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Why We're Looking For ET All Wrong
StartsWithABang writes: When you consider that there are definitely millions of planets in the habitable zones of their stars within our Milky Way galaxy alone, the possibility that there's intelligent life on at least one of them, right now, is tantalizing. But we're in our technological infancy, relatively speaking, having only been broadcasting electromagnetic signatures visible by an alien civilization for around 80 years. Unsurprisingly, we're looking for exactly the types of signals we're capable of sending, but what if that's totally wrongheaded? Based on how technology is evolving and what the Universe is capable of, perhaps we should be looking not at electromagnetic radiation, but neutrino or gravitational wave signals from the distant Universe to search for alien civilizations.
It's the one life we know exists, if we find aliens with a totally different physiology or totally different technology that's nice but we have no idea of what to look for. It's unlikely that aliens expect us to tap into their communications, if they are trying to ping us they probably do it using all possible channels. And we know at least one of them, it's unlikely a civilization that can do what he proposes hasn't invented the radio.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
... when we have neutrino or gravitational wave telescopes capable of detecting such signals. Which we don't. Current neutrino observatories are very crude, and we have yet to detect gravitational waves of any kind.
We are infants screaming in a forest of wolves.
That's the truth of the Fermi paradox, the only surviving intelligence is one that's extremely quiet.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Any extraterrestrial civilization that has survived into interstellar travel is probably willing to invest a great deal of its time and energy into NOT being discovered by us. What could be more dangerous than a species that has learned some technology yet turns every technological advance into a weapon against others of its own kind? And we've been advertising that aspect of ourselves to the universe ever since we discovered radio waves.
Maybe it's just the machines left over from another species.
But broadcasting where you are without knowing who is listening, stupid.... that's the only word for it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
One day, scientists and their followers will feel like complete idiots, when it becomes obvious aliens have been here all along.
Okay, one can play this game about any widespread "belief." Let's try, shall we?
One day, scientists and their followers will feel like complete idiots, when it becomes obvious God and Jesus have been here all along.
Citation#1: US presidents have known about UFOs here on Earth, even seen them:
Since the beginning of the US, US Presidents have been -- and continue to -- invoke a superior supernatural deity acting on Earth, usually to our country's benefit.
Citation#2: If 200+ NASA, Ex-Military, Ex-US government high ranking employees coming forth and willing to testify before congress isn't enough for you, then your mind is too closed:
I can find thousands and thousands of NASA, Ex-military, Ex-US government high ranking employees to talk about how belief in the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ is not only present in the world, but often is responsible for their entire success in life.
Citation#3: How many pilot witnesses with radar evidence to back it up does it take before you belive that UFOs are real and here on Earth?
How many miracles certified by the Vatican does it take for you to believe in an almighty deity? (The Vatican employs lots of actual scientists and doctors to certify these too.)
Citation#4: Is 3 Million alien abductions in the USA alone enough evidence for you, or are you waiting around for a nice round number like 10 million?
Yes, and hundreds of millions of people around the world believe that bread or a wafer is magically transformed into the body of someone who lived 2000 years ago, and by practicing ritual cannibalism and consuming his body and blood, they will be saved an afterlife of eternal torment. And hundreds of milions of others think the first group is crazy, but they believe in their own tradition pointing to a supernatural god or gods. Etc.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm NOT saying God isn't real, nor am I saying definitively that aliens have not visited earth.
But you have to admit that there are good reasons why many scientists have become increasingly skeptical of religious claims in the past few centuries -- largely due to the nature of the "evidence," which always seems a little fleeting or hard to capture in controlled experiments or whatever.
It is indeed rational to present a similar skepticism to claims like millions of people in the US are supposedly "abducted." How? When? Don't other people in their families notice? Why would aliens be doing this? How many government officials would have to be in on this conspiracy theory to keep it quiet? Why hasn't anyone been able to produce clear evidence of these things?
Here's the problem -- there are other explanations. You go back more than a century, and rather than alien abductions, people believed in other kinds of noctural weirdness, from incubi to succubi to various other demons or ghosts or fairies or whatever. There are well-known phenomena of sleep paralysis, which occur when your body's motor control turns off, but sometimes the conscious brain is still a little aware. This has happened to me a number of times in my life -- and I've even had dreams and nightmares that correspond to those times, sometimes where I've "felt a presence" or whatever nonsense... but I recognize these things as nightmares combined with well-known physiological phenomena... I don't blame them on aliens.
Isn't it interesting that all of these "abductions" started soaring just about the time that UFOs and sci-fi stories became all the rage? And the old stories about demonic visitation, etc. just happen to disappear at the same time?
Humans have an incredible propensity to look for patterns in randomness, and to try to ascribe meaning to phenomena even if t