Alien life could be found within 40 years - really?

Roadtrippin

Spotted this interesting article online earlier:

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/alien-life-could-be-found-within-40-years-claims-top-astronomer-3223037.html

What do you think? How realistic is this prediction?

El Weirdo

Roadtrippin wrote: »

What do you think?

What do you think?

eth0

If there actually are aliens then it's very realistic. They might also find aliens that due to the time the light takes to get here appear to exist but have actually died out since

admiralofthefleet

i think its a load of bollox. if they were there we would have found them by now

Colmustard

Alien life yeah

But not intelligent life.

Fromthetrees

Thinly vieled I believe in aliens thread.

Biggins

Colmustard wrote: »

Alien life yeah

But not intelligent life.

We can't even find the latter above in Ireland at times!
How would same then recognise it in space?

admiralofthefleet

Fromthetrees wrote: »

Thinly vieled I believe in aliens thread.

your at it again. release the hounds

eth0

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

your at it again. release the hounds

Thinly veiled 'I have hounds' post

karma_

Fromthetrees wrote: »

Thinly vieled I believe in aliens thread.

Not really. It's statistically probably there are other life forms that inhabit the universe. Is it not a tad self-centred to believe we are all there is?

The universe is big, really big.

galwayrush

Alien life (intelligent)has a better chance in finding us first...

El Weirdo

Fromthetrees wrote: »

Thinly vieled I believe in aliens thread.

More a thinly-veiled "I can link to a news article" thread, tbh.

squod

Bet they'll taste like chicken

ArtSmart

when they arrive, I wonder how they'll fit in?

where do we put them?

how will the creationist deal with it?

what if they're Atheists? or worse lovers of Reality TV?

gonna be a toughy...

ps, of course there is Alien life, good lord, we're less than a speck of dust in a giant universe. are people so egocentric to think we're it?

but cant see any meet up for a few thousand years meself.

Colmustard

Biggins wrote: »

We can't even find the latter above in Ireland at times!
How would same then recognise it in space?

LOL

I think the Panspermia theory will be proven that all life came from space.

So all they have to do is find any form of life in an asteroid or comet.

zenno

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Spotted this interesting article online earlier:

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/alien-life-could-be-found-within-40-years-claims-top-astronomer-3223037.html

What do you think? How realistic is this prediction?

well only recently did science take seriously ball-lightning, scientists will find extraterrestrial life that feeds on certain parts of the atmosphere as they will be electrical in nature and have intelligence but science today cannot understand it as they can't measure it.

A scientist and nuclear physicist was on a plane journey at 36,000 feet sometime before 1998 i can't remember the exact date and he was in the back row seats of the aircraft and he and the other passengers noticed a ball of bright white light rolling 1 foot above the floor isle and it rolled all the way back to the back of the aircraft where the scientist was sitting and as soon as the ball of light got to the end it vanished under the floor.

So the scientist after seeing this contacted other scientists about this and said to them...there seems to be intelligence with these balls of light as they seem to know where they are going and can move at amazing speed in high G's. He told his fellow scientists that this unexplained phenomena should be studied now as he seen it with his own eyes and they studied this and now it is recognized in science as a fact.

People always think of an extraterrestrial as like us, head/arms/legs and so on but the extraterrestrials could be made of light energy/plasma based.

ArtSmart

zenno wrote: »

well only recently did science take seriously ball-lightning, scientists will find extraterrestrial life that feeds on certain parts of the atmosphere as they will be electrical in nature and have intelligence but science today cannot understand it as they can't measure it.

A scientist and nuclear physicist was on a plane journey at 36,000 feet sometime before 1998 i can't remember the exact date and he was in the back row seats of the aircraft and he and the other passengers noticed a ball of bright white light rolling 1 foot above the floor isle and it rolled all the way back to the back of the aircraft where the scientist was sitting and as soon as the ball of light got to the end it vanished under the floor.

So the scientist after seeing this contacted other scientists about this and said to them...there seems to be intelligence with these balls of light as they seem to know where they are going and can move at amazing speed in high G's. He told his fellow scientists that this unexplained phenomena should be studied now as he seen it with his own eyes and they studied this and now it is recognized in science as a fact.

People always think of an extraterrestrial as like us, head/arms/legs and so on but the extraterrestrials could be made of light energy/plasma based.

that would solve the seating issues, in fact, no prob presented there.


AFAIK the human size is the most efficient, so they'll prob be human size, and carbon based. probably fitter than us though. hmmm. hope they havent green skin...

Somnus

Colmustard wrote: »

Alien life yeah

But not intelligent life.

This.

I've no doubt that we will find evidence of life outside of Earth in the not too distant future. With the vastness of space it would be near impossible for life not to exist somewhere else in the universe.

Maybe, it won't be in the next 40 years, but I wouldn't be suprised if we found evidence of some form of extremely primitive life in that time.

Colmustard

Dr.Poca wrote: »

This.

I've no doubt that we will find evidence of life outside of Earth in the not too distant future. With the vastness of space it would be near impossible for life not to exist somewhere else in the universe.

Maybe, it won't be in the next 40 years, but I wouldn't be suprised if we found evidence of some form of extremely primitive life in that time.

There is a good argument that we have already. There is a case that some viruses have come from space, BSE and Spanish Flu (perhaps) it is controversia,l but gaining converts.

Somnus

Colmustard wrote: »

There is a good argument that we have already. There is a case that some viruses have come from space, BSE and Spanish Flu (perhaps) it is controversia,l but gaining converts.

How would they have gotten here? Via asteroid or something? Cause DNA is very unstable, I would think it unlikely to survive arrivial like that personally.

ArtSmart

Dr.Poca wrote: »

How would they have gotten here? Via asteroid or something? Cause DNA is very unstable, I would think it unlikely to survive arrivial like that personally.

maybe they arrived impersonally?

Colmustard

Dr.Poca wrote: »

How would they have gotten here? Via asteroid or something? Cause DNA is very unstable, I would think it unlikely to survive arrivial like that personally.

Its a lot more stable then you think, there was life on earth pretty much from its onset, even when it was a molten mess.

They have tested this in high impact chambers when the simulated high speed impacts and see what remains and sometimes life does survive and thats all it takes, sometimes. If the theory of panspermia is correct and with the variety of Extremophiles on Earth, the universe is teeming with life. That is exciting.

But multicellular "higher" organisms maybe rare, intelligence rarer again, perhaps we are the only intelligent ones.

Think about it. The Earth has so much going for it to be packed with life as it is and for 4 billion years it had life, yet culture and intelligence only happened once. And that is with us.

This is what I am on about.

Panspermia.

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=panspermia&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPanspermia&ei=2JFKUPbFCOOq0QW2-ICABA&usg=AFQjCNEPN98KnwLAj9FuTHubR8ZSiInwcg

zenno

ArtSmart wrote: »

that would solve the seating issues, in fact, no prob presented there.


AFAIK the human size is the most efficient, so they'll prob be human size, and carbon based. probably fitter than us though. hmmm. hope they havent green skin...

the aliens are, and have always been here on this planet and they are us...

If you ever watched this ancient aliens lark regarding the theory that aliens built the pyramids and all the amazing ancient stone-work that they say could only be done by advanced tools then think of this theory...

All that technology probably existed back thousands of years ago and human beings were so advanced, maybe way more advanced than us now and seeing that they were so technologically advanced maybe they caused a world catastrophe and wiped out most of life but they were so advanced they could relocate somewhere else maybe in the deepest parts of our oceans or built life structures on a moon of a planet in our location in the solar system.

well if they were that technologically advanced back then and had sophisticated craft which they would have and more advanced as we do now then why not and maybe we are the little children of these human extraterrestrials. ?.

My theory is that thousands of years ago human beings had such powerful technology that either destroyed most of them or even a comet or asteroid wiped most of the human race out but we had the technology back then to move to outer planet locations and what we always have seen before human flight was possible from the Wright brothers as called UFO'S were just our advanced ancient ancestors visiting and manipulating this planet.

Now i could be out there on planet pluto and totally wrong but my instinct just tells me that this is the case. Human beings are the aliens but from another time. Just think of quantum mechanics and see how really strange things can be even from intrusion from other dimensions.

Another thing as well would be if time travel was possible. If time travel is possible and the math supposedly assumes it is then wouldn't it be feasible to assume that we are already being visited by extraterrestrials from the future ? because if time travel can mathematically exist then what is stopping them from coming back to this time now.

If time travel was accomplished in 1,000 years or less or whenever then some of these ufo's could just be our future selves with advanced technology visiting us here and now. Other intelligent life-forms probably do exist closer than you think but science cannot measure or understand it yet, who knows as there are many a theory but the universe is so large that we can only have an open mind at least to consider all possibilities.

To think we humans that only invented radio and other tech over a hundred years are all the brains and intelligence of this universe is a mad-mans theme of incalculable foolishness and we always think that extraterrestrials would be using the technology we use today which is nuts as they could be thousands if not millions of years more advanced than us technology learners still using fossil fuels. theres a lot of space up there but the amount of space in our human mind cannot understand or calculate the possibilities that could be. waffle over.

ArtSmart

zenno wrote: »

the aliens are, and have always been here on this planet and they are us...

If you ever watched this ancient aliens lark regarding the theory that aliens built the pyramids and all the amazing ancient stone-work that they say could only be done by advanced tools then think of this theory...

All that technology probably existed back thousands of years ago and human beings were so advanced, maybe way more advanced than us now and seeing that they were so technologically advanced maybe they caused a world catastrophe and wiped out most of life but they were so advanced they could relocate somewhere else maybe in the deepest parts of our oceans or built life structures on a moon of a planet in our location in the solar system.

well if they were that technologically advanced back then and had sophisticated craft which they would have and more advanced as we do now then why not and maybe we are the little children of these human extraterrestrials. ?.

My theory is that thousands of years ago human beings had such powerful technology that either destroyed most of them or even a comet or asteroid wiped most of the human race out but we had the technology back then to move to outer planet locations and what we always have seen before human flight was possible from the Wright brothers as called UFO'S were just our advanced ancient ancestors visiting and manipulating this planet.

Now i could be out there on planet pluto and totally wrong but my instinct just tells me that this is the case. Human beings are the aliens but from another time. Just think of quantum mechanics and see how really strange things can be even from intrusion from other dimensions.

Another thing as well would be if time travel was possible. If time travel is possible and the math supposedly assumes it is then wouldn't it be feasible to assume that we are already being visited by extraterrestrials from the future ? because if time travel can mathematically exist then what is stopping them from coming back to this time now.

If time travel was accomplished in 1,000 years or less or whenever then some of these ufo's could just be our future selves with advanced technology visiting us here and now. Other intelligent life-forms probably do exist closer than you think but science cannot measure or understand it yet, who knows as there are many a theory but the universe is so large that we can only have an open mind at least to consider all possibilities.

To think we humans that only invented radio and other tech over a hundred years are all the brains and intelligence of this universe is a mad-mans theme of incalculable foolishness and we always think that extraterrestrials would be using the technology we use today which is nuts as they could be thousands if not millions of years more advanced than us technology learners still using fossil fuels. theres a lot of space up there but the amount of space in our human mind cannot understand or calculate the possibilities that could be. waffle over.

waffle?





yeah, well. anyway, for sure the uni is big nuff to accommodate lots of life forms, but science wont facilitate the travel/ communication technology required for quite a while, at least 200 years

so if we do encounter Aliens within 200 years or so, it will be on their terms - in such a case they may not feel it's a good idea to disturb the naked apes. (us) (so yes, they may have already made that decision.)

as for de-technologised theory, hmmm, i dunno bout that.

i imagine 'contact' will be a lot further away myself.

weird, i feel dirty talking about this stuff.

madma

freeze me... freeze me now... i for one want to meet our new leaders

ArtSmart

madma wrote: »

freeze me... freeze me now... i for one want to meet our new leaders

maybe they'll be followers?

Reindeer

They've been amongst us for quite some time now.

Duggys Housemate

zenno wrote: »

the aliens are, and have always been here on this planet and they are us...

If you ever watched this ancient aliens lark regarding the theory that aliens built the pyramids and all the amazing ancient stone-work that they say could only be done by advanced tools then think of this theory...

All that technology probably existed back thousands of years ago and human beings were so advanced, maybe way more advanced than us now and seeing that they were so technologically advanced maybe they caused a world catastrophe and wiped out most of life but they were so advanced they could relocate somewhere else maybe in the deepest parts of our oceans or built life structures on a moon of a planet in our location in the solar system.

well if they were that technologically advanced back then and had sophisticated craft which they would have and more advanced as we do now then why not and maybe we are the little children of these human extraterrestrials. ?.

My theory is that thousands of years ago human beings had such powerful technology that either destroyed most of them or even a comet or asteroid wiped most of the human race out but we had the technology back then to move to outer planet locations and what we always have seen before human flight was possible from the Wright brothers as called UFO'S were just our advanced ancient ancestors visiting and manipulating this planet.

Now i could be out there on planet pluto and totally wrong but my instinct just tells me that this is the case. Human beings are the aliens but from another time. Just think of quantum mechanics and see how really strange things can be even from intrusion from other dimensions.

Another thing as well would be if time travel was possible. If time travel is possible and the math supposedly assumes it is then wouldn't it be feasible to assume that we are already being visited by extraterrestrials from the future ? because if time travel can mathematically exist then what is stopping them from coming back to this time now.

If time travel was accomplished in 1,000 years or less or whenever then some of these ufo's could just be our future selves with advanced technology visiting us here and now. Other intelligent life-forms probably do exist closer than you think but science cannot measure or understand it yet, who knows as there are many a theory but the universe is so large that we can only have an open mind at least to consider all possibilities.

To think we humans that only invented radio and other tech over a hundred years are all the brains and intelligence of this universe is a mad-mans theme of incalculable foolishness and we always think that extraterrestrials would be using the technology we use today which is nuts as they could be thousands if not millions of years more advanced than us technology learners still using fossil fuels. theres a lot of space up there but the amount of space in our human mind cannot understand or calculate the possibilities that could be. waffle over.

Stargate.

My name is URL

It could be found tomorrow, or it could be found in 600,000,000 years.. either way; we stupid humans will be arguing over the possibility of it. Unless of course the X-Factor has had us all killed by then.

Biggins

My name is URL wrote: »

...Unless of course the X-Factor has had us all killed by then.

Thats a good chance - its now boring people to death!

zenno

ArtSmart wrote: »

waffle?





yeah, well. anyway, for sure the uni is big nuff to accommodate lots of life forms, but science wont facilitate the travel/ communication technology required for quite a while, at least 200 years

so if we do encounter Aliens within 200 years or so, it will be on their terms - in such a case they may not feel it's a good idea to disturb the naked apes. (us) (so yes, they may have already made that decision.)

as for de-technologised theory, hmmm, i dunno bout that.

i imagine 'contact' will be a lot further away myself.

weird, i feel dirty talking about this stuff.

Just think of an incalculable catastrophic event happening now like an extinction event from a huge iron asteroid and only a handful of humans left and trying to survive and start us off again from scratch,but when the catastrophe happened all the worlds top scientists and the brightest ones were shipped to a base on the moon or mars ? with the rest of the lucky ones and they still had the brains for use in the technology field as all us poor souls write cave paintings of our destroyed world and the technology we once had just engraved on the side of a mountain/mountains.

as we try to progress in our new formed stone-age world, the brightest/intelligent ones out there from earth with the mastery of minerals and the know-how would progress fast as we struggle to survive the basics of food and water searching. After 200 years our own human folks out there in their bases would be gods to us and when they use their craft to visit this planet again when the planet heals from the catastrophe they will look like extraterrestrials to us as they will have gained in technology as we declined from it, here ye gods, as all gods are human.

Duggys Housemate

I hope the aliens like a beer.

SusieBlue

I think its a bit naive to think that we are the only form of life in the universe. I definitely think there are other life forms out there.

Did one of the men that landed on the moon not claim that NASA has been doing autopsies on aliens for years, and have been keeping it under wraps? Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

I think its just a case of whether our technology and science finds other life forms before other life forms find us. I doubt it'll be within my own lifetime but I'd bet money that it'll one day happen.

Duiske

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i think its a load of bollox. if they were there we would have found them by now

There is no way we could have found them. Even now the only evidence we have of planets outside our solar system is by observing the gravitational wobble they cause in the sun they orbit. Over 800 of these planets have been "found", but none have actually been seen, so its possible there is life of some description on at least some of them.

zenno

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

I hope the aliens like a beer.

That is not the question, I hope they have beer to share with me, personally and i can converse with them all about the purity of alcohol, i'll call any extraterrestrial a god if they have beer, or even better a bottle of captain morgans spiced rum with cola

zenno

WhiteRoses wrote: »

I think its a bit naive to think that we are the only form of life in the universe. I definitely think there are other life forms out there.

Did one of the men that landed on the moon not claim that NASA has been doing autopsies on aliens for years, and have been keeping it under wraps? Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

I think its just a case of whether our technology and science finds other life forms before other life forms find us. I doubt it'll be within my own lifetime but I'd bet money that it'll one day happen.

You could assume that if a more technologically advanced life-form say even 1,000 years more advanced than us could have craft of which would be completely invisible to us and our technology. If there are extraterrestrials visiting this planet then we can be sure they use stealth or dimensional invisibility means in which could be used the way an electron can disappear and reappear or be in two places at once and phase in/out of our reality and we would never even know they were there.

opinion guy

eth0 wrote: »

Thinly veiled 'I have hounds' post

They're on to us. Release the flying monkeys that shoot bees from their mouths.....

Rosy Posy

I thought the most interesting part of this article was in the final paragraphs

The respected SETI Institute in California will be forced to curtail radio telescope operations, which search space for signals from other worlds, unless it can plug a multi-million dollar funding gap.

Find it slightly ridiculous that the yanks are willing to spend millions of dollars on searching the universe for aliens but are rioting at the suggestion of universal health care.

Chuck Stone

May 8th, 2087, at 9:14am GMT.

That's my prediction.

Seriously though, the only consistency long range predictions achieve is being wrong.

zenno

Rosy Posy wrote: »

I thought the most interesting part of this article was in the final paragraphs



Find it slightly ridiculous that the yanks are willing to spend millions of dollars on searching the universe for aliens but are rioting at the suggestion of universal health care.

Well strangely enough SETI are a waste of everyone's time and money because they are looking on only a handful of predictive frequencies which brings me back to my previous comment on why do people and SETI think that other intelligences would be using the same technology that we use ? it seems mind-boggling that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization out there would be using the same transmission frequencies that we do, it's just non intelligent in relation to SETI's part.

Hang on tony, i have picked up a transmission on 1,445.000mhz WOW! it must be the communication database structure of an alien civilization, i don't think so.

The whole damn structure of SETI's search for extraterrestrial signals is seriously flawed and any respectable scientist would say the same. Who says and makes the call that extraterrestrials would be using anything like our old-fart technology radio-waves.

The radio spectrum is vast but seti want to just look on a tiny tiny tiny part of it thinking they will find gold, waste of money. Let the more advanced ones out there come to us as we have being transmitting radio and tv uhf transmissions since the tv was invented, those signals from day one have travelled far. they will pick our garbage up if they are out there but would you visit a primitive civilization after decoding our insane transmissions ? neither would i, next planet please.

PirateShampoo

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i think its a load of bollox. if they were there we would have found them by now

It's not Star Trek. We haven't visited 1 single world our selves. We have sent a robot to Mars.

We haven't even left our solar system.

zenno

PirateShampoo wrote: »

It's not Star Trek. We haven't visited 1 single world our selves. We have sent a robot to Mars.

We haven't even left our solar system.

We are type civilization 0

A type 1 civilization would not even be in our realm or dimension.

Cú Giobach

PirateShampoo wrote: »

It's not Star Trek. We haven't visited 1 single world our selves. We have sent a robot to Mars.

We haven't even left our solar system.

Well considering we only learned to fly just over 100 years ago, have sent probes out to every planet in the solar system and set foot on the Moon, not bad going for an ape really.

Personally I feel we will be finding traces of microbial life on Mars pretty sooner than 40 years.

Colmustard

According to the Google Doodle Star trek is 46 years old, I'm surprised there isn't a national holiday or some sort of yearly celebration, maybe with-in 40 years.

It will be life Jim but not as we know it.

I always like the religious versions of alien life, some sort of a super evolved energy based beings which have nothing better to be doing than to hint at their existance through some self obsessed species of destructive mammals selfish wishes on a tiny peice of rock floating on the fringes of nowhere in a vast universe. Gods, demons, angles, virgin marys and aliens all seem to be super advanced with the same personalities and body structure of us apes.

It must be the way Universal evolution works, Nah, I challenge their views of Alien life.

dsmythy

A great bunch of lads.

Ghost Buster

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i think its a load of bollox. if they were there we would have found them by now

Seeing as we have only sent a man to the moon which in terms of manned space exploration is the equivalent of getting off the sofa and looking out the window how do you figure this?
I know we have sent out probes and have Hubble but again considering the sheer size of the universe and the time it takes light to get to us i think yiou are being a incy bincy bit presumptious.

Instead of placing bets to see when they get here, we should instead be placing bets on which nation will be the first to shoot them.

Ficheall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPl10L40pBM

almighty1

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i think its a load of bollox. if they were there we would have found them by now

I really hope you are joking. There are thought to be over 200 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy and there are estimates of over 500 billion galaxies in the known Universe. This would give us 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in our Universe. From what we have discovered so far, each star system seems to have its own solar system. This would yield more than 1 planet for each solar system. Therefore one could assume that there are more planets in our galaxy that there are stars.

Considering we have only landed an exploratory device on 1 other planet then that leaves us 99,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 to find life.....kind of blows your theory other of the water into perhaps another universe

TheIrishGrover

I firmly believe so. I think the idea of there NOT being any other life out there is science fiction. I mean, I don't think there's going to be any UFOs landing on the white house lawn but I do believe there will be conclusive proof of some form of life on other planets. Be it microscopic bacteria on Mars or the discovery of organically produced gasses in extra-solar planets. I would be perfectly happy with this and would not conciser it a let down in any way. If one planet about a very average star was not only able to support life but that life was able to discover even the tiniest life on another planet then that would suggest to me that the universe is teeming with live in some form or other. I also don't rule out receiving a signal at some point in the future, again I don't expect "Contact", but some form of obviously artificial signal. However I don't see this happening in my lifetime as the resources behind this kind of search is miniscule. Do I think we'll actually travel to planets outside our solar system? No. Unless there is some mad lead forwards and sideways in our understanding of the universe that turns everything we thought we knew on it's head. Something as radical and bizarre as quantuum mechanics at the turn of the last century.

Duggys Housemate

almighty1 wrote: »

I really hope you are joking. There are thought to be over 200 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy and there are estimates of over 500 billion galaxies in the known Universe. This would give us 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in our Universe. From what we have discovered so far, each star system seems to have its own solar system. This would yield more than 1 planet for each solar system. Therefore one could assume that there are more planets in our galaxy that there are stars.

Considering we have only landed an exploratory device on 1 other planet then that leaves us 99,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 to find life.....kind of blows your theory other of the water into perhaps another universe

I feel fermi's paradox coming on.