Aliens do exist but......WE are the aliens!

If you were high, I would've just blown your mind.

Yes, I firmly believe life exists out there, somewhere, and that to think we're the only life in the universe is incredibly arrogant. Even if its only small simple life forms, I think it has to be out there. Another point to consider is that the universe is incredibly old and yet human beings have existed for a mere fraction of the universes' life. Who's to say how many civilisations and life forms have risen and fallen over and over again that we have no clue about?

Dude. . . you totally did anyways, man.

OT: To think that we are the only life in a as yet undefined but enormous beyond a normal persons ability to understand universe is just rediculous. I don't know if it's any bigger than microbial or single celled, but there is no way to say no.

You can't honestly say that a couple of scotch soaked stooges made these overnight.

There is no way to tell until we will have a better frame of reference.

We know exactly ONE inhabited planet.
Guessing like "if every 100th planet is habitable" or "if every millionth planet is habitable" is just useless, until we know the real chances.

Maybe the formation of life is so rare, that even happening on a single planet of the universe was incredibly unlikely. Or maybe not. Or maybe it is something that can only happen in this particular fragment of the universe.

For example in Asimov's novels, humans were alone because Earth's huge moon, and radiation level, that were both discovered to be galactic extremes, both sped up evolution.
Can we say if in real life, these stats are extremely rare, or just somehow rare, or average? Not really.

E.T. was based on a true story.  In your face!!

Whilst intelligent life would be EXTREMELY rare, I think that the chance of intelligent extra terrestrials existing is not just high, it's certain. Will we come into contact with them? Not in the near future, not by a long shot.

Furthermore, we are a (as we would define) type zero civilisation, and the lack of evidence (read Fermi paradox) that civilisations beyond our point seems to suggest that no alien civilisation makes it much further past our point.

However, I also believe that any alien civilisation that has advanced beyond our point would not communicate in the same way we would (mostly via some form of electromagnetism); they would use other means that would not be subject to noise such as nearby stars, or perhaps they have even figured out faster than light communication. So perhaps the lack of evidence also suggests that aliens would largely be far more advanced than us.

So you can either say two things, aliens are either far more advanced than us to the point when we can't actually detect them, or alien civilisations are self destructive and don't advance much further than us. Make of it what you will.


Can I cite the Drake equation? The Drake equation states that:

N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

It is used for working out the probability of ever coming into contact with aliens. However, as you can tell, a lot of the values are basically just big question marks right now.

As for regular single cell life, yeah, I bet that is everywhere, in almost every galaxy with planets.

People need to get over crop circles. We sent radiowaves, so they reply in corn? We are advanced enough to send out coded messages through waves in outer space and they reply by smashing some corn in the country side? Not only is that inconsiderate to the farmers, it also seems like some sort of condoscending joke. Like me sending messages to hillbillies by means of beer bottles because thats the only way those damn morons will read it.

Why not just send back a radiotransmission? That would be a hell of alot easier and people might actually pay attention, or better yet just show up, hand us a damn letter. That would get some attention. But no, it's squiggly lines that are supposed to be "DNA", random cool looking designs that are supposed to be molecules that can't be deciphered but "are very important" according to that guy, and then coded ASCII text. I mean what the fuck? If you're going to send ASCII text, just leave the damn text. If intelligent life wanted to contact us, they wouldn't be mysterious elaborate idiots about it. That just reeks of smart computer nerds in the country side with a bunch of friends. Arguing from the point of incredulity doesn't work when what you're suggesting is far more ridiculous than organized nerds with a sense of humor creating designs in corn over night. No it wasn't a flash mob, it was corn loving aliens telling us that lying is bad, and showing us the cool doodles they put on their trapper keepers in space school....I mean 3 dimensional molecule diagrams.

Also, 37 posts and nobody has mentioned Panspermia yet. Usually people are fighting to talk about that. I am surprised.

Yes they exist. And after reading this article I hope they don't find us! http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100425/sc_afp/scienceastronomyextraterrestrialhawking