A rather unusual topic.

[Julia1996]

Hi everyone. This is kind of a weird topic I know but it's one that annoys me to no end! So last night one of my dad's friends was over. He started talking about the Seti projects and all that foolishness and he said they really need to expand and use lots more of those huge dishes if they are ever going to make contact with an alien race. OMG! Why would anyone want to do that?!!  I do believe in alien life yes. Do I believe they come here and abduct people, absolutely not! If an alien race has found earth, thankfully for us, we were too primitive to interest them. I think sending signals in to space and that gold record thing giving our exact location and everything about us is not only incredibly stupid but dangerous! That's like a baby gazelle walking into a field and screaming: HI LIONS. I CAN'T WAIT TOO MEET YOU! I'M RIGHT HERE. People tend to think aliens will be peaceful and cure all our illnesses and give us advanced technology. That's not likely! Just because they are advanced that does mean they will be friendly. You have to remember that morality is a human construct. It's highly unlikely aliens would have any sense of morality.

Look at us. We consider ourselves moral and good. Just look at the indians.
We were more advanced than they were and we killed them and took their land. Don't forget the African Americans. We were more advanced than they were. Did we try to give them medicine and share our technology? No! We enslaved them and treated them with unspeakable cruelty. And the US is especially bad about not sharing our technology with anyone. Often that includes Americans. Because aliens are advanced you think they are peaceful?  Look at humanity. We are moral, good and peaceful. We are also the only species who wage war with our own kind. Maybe you believe since we would be so much less advanced than aliens they would feel sorry for us and not hurt us. Yeah, right!  Look at how we treat our animals. Animals feel pain and suffering and experience fear and terror. Many animals also have a high intelligence . Many people say " It's only an animal". Anyone who has pets knows animals have souls. Anything capable of love has a soul. Yet we slaughter them for food, mutilate them for research and hunt them for fun.

If we catch the attention of an alien race and they come here I think it would be very bad for us. It probably wouldn't be anything like the movies. It would depend on what they wanted. It would most likely be the planet that interested them, not us. If they want the planet itself they aren't going to bother waging a war or even entering the atmosphere. They would most likely exterminate us from orbit. We would never even see who killed us. If they want something from the planet, maybe something they need that we haven't even discovered yet, it's possible they may enslave some of us to mine it, harvest it or collect it. More than likely they would kill the bulk of humanity. If you think in practical terms and forget ET and Startrek  a visit from aliens would be far more terrifying than thrilling. At least I think so. What do you think?  A joyful event or the end of humans?

[CynthiaAnn]

Reading this post reminds of the Twilight Zone episode called "To Serve Man", and we end up as their food supply

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)

C -

[Lisa89125]

Reminds me of the movie Signs with Mel Gibson. I just watched Signs, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and a horrible movie called Alien Up Rising.

I think we have already made contact with the Aliens. I feel the government might be in cahoots with them to suppress technology, so they can weaponize any advanced technology to control more people or hurt more people.

Watching Ancient Aliens every Friday on the history channel is one of my past times.

Lisa

[MaryT]

It is unlikely that ETs have gone to the enormous trouble of visiting us yet, although I think that it is a possibility.  If they do find out about us, I think that scientific curiosity would cause them to at least send automatic probes to investigate us.

I agree that informing extraterrestrial aliens of our existence and position would be very dangerous.  As we are in the early stages of having the ability to communicate beyond this planet, any beings capable of interpreting our signals would almost certainly have more advanced technology and weapons capability.  (Please nobody be offended by the use of "more advanced" in the OP, as Julia was obviously referring to technology and not other aspects of civilisation.)

It is also true that although humans have codes of morality, they have gone by the board when technologically advanced societies encountered those with weaker weapons.  As Julia pointed out, it resulted in colonisation and/or enslavement.  More recent enlightenment has not corrected this, and when e.g. Britain pulled out of some of her main dominions, they were given mainly to the colonists, not the original owners.  Even if ETs do have a morality something like our own, we would probably be doomed.

[CynthiaAnn]

Even if ETs do have a morality something like our own, we would probably be doomed.

Agreed with above

"we'll make great pets"  Especially the transsexual ones

Just diggin "Pets" groove on a Friday

[Gertrude]

Reminds me of the movie Signs with Mel Gibson. I just watched Signs, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and a horrible movie called Alien Up Rising.

I think we have already made contact with the Aliens. I feel the government might be in cahoots with them to suppress technology, so they can weaponize any advanced technology to control more people or hurt more people.

Watching Ancient Aliens every Friday on the history channel is one of my past times.

Lisa

Check out The Arrival with Charlie sheen. Are there ETs? Yes. Have they come here? Maybe to probably. The government just released video from a naval jet fighter that pretty much should have you scratching your head.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Lexxi]

I truly believe they've already "discovered" us. When you look at any myth or rumor there's usually some truth to it even if it sounds outrageous. Well we have a whole military base devoted to "space" things. It's called Area 51. While they probably don't really have crashed spaceships and alien skeletons, I bet they have some other proof of aliens hidden in there. The base is just too secretive to be just a research and development site.

Then there was the whole Project Blue investigation that started in the 1940s and continued for decades. Too many people spread throughout the entire country saw way too many spaceship sightings for there not to be something there. It sure gives you something to think about.

That's just my two cents.

xoxo
Lexxi

[Julia1996]

Reading this post reminds of the Twilight Zone episode called "To Serve Man", and we end up as their food supply

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)

C -

That was a good one. It's a cookbook! Lol

[MaryT]

When the time comes, we shouldn't complain too much.  As the narrator in H G Wells' War of the Worlds says,

"And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless
and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon
animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior
races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely
swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European
immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy
as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"

[Julia1996]

Reminds me of the movie Signs with Mel Gibson. I just watched Signs, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and a horrible movie called Alien Up Rising.

I think we have already made contact with the Aliens. I feel the government might be in cahoots with them to suppress technology, so they can weaponize any advanced technology to control more people or hurt more people.

Watching Ancient Aliens every Friday on the history channel is one of my past times.

Lisa

That movie annoyed me. These aliens are advanced enough for space travel yet too stupid to know that water, which most of our planet is covered with is deadly to them. I liked the movie until the end. That was annoying. And war of the worlds. I'm quite sure the aliens would analyze our atmosphere before exposing themselves to it! Geeze.

[Lexxi]

These aliens are advanced enough for space travel yet too stupid to know that water, which most of our planet is covered with is deadly to them. Geeze.

Julia you're too funny! 

[Julia1996]

It is unlikely that ETs have gone to the enormous trouble of visiting us yet, although I think that it is a possibility.  If they do find out about us, I think that scientific curiosity would cause them to at least send automatic probes to investigate us.

I agree that informing extraterrestrial aliens of our existence and position would be very dangerous.  As we are in the early stages of having the ability to communicate beyond this planet, any beings capable of interpreting our signals would almost certainly have more advanced technology and weapons capability.  (Please nobody be offended by the use of "more advanced" in the OP, as Julia was obviously referring to technology and not other aspects of civilisation.)

It is also true that although humans have codes of morality, they have gone by the board when technologically advanced societies encountered those with weaker weapons.  As Julia pointed out, it resulted in colonisation and/or enslavement.  More recent enlightenment has not corrected this, and when e.g. Britain pulled out of some of her main dominions, they were given mainly to the colonists, not the original owners.  Even if ETs do have a morality something like our own, we would probably be doomed.

Oh absolutely! When I mentioned us being more advanced I only meant our technology. As for the indians and African Americans, they had happy lives, they minded their own business and they didn't bother anyone. After what we did to them, I'm afraid they were more advanced than we were in all aspects other than technology.

[Julia1996]

When the time comes, we shouldn't complain too much.  As the narrator in H G Wells' War of the Worlds says,

"And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless
and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon
animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior
races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely
swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European
immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy
as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"

The movie Avatar is very realistic in my opinion. If we were capable of space travel and had powerful weapons and found a planet with a substance that could yield unlimited energy do you think a species of aliens that seemed very primitive to us would stop us from harvesting that material? Of course not!  If these aliens became an annoyance we would slaughter them. There would be far too much money involved to care about primitive aliens being exterminated.

[Dena]

Member from 2001 and it's currently crunching away on my computer. First it's highly doubtful we will pick up a signal because at the distances involved it would take an extremely powerful transmitter like in powered by a star to signal us. I suspect the area we are scanning amounts to only a few hundred light years which greatly limits the number of possible stars. The same would apply to us signaling and at the moment, we have only sent out one low power (relatively speaking) signal.

On the other hand, SETi is looking for other naturally occurring signals to learn more about the universe. This is useful but really the most important thing is to continue the operation of Areciibo. It's the most powerful dish we have and it's loss would close down some of the deep space study.

[Lisa89125]

Check out The Arrival with Charlie sheen. Are there ETs? Yes. Have they come here? Maybe to probably. The government just released video from a naval jet fighter that pretty much should have you scratching your head.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Gertrude, I have "The Arrival" 1 & 2. Love them! I also have "Fire In The Sky." I just have to wait for a day when I am not busy as heck to watch more movies.

Lisa

[Julia1996]

Member from 2001 and it's currently crunching away on my computer. First it's highly doubtful we will pick up a signal because at the distances involved it would take an extremely powerful transmitter like in powered by a star to signal us. I suspect the area we are scanning amounts to only a few hundred light years which greatly limits the number of possible stars. The same would apply to us signaling and at the moment, we have only sent out one low power (relatively speaking) signal.

On the other hand, SETi is looking for other naturally occurring signals to learn more about the universe. This is useful but really the most important thing is to continue the operation of Areciibo. It's the most powerful dish we have and it's loss would close down some of the deep space study.

Thank you Dena. That makes me feel a little better.

[Julia1996]

Dena, how long does it take for sound to travel through space? I assume it's actually radio signals we are sending right?

[Dena]

Sound doesn't travel through space. Light, radiation and radio waves do. Radio waves travel at about 186,000 miles per second. This means it takes a little over 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach us. For earth to Pluto, about 7 hours.

These distances are so great that we measure them in light years. A light years is the distance light will travel in a year. When I say 100 light years, that means it would take 200 years for a signal to go out 100 light years then a response to return. Just to reach the nearest star, 4.36 light years.

We are pretty isolated so it's unlikely anybody is just going to drop in on us.

[Julia1996]

Sound doesn't travel through space. Light, radiation and radio waves do. Radio waves travel at about 186,000 miles per second. This means it takes a little over 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach us. For earth to Pluto, about 7 hours.

These distances are so great that we measure them in light years. A light years is the distance light will travel in a year. When I say 100 light years, that means it would take 200 years for a signal to go out 100 light years then a response to return. Just to reach the nearest star, 4.36 light years.

We are pretty isolated so it's unlikely anybody is just going to drop in on us.

I knew sound doesn't travel through space. I meant radio waves. Lol . Thank you for answering my question though.

[itsApril]

The most brilliant astrophysicist of our age was Steven Hawking, who died about a year ago.  Not surprisingly, he had a lifelong interest in the idea of life developing elsewhere in the universe.

Towards the end of his life, he expressed considerable reservation about the wisdom of advertising our own existence. given the uncertainty of whether an intelligent alien life form would be kindly disposed towards us or would even recognize that we were important.  Near the end of his life, he expressed this unsettling thought:

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

More information about what Hawking thought?  Look here:

Stephen Hawking takes a hard line on aliens
By Leo Hickman
The Guardian
Mon 26 Apr 2010 12.05 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/26/stephen-hawking-issues-warning-on-aliens

Hawking believes we would be well-advised to keep the volume down on our intergalactic chatter and do all we can to prevent any "nomadic" aliens moseying our way to take a look-see. Should they find us here tucked away in the inner reaches of the solar system, chances are they'd zap us all and pillage any resources they could get their hands on. Our own history, says Hawking, proves that first encounters very rarely begin: "Do take a seat. I'll pop the kettle on. Milk? Sugar?"

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach," says the theoretical physicist in Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."