Poll: Alien existence vs. Alien abductions

[jonnosferatu]

There probably is some variety of alien life out there.

For perspective:
There are 9 known planets orbiting our Star.
There are somewhere between 200,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 Stars in the Milky Way.
There are an estimated 100,000,000,000 galaxies, minimum, in observable space.

If the Solar System and Milky Way numbers are both used as approximate averages (not TOO unreasonable), we're left with an approximate MINIMUM of 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the observable universe.

I do not believe it likely that intelligent life will have appeared on only one of these in the last ~14 billion years.

Note that this ignores non-planetary bodies of mass, which could also, if bound to a star, theoretically support life.

 

[manaman]

Well, I don't believe that aliens have visited our planet (atleast during the last 100 years) and I sure as hell don't believe that they have been capturing people and doing anal probing to them. But, I'm relatively sure, that we are not the only species in this universe, that would seem highly unlikely.

Funny fact: I was officially an alien when I lived in USA.

Alien just means foreign, that can be to the culture, to the country, to the world, what have you. I go out on a very large and sturdy limb and assume the original poster is talking about alien to our planet.

We could very well settle this debate the next mission to Mars. They do want to explore further into the seasonal methane production on the planet. On earth there are only two ways methane is produce, biological, and through water acting on rock. So there very well could be life on Mars beneath the soil that grows and flourishes as the seasonal cycles make conditions favorable. Or those same cycles can be acting on layers of rock to produce the methane. We cannot know for sure and I think it would be very important to explore this further.

 

[lasherman]

I believe they probably exist, and assuming they are reasonably intelligent, the reason we have never come in contact is because they are probably too far away. I mean, we can hardly even make it to mars, so what are the odds that alien life on some distant planet is even aware we exist? Also, I would like to here from the person who claimed they were abducted on the poll.

 

[kewlrabbit]

The universe is impossibly big, so it's just silly to think that we're the only life in the universe.

 

[Nick-O]

People who say they have been abducted by aliens have no evidence of it, and therefore it did'nt happen. the end

im not saying that i believe people are being abducted, but i do think something can happen and there be no evidence of it happening.

Can you give me a good example?

 

[Robert632]

the possibilty of us being alone in the universe is as likely as the holocasut being a good thing.

 

[Asciotes]

I wonder who the one person who said they were abducted was. Saying we're the only living things in a place so big is as egotistical as the geocentric model.

 

[crudus]

Space is big, I mean HUGE. Now, the odds that we are the only (intelligent) life out there is pretty damn slim. However, the odds that some aliens found our planet is inversely proportional to the size of space. So, chances of other life out there:good, chances of them finding us: bad. My point is easily illustrated by the game Galactic Civilization (look it up if you don't know). The bigger you make your galaxy, the odds are decreased that you will run into the other species (of course, the chances increasing as you explore since Galactic Civilizations has limits that you can explore).

 

[veloper]

The odds that a super duper highly advanced race could actually reach us is practicly nil, because of physics.

Promima Centauri is 40,300,000,000,000 km away. That's the closest star to our sun and it's likely to have no planets anyway.

It takes light 4,2 years to travel that distance.

Accelerating a ship to even a fraction of lightspeed costs more energy than it takes to build a bomb that will blow up the entire earth to tiny bits.
The smallest dust particle in space would completely annihilate the ship at those speeds.

 

[Cargando]

There is supposedly millions of civilised races on other planets in the milky way alone, there's an equation for working it out but I can't remember the name of it...

 

[open trap]

chariot of the gods, the gods are not gods but aliens, duhhhh

 

[firedfns13]

They exist somewhere in the universe, maybe not our galaxy or any close galaxies but I'm sure there is some race of advanced life form such as ourselves. Except they aren't more advanced than us.

If we have not built giant ships capable of star travel why would any other life form be able to?

 

[Redingold]

I'm sure that if aliens exist (and it's a bit dumb to think that they don't), they probably wouldn't bother flying thousands or millions of light years to terrorise farmers and people driving home late at night.

 

[Redingold]

They exist somewhere in the universe, maybe not our galaxy or any close galaxies but I'm sure there is some race of advanced life form such as ourselves. Except they aren't more advanced than us.

If we have not built giant ships capable of star travel why would any other life form be able to?

They may have been around for a lot longer. With an extra million years, say, they could build all sorts. A million years isn't particularly huge in cosmic terms.

 

[Razgrizaces]

Aliens do exist, but I'm pretty sure alien abductions are pure bullshit. If you think an alien would come to us, wouldn't you think he'd bring one person to scout, then after he's done scouting, calling in the main force? And I'm pretty sure when that happens, we'll ALL see an alien ship. But until then... focus on something else.

 

[S-Unleashed]

I think Aliens around but I don't think they can do space travel. They are just like us stuck on their own rock.

 

[Razgrizaces]

I think Aliens around but I don't think they can do space travel. They are just like us stuck on their own rock.

We have the Moon. So we're not stuck on our own rock.

 

[S-Unleashed]

I think Aliens around but I don't think they can do space travel. They are just like us stuck on their own rock.

We have the Moon. So we're not stuck on our own rock.

Ok then out of our system then.

 

[Samoftherocks]

Why would aliens begin their relationship with humanity with such a passive/aggressive act? What intelligent species would want to play a game of human keep away without anyone knowing that they are doing it? And how is it that they could come to Earth, recognize that we very likely don't have the capacity to defend ourselves against the kind of tech that would allow interstellar travel, and not just say "hi!" or "take us to your leader" or "get in the cage, bitches!"?

Honestly, the notion of alien abduction sounds to me like yet another manifestation of ones sexual frustration. The idea that strangers would come and steal you away to their secret location/base/ship to put things in your body through whatever seems like the easist orafice to access, seems like a buttplay, rape fantasy gone unrealized. Do we think so little of extraterrestrials that we've reduced them to porn?

Stupid X-Files...

 

[quiet_samurai]

There has to be other life out there, the galaxy is too big for there not to be. And if they are visiting earth, I believe it has something to do with our ability to harness the atom. They might have been watching us all along, and all of a sudden "OH look what the monkeys did?"

or

People are just crazy.