Are we alone?

BigDave That is an interesting story. In the early 90s I was outside on a break at work around 0230 and it was dark and quiet. I happened to look one way and a massive bright circular or spherical light flew almost directly overhead in a linear direction. I guessed it was well less than 1000 feet above and thought it was a helicopter with a huge spotlight but it was much faster, and like you said, there was no sound. I lost sight of it through some trees and waited around to hear something but nothing else happened. It sounds boring as an anecdote but was a strange experience trying to figure out what was seen. Not hearing it was the strangest part.

it's a fascinating subject and i have read all your comments with enjoyment. my father primed with me a lot of golden age UFO books when i was growing up in the late 70s/80s. i have nowhere near the level of obsession he had but i keep an eye on the sky now and then. being lucky enough to have spent a lot of time out bush in Australia when i worked there for a few years i saw some epic night skies without the light pollution. no UFOs i am aware of. maybe some of those shooting stars were something else.

personally, i find the idea plausible. it is supreme human arrogance to think we are alone in the universe(s). whether any advanced alien species would want anything to do with us is another matter. if i was an alien i think i would be more interested in hanging out with indigenous people who are in harmony with their environment. us 'advanced' people are turning into the Harkonens out of Dune.

How can we possibly be the Universe's only expression of self-awareness?

Endless space and boundless time imprison us. But I believe we will, as a species, "solve the problem of gravity" (as Dr Brandt says in Interstellar), and harness the power to bend spacetime, to take us anywhence in the Universe.

Of course, the natural question then is: if all that were possible, how comes no other beings have done it -- assuming the Universe is teeming with life?

Beats me!

not sure whats scarier. the thought of such an advanced species arriving on earth (which most scientists agree would be bad for us) or the fact that the chances are the first transmission they received from earth was an address by hitler

NASA seems to be announcing new discoveries at a pretty solid pace of late. 

We do not dedicate enough resources into exploring space.  Imagine what we could achieve if the all the nations of the world dedicated 1% of GDP to exploring space?  

Well the closeted we can get to traveling far is the same as Time Travel... Time Travel is not so far away once we master the Technology in the Alien Franchise..

What am i on about? 

Cryo-Sleep lol... yep if we can invent that where we can enter a Sleep Pod and Set the Timer and Wake up say in 200 years time, provided it can slow our aging down etc.. we could wake up in 200 years time not having aged much, only to us seeming like we also have only had a Nights Sleep yet wake up in 200 years time.... Technically thus a kind of Time Travel.

And so i think Cryo-sleep and renewable Energy are the most likely keys to Mankind Traveling into Deep Space, as opposed to breaking the Speed of Light.

But there are Theories, and if indeed we can break Mathematical Improbabilities and Laws of Psychics as we know, then indeed who knows what would be possible then.

I think you're right, the likelihood of there being more intelligent life in the universe is fairly high.  And I think you're also right that they most likely haven't been able to find us due to the fairly short time we've been apart of this universe.  And they probably never will.  We are pretty secluded in terms of intelligent life surrounding our galaxy.  Even if we could travel near the speed of light, we would most likely die before we could get to anywhere with intelligent life.  So until some alien race invents light speed/near light speed travel and can preserve themselves long enough to reach us, we will probably never find intelligent life.  We also have to take into account that it took billions of years for us to evolve from single called organisms into humans... nearly 1/3 of the age of the universe.  So it's possible that somewhere in the universe, an intelligent alien species got big head starts in terms of evolution.  Yet they're still not here.  When you add in the fact that an earth-like planet most likely has the highest chance of spawning life, it's looking more and more like whatever alien species is out there somewhere, they're probably in a similar position as us, in that it took them billions of years to evolve into a species that has fairly basic space travel technology.

Or unless either us or some alien race discovers the secret to immortality, we will probably never meet intelligent life.  Contact is a different case, and has a substantially higher chance of happening.

Maybe we are alone for a good reason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSZkh8cCpgI

@Dirtwolf

Indeed that is a good point, there could have been for example Life similar to our own say 100LY or so away that was there Billions of Years ago but is not there no more.. There World could now be as Baron as the Moon and been like this for say Over a Billion years before Life Began on Earth.

Or such Worlds could be destroyed by their Sun's going Super Nova.

In  say a 500 Million Years who knows what the Earth would be like, it could be a Baron World too, certainly as we get closer to a Billion years in the future and so indeed Life could start some place else after Life on Earth is long gone.

@DK

;)

We are so not alone...and the aliens could never be as cool as a xeno imo.

Xeno cool ? 

They are impressive and amazing lifeforms but they are not cool imho. 

Now are we alone ? 

I don't think so but i am pretty sure that we have not yet witness spaceships from a true interstellar species. UFO are imo either human made or from interdimensionnal beings . Because they seem too primitive and too vulnerable  for interstellar ships.

It is annoying that almost no movie is able to show what a true interstellar spaceship should look like in term of technology. I also think there should be beings which are native from space but which are not aware of our existence or simply do not care. Imagine for example sentient stars.