC. But weaker ones work too. I have done it a couple times with a hand held searchlight before. Noone thought it was aliens though.

 

[KrabbiPatty]

In fact we had realistic designs for nuclear powered spacecraft on the table in the 60s, when they were talking about high-end estimates being ships the size of skyscrapers capable of traveling at nearly 80% of light-speed, IN THE SIXTIES. .

Citation. This sounds very false. Why didnt we use it? Why have we not built one? Why are we still launching with rocket jets that keep exploding. This seems far too illogical.We would have used them. Plans might have existed. But practical? 100% servicable? Impossible. Its like if we had fusion for 50 years and just never used it. It wouldnt happen.

Well, it's true. The Orion Drive concept is decades old and, unless a lot we think we know about relativity is bullshit, yes it would be possible to use huge ass nukes to propel a ship to sickeningly high speeds. If we had antimatter, even better--the bombs get smaller and smaller but their yield goes up.

Basically the bomb goes off behind the ship and a big ass metal plate gets hit with the blast wave, pushing it forward. It's a manned bullet the size of a skyscraper, and designs for Orion vessels as large as modern seagoing vessels were on the table. In fact, they had designs drawn up, practical and everything, for Orion warships armed with nuclear missiles. And again, this was during the Cold War.

The reason why it never got off the ground was quite simple: the people at the top were scared that it might escalate tensions between us and the Reds, and more importantly launching one of these ships would cost huge sums of money. The technology was there, and by all accounts practical, but the political will and money wasn't.

All I'm saying is, we were THIS fucking close to, basically, Star Trek. But we ran out of money and the boss man got spooked, so it got shelved. Then NASA lost it's balls, we started farming out biding spacecraft to the lowest bidder, and now we can barely get to the moon again. But at that time, we had the capacity to do it. Just do a google search for Orion Drive and see what I mean.

 

[GundamSentinel]

The universe is really big, so it's stupid to assume were the only sentient life form around. It's statistical probability bordering on certainty.

Will we ever meet them? Who knows. It will still take a long long time, but it may be possible.

 

[Aetera]

I think that the idea that, in the entire, mind-blowingly vast universe, we're the ONLY planet that can sustain life, is simply beyond arrogant. I sincerely doubt that any have contacted Earth, but the idea that we're on the ONLY habitable planet out there is absurd.

Frankly though, I think that any race with the technological capabilities to reach Earth would have better things to do. We certainly are an arrogant species.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Believe? No. The likelihood of their existence, however, is very likely indeed.

 

[FenrirsWilly]

Yes I believe there is alien life out there, but only on the definition that alien life is life that is on another planet. What that life is could go from the smallest bacteria to another species of intelligent life.

 

[Joccaren]

Do aliens exist?
Almost definitely, though maybe not in the form of an advanced race, or even animals. Cells as a form of alien are quite likely, though we haven't found anything yet.
Have we been contacted by them?
No. Plain and simple. I see no reason to believe that we have been contacted by aliens, and would compare it to believing in god (No offence to either side): There is no hard evidence for the existence of either except for the numbers of people saying they exist.
Will we meet them?
If we manage to get of this rock, and travel the stars, then almost definitely, though it will be thousands of years in the future. If we don't, there is a chance that we might recover a satellite of some kind, even if just an asteroid with cells on it, and call that a 'first contact', though I find it unlikely. Then there is also the chance we will die off before we do, so take it how you will.

 

[Dethenger]

I do, and looking at the other replies, I'm sure I don't need to specify why; everyone here understands.

 

[BanicRhys]

I believe that aliens exist, I don't believe they've ever made contact with us, I doubt they ever will. There are possibly over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe so if it's just us... it seems like an awful waste of space.

Although I'm kind of hoping we are alone in the universe seeing as any race advanced enough to achieve interstellar travel would probably just be after our resources if they found us.

 

[atol]

Aliens are mathamaticly guarenteed. the universe is infineite, so anything that has a non zero chance of happening is guarenteed to happen, and life has happened at least once (here) so it will have to happen elsewhere.

The universe itself is likely infinite, but the observable universe is finite. Whatever you want to believe, that's a fact.

As for why I believe the universe has limits: The Big Bang created matter, but how much can it possibly have created? When the matter runs out, what then? Nothing? Nothing is not possible.

Matter does not "run out" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass].

 

[Lenin211]

I think that aliens do exist, but we have not and will not ever be visited by them. The reason is simple, Even the closest star to us, alpha centauri, is five light years away. If you were traveling as fast as physics permits, it would take you five years. It is infeasible then, that aliens would come from vastly distant solar systems, even galaxies, to visit earth. If life were so common as to accommodate aliens, then why would they visit earth? wouldn't they go abduct cows from a planet closer to themselves?

 

[obex]

Do i believe that in the vast expanse of the universe there are planets out there that have, do or will support some form of life, sure! Do i believe there are advanced races of aliens out there or that they have come to visit us, not really.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I refuse to believe that they don't exist in some way. But the jump from "existing" to "visiting us with high-tech spaceships and abducting people to shove probes up their arses" is too large even for me, no matter how much I love the idea of anal probing.

 

[SquirePB]

The thing is, it would take at least a class 2 (there are 3 classes going from 1 to 3) civillisation to be able to achieve inter-stellar travel. We're considered to be about a 0.7 on this scale. The difference between a 0.7 and a 2 is considered to be around 1,000,000 times more than the difference between us and ants. I personally don't try to communicate with ants or do anything like popular culture seems to assume aliens would want to do with us. So any civillisation with the capability of traveling here would likely view us as less than we view ants. If they come to us any time within the next, say few hundred years, it's likely they'd either ignore us or just want our planet's resources.

There is an alternative theory known as the Fermi Paradox which suggests that given the lack of evidence for they're being other intellegent life that we are the first. Ok I'm grossly over simplifying it but I highly recommend looking into it as it's a pretty interesting thought. Also look into any work by Carl Sagan (I hope I spelt that right, I'll be a pretty shit astro-physics student if I got that wrong lol) on this topic. The man was brilliant!

 

[b3nn3tt]

Yes, aliens are pretty much a statistical certainty. It is far less believable that we are the only planet in the entire solar system that supports life.

However, if you are asking whether or not I believe that what people claim to see in the sky is alien spacecraft or if I think aliens are responsible for crop circles, then no, not in the slightest. Not even a tiny bit.

 

[Ruuvan]

In a universe or infinite possibilities I think life outside of our planet is entirely plausible.

I do not, however, believe that we've had lifeforms come to our planet and abduct stupid people.

 

[Jakub324]

Aliens are mathamaticly guarenteed. the universe is infineite, so anything that has a non zero chance of happening is guarenteed to happen, and life has happened at least once (here) so it will have to happen elsewhere.

The universe itself is likely infinite, but the observable universe is finite. Whatever you want to believe, that's a fact.

As for why I believe the universe has limits: The Big Bang created matter, but how much can it possibly have created? When the matter runs out, what then? Nothing? Nothing is not possible.

Matter does not "run out" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass].

That wasn't what I meant. How can there possibly be infinite amounts of anything? I'm not suggesting that matter and energy can be removed from the universe (matter can become energy and energy can become matter, thank you GCSE science), but that at some point (in distance, not time) there is no more matter.

 

[Dexiro]

It'd be silly to say that aliens don't exist given the scale of the universe, but I don't believe they're nearby or anythin.

 

[kelsyk]

Yes aliens exist, we will find evidence of them, and we will contact them.

My reasoning:
The universe is awesome and full of awesome stuff. Aliens not existing and/or never contacting them is not awesome. For the universe to maintain its awesomeness aliens must exist and we must eventually contact them.