Humans are Plague on Earth - Attenborough

[RB2004]

They do indeed, but most religions are based around some kind of external influence manipulating people and playing on nieve people.

Think about it, if you went back today 2000 years and started treating people with modern medicine they too would probably think you are a god because you have miraculously healed somebody that would of normally died.

And it is completely plausible that some kind of alien race did that thousands of years ago.

Yes it sounds absurd, but I still dunno why some people are narrow minded enough to believe we are the only living intelligence in the universe.

Say we did evolve on our own, no external influences on this planet.

We are a single solar system in the Milky Way galaxy, there's millions if not more star systems in the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is just one galaxy... There are also billions of galaxies... The Big Bang happened a few billion years ago and ever since the universe has been expanding at the speed of light so even 1 million light years is nothing in terms of the size of the universe... And there are people who think in that massive expanse we are the only intelligent living life?

[Sparkle]

Originally Posted by Russ

We may think we're awesome enough to get a Short Circuit-type robot on another planet but all it takes is for nature to slightly alter the Gulf Stream to give us the chaos that the rain caused last year.

Interesting example, if I may broaden it slightly, the Mars mission launch (as impressive as it was/is) went ahead only when weather permitting...

Originally Posted by RB2004

They didn't worship cats, cats were just considered guardians of the afterlife.

More astonishing though is how some religions today worship cows!

Which religions would that be?

(Not Hinduism, as the cow is regarded as sacred, but not worshipped).

[Gary L]

All you ever wanted to know about cows in religion. but were too scared to ask.

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Didn't some early Christians worship a golden calf? I think I read that somewhere.

if you count Jewish people in the Exodus as "early Christians", yes, they did....

Originally Posted by RB2004

They do indeed, but most religions are based around some kind of external influence manipulating people and playing on nieve people.

Think about it, if you went back today 2000 years and started treating people with modern medicine they too would probably think you are a god because you have miraculously healed somebody that would of normally died.

And it is completely plausible that some kind of alien race did that thousands of years ago.

Yes it sounds absurd, but I still dunno why some people are narrow minded enough to believe we are the only living intelligence in the universe.

Say we did evolve on our own, no external influences on this planet.

We are a single solar system in the Milky Way galaxy, there's millions if not more star systems in the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is just one galaxy... There are also billions of galaxies... The Big Bang happened a few billion years ago and ever since the universe has been expanding at the speed of light so even 1 million light years is nothing in terms of the size of the universe... And there are people who think in that massive expanse we are the only intelligent living life?

You are confusing the concepts of "imaginable" and "plausible". Just because you can construct a sentence that describes a scenario, it does not follow that that scenario is plausible. For it to be plausible, it must meet a number of conditions - the laws of physics being chief among them.

Sorry to pour cold water on all this fantasising, but Stargate SG-1 was a TV drama series, not a documentary. As was Star Trek. Both of those shows were guilty of dressing up their plot lines with pseudo-science, giving the impression that what occurred in them might not only be plausible, but an almost inevitable future stage of our scientific development. Sadly that is not the case.

Dr Brian May made an interesting point on Astronomy Live the other week - essentially that the chances of life occurring are so utterly slim, that despite the fact that exo-planets are now known to be common, it is entirely likely that Earth is still the only place where it has taken place. Even if life is common, and has developed into intelligent life on at least one other planet, Einstein established in the last century that it would take an impossibly long time for that life to cross from one planet to another.

Holding that Earth is the only place in the universe where intelligent life exists is not "narrow minded" - it's an entirely rational approach to the minuscule probabilities involved. And neither is holding that intelligent life could not find its way to Earth.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

You are confusing the concepts of "imaginable" and "plausible". Just because you can construct a sentence that describes a scenario, it does not follow that that scenario is plausible. For it to be plausible, it must meet a number of conditions - the laws of physics being chief among them.

Sorry to pour cold water on all this fantasising, but Stargate SG-1 was a TV drama series, not a documentary. As was Star Trek. Both of those shows were guilty of dressing up their plot lines with pseudo-science, giving the impression that what occurred in them might not only be plausible, but an almost inevitable future stage of our scientific development. Sadly that is not the case.

Dr Brian May made an interesting point on Astronomy Live the other week - essentially that the chances of life occurring are so utterly slim, that despite the fact that exo-planets are now known to be common, it is entirely likely that Earth is still the only place where it has taken place. Even if life is common, and has developed into intelligent life on at least one other planet, Einstein established in the last century that it would take an impossibly long time for that life to cross from one planet to another.

Holding that Earth is the only place in the universe where intelligent life exists is not "narrow minded" - it's an entirely rational approach to the minuscule probabilities involved. And neither is holding that intelligent life could not find its way to Earth.

Don't forget Battlestar Galactica, which might as well have been written by Eric von Daniken.

I always like to keep an open mind, I like the mystery of ancient times. But if we were visited by aliens in the past, I would have thought there would be more evidence, and that they might have been back by now.

I like ancient mysteries too ... One of the reasons I studied Archaeology for my degree. However, an important lesson I learned in studying ancient artefacts is that the term "primitive" is rarely a fair one when applied to ancient humans and their civilisations. They were every bit as inventive and intelligent as we are and did incredible things within the confines of the knowledge they had discovered at any given time.

If anything, I think it's narrow minded to look at ancient achievements and to refuse to accept that they were actually made by human hands, as if it's only in the modern era that the human race has achieved anything of note.

I think there probably is life out there, somewhere, but impossibly far from us. If it's intelligent and what that ever means on their planet is another issue entirely.

The Fermi Paradox, for your delight and elucidation.

[Lew]

Originally Posted by Chris

You are confusing the concepts of "imaginable" and "plausible". Just because you can construct a sentence that describes a scenario, it does not follow that that scenario is plausible. For it to be plausible, it must meet a number of conditions - the laws of physics being chief among them.

[Sparkle]

I've often wondered about the possibility of whether or not we're being visited, haven't we all.

I'm a keen sky gazer and always have been, and in my time I've seen well over a hundred shooting stars. I've even seen one fireball ! It was brief, but it looked like a green flare that came down and probably landed in the sea off the Essex coast (though it appeared to burn out before reaching it). After a quick search, it looked like this, but not quite as bright. Probably only lasted about 1.5 seconds or so. Having lived in various military air bases in my life, I've seen most military aircraft (even the F-117 stealth fighter) and have seen aircraft landing lights that hang in the sky for many minutes often fooling people into thinking they've seen an alien craft. As a teenager, for fun I made a number of "hot air ballons" akin to Chinese lanterns. I'd use thin transparent bin liners craftily constructed with an aluminium alcohol burner (using the bottom of a soda can so as to be heat resistant, filled with some alcohol) attached to the bottom of the bag to provide a heat source. Up in the night sky, they do look very UFO like, but I'd hardly see something like that and assume it must be aliens...as some people apparently do. I think I make a reasonably reliable witness, just sayin'.

However, despite my life long passion for night time sky gazing, it wasn't until 2012 that I finally saw something in the sky that I could not identify - and it was quite impressive at the time.

It happened during the 2012 olympics closing ceremony. I was outside on the veranda around 10'ish (or half 9'ish, can't remember, but it was quite dark), it was a perfectly clear night, probably thousands of stars visible. I saw what I assumed to be a satellite, as they appear regularly travelling from west to east. They are visible, because even late at night, they are still illuminated by the sun at their immense altitude. I watched this "satellite" for about 15 seconds, and then suddenly it reversed direction !! Very excited, I immediately shouted my partner to come out and take a look, and we watched it dart all over the sky for several minutes. It then hung in the sky (about the brightness of a dim star) for about 40 minutes. However after 15 minutes or so I went back inside and only checked on it every 10 minutes or so, beginning to wonder if maybe I was looking at a star (as the light has passed many stars), however it was parked next to a prominent star in the sky, and well, after about 40 minutes had passed, and after having checked on it several times, it was finally gone (confirming that this was no star afterall) - but I missed its departure.
I'm very certain, there is nothing man made that could explain this.

A few things worthy of mention, even if I'd had a special night camera at hand, all you'd see in the footage would be a little light on a black background, and it would still prove nothing. Furthermore, as this light was quite dim, you really had to be looking at that part of the sky to even see it. If you were driving on the motorway and it were above you, you wouldn't see it. And finally, I noticed a very slight trail on this light/object when it was moving. A bit like what you see when you look at a moving light using night vision, but not as pronounced as that. A number of UFO clips I've seen on youtube look EXACTLY like this, a little white light with a short fading trail behind it. Could just be coincidence of course.
I swear to God, the above it the absolute truth, just as it happened.

Its not exactly an alien abduction encounter, but it's my own little UFO sighting, and I was ecstatic at the time. My partner and I were quite excited, just watching this little light dart all over the night sky, no rhyme or reason to it, it wasn't even travelling in straight lines either, but the movements lasted for several minutes.
If you had seen this with your own eyes, what more proof would you need?

[Osem]

Digressing, but this one always amazes me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOVQOi2GVvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eil_2WOv5VA

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Gary L

What we need is some form of human culling.
it's just deciding who to start with.

them

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

them

That's where I'd start too