Have you ever encountered other beings or aliens?

[RodeoX]

Sorry, but it's just not true. Sure people see UFO's all the time (unidentified flying object). But not one single time in all of history did it turn out to be a spaceship from another planet. Not one single time in all of science has a living thing been found anyplace but Earth.
As a scientist myself I don't discount the possibility that a ship could land tomorrow. It may even be likely that life exists elsewhere. But I also operate on evidence. There has never been any evidence of such a thing. Evidence is not a blurry photo or a crackpot website.

What is your opinion of the Wow! signal? Do you find the water oceans of Europa to be more interesting than the deserts of Mars? Do you find the ongoing research to analyze the light spectrums of transiting planets fascinating? Do you think Maccone's FOCAL mission might ultimately answer the age old question?

Now your talking real science. Of course the wow signal was not conclusive but a project like SETI is a sensible approach. Looking for radio waves may make it possible to locate civilizations light years away.
Another strategy is to look for  Earth like planets. This seems flawed to me however. Having only one example of life, -(all living things are just variations of the DNA molecule, and really the same living thing)- we don't know if it is typical or very exotic. Perhaps most life in space exists in stars or in the frozen depths of deep space. We don't know because we have never seen another form of life, ever.

[Vod]

If we're the only intelligent life in the universe, there's an awful lot of wasted space.

You just made Jodie Foster fall in love with you.

[the_thing]

I haven't met aliens, but I've met 'other beings'. They still can be seen in remote places where no one goes, mainly woods and mountains. For example, if you go to a forest at night, you may be fortunate enough to see a fairy for a brief moment. There are also other beings, but I'm not sure what they're called in English. Some are pretty dangerous though.

Come, visit this part of the world and maybe you'll see some of them.

[DanielVG]

I haven't met aliens, but I've met 'other beings'. They still can be seen in remote places where no one goes, mainly woods and mountains. For example, if you go to a forest at night, you may be fortunate enough to see a fairy for a brief moment. There are also other beings, but I'm not sure what they're called in English. Some are pretty dangerous though.

Come, visit this part of the world and maybe you'll see some of them.

which part of the world are you referring to?

[benjamindees]

Anyone who is interested in the possibility of alien life and has a few hours to spare should definitely watch this documentary:

Prometheus movie may be real

[DanielVG]

a more scientific approach of narrowing down the possibility of extra terrestrial life;

            

The famous Drake equation

• 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

• ƒp

= the fraction of those stars that have planets

• ne

= the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

• ƒℓ

= 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

• ƒc

= 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.
[/list]

Radio astronomer Frank Drake developed the Drake equation so he could estimate the number of planets harboring intelligent life in the galaxy by taking into consideration the factors listed above. A rigorous estimate using the Drake Equation was implemented in 2001, which also took into consideration the number of planets that are in the habitable zone (The habitable zone is an area around a star were water is in liquid form, temperature is ideal, and photosynthesis is possible). The results found that hundreds of thousands of life-bearing planets statistically should exist. It also suggested that a habitable planet like the Earth should exist just a few hundred light years away.

I find it unfair if I did not now also give equal mention to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi paradox states that if so many planets exist with intelligent life why is there a lack of contact between the intelligent life and us and why is there such a lack of physical evidence of said intelligent life. The paradox exists in that the Drake equation statistically proves life should be abundant and yet physical evidence says otherwise. It is hard to combat the arguments from the Fermi paradox except that some physical evidence does exist as you can see from this writing.

[the_thing]

I haven't met aliens, but I've met 'other beings'. They still can be seen in remote places where no one goes, mainly woods and mountains. For example, if you go to a forest at night, you may be fortunate enough to see a fairy for a brief moment. There are also other beings, but I'm not sure what they're called in English. Some are pretty dangerous though.

Come, visit this part of the world and maybe you'll see some of them.

which part of the world are you referring to?

Eastern Europe, in my case. But I believe there are other places, where similar creatures may live. They need solitude though. Areas with heavy industry, big cities, highways, etc. are out of question. My grand parents lived in a cottage far from any big city. They used to collect wood, mushrooms, forest fruits etc in nearby forest. Sometimes, I used to go with them and that's when I saw those creatures. Of course, it didn't happen everytime I went to the forest, but once in a blue moon.

[beekeeper]

..sane military personnel..

oxymoron alert!

[sippsnapp]

I did not, and im happy about it.
What happened in earths history when different forms of life met each other? Yeah right, in most cases you wont like to be the weaker part.

[DanielVG]

I haven't met aliens, but I've met 'other beings'. They still can be seen in remote places where no one goes, mainly woods and mountains. For example, if you go to a forest at night, you may be fortunate enough to see a fairy for a brief moment. There are also other beings, but I'm not sure what they're called in English. Some are pretty dangerous though.

Come, visit this part of the world and maybe you'll see some of them.

which part of the world are you referring to?

Eastern Europe, in my case. But I believe there are other places, where similar creatures may live. They need solitude though. Areas with heavy industry, big cities, highways, etc. are out of question. My grand parents lived in a cottage far from any big city. They used to collect wood, mushrooms, forest fruits etc in nearby forest. Sometimes, I used to go with them and that's when I saw those creatures. Of course, it didn't happen everytime I went to the forest, but once in a blue moon.

maybe I know what you've seen.

Forest hippies:  They nest in trees and make noises that sound a little like our music.

[Jermainé]

When I was kid I once dropped a bag of skittles under bed. When I went to retrieve them I voice said "Gottcha bitch!" Then it got dark... The rest is still a blur. 

[helloworld]

I think our biggest handicap as a spieces is religion, we need to fix (eliminate) that before we go into space.

Oh My Science!

Eliminating religion would simply bring to light other handicaps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go

[helloworld]

I haven't met aliens, but I've met 'other beings'. They still can be seen in remote places where no one goes, mainly woods and mountains. For example, if you go to a forest at night, you may be fortunate enough to see a fairy for a brief moment. There are also other beings, but I'm not sure what they're called in English. Some are pretty dangerous though.

Come, visit this part of the world and maybe you'll see some of them.

which part of the world are you referring to?

Eastern Europe, in my case. But I believe there are other places, where similar creatures may live. They need solitude though. Areas with heavy industry, big cities, highways, etc. are out of question. My grand parents lived in a cottage far from any big city. They used to collect wood, mushrooms, forest fruits etc in nearby forest. Sometimes, I used to go with them and that's when I saw those creatures. Of course, it didn't happen everytime I went to the forest, but once in a blue moon.

Are you sure it wasn't you who was collecting the 'mushrooms'?

[herzmeister]

Humanity is just a blink of an eye in the vast lifetime of the universe.

Our current state of evolution with our current capacity of perception, reflection, intelligence and scope of action is tiny moment in time.

We don't know what comes next. Many speculate, but we don't know.

So if there is Alien life that has evoluted further than ourselves, it is almost certainly beyond our reach of understanding. Such lifeforms may very well be without a physical body.

Just like animals do not really perceive us for what we really are, in that they don't understand our motives, what we're doing all day and why we're doing it, and see and treat us as one of their kind, as leaders of the herd at most, our relationship with higher alien life forms would be the same. They could easily deceive us the same way if they so wish.

[BadBear]

If we're the only intelligent life in the universe, there's an awful lot of wasted space.

You just made Jodie Foster fall in love with you.

Oh man I forgot all about that movie. I'll have to watch it this weekend, I imagine the scene where she's entering the contraption will be awesome in hi def and with a good sound system.

[Vandroiy]

Why has nobody (reliable) seen aliens.

Just imagine, you are on a spaceship travelling through space then you notice a potential planet for having live. You come closer, it's a green planet with plenty of water. Live definitely exist. Just before you land you do the routine scan.

You shipmate says to you: "The planed hast 8 Billion intelligent beings on a industrial level. They seem to just have invented cryptocurrency."

You: "Well awesome, lets land!"

He: "They are 8 Billion, but they have build enough thermonuclear weapon to kill 50 Billion."

Well if that's not a big "leave us alone sign", than what is?

LOL



There's the theory that Earth is left alone because it's such a curiosity. Or it's just that nobody reached it yet. The universe, while gigantic, isn't all that old yet, and the light-speed limit prevents any species from taking over everything at once. And, of course, the Great Barrier Hypothesis. No life-form known to us has yet managed to expand beyond one planet. And that's not the final barrier, next there's exiting the solar system, and even then, there's intergalactic space.

Humans seem to still suck at working together. If this gets any worse, they may be too occupied fighting one another for local resources to ever afford space expansion, and ultimately get wiped out by a meteor. Maybe that happened to other species already, and that's why we're not seeing anyone.

[FLHippy]

I have never seen an alien but I believe I've seen a UFO.

It was in 1978.

A HUGE triangle shaped craft flew slowly over my house. It made no noise. It was completely black with no lights.

When I say huge I mean about 1 mile on each side It.

it flew so close to the ground and so slow that it could not have been a commercial aircraft.

It was square edged.

I remember this sighting as if it were yesterday and I've always got my eyes to the sky looking for more.

Before anyone accuses me, I was not on drugs. I was 11.

[FirstAscent]

There's the theory that Earth is left alone because it's such a curiosity. Or it's just that nobody reached it yet. The universe, while gigantic, isn't all that old yet, and the light-speed limit prevents any species from taking over everything at once. And, of course, the Great Barrier Hypothesis. No life-form known to us has yet managed to expand beyond one planet. And that's not the final barrier, next there's exiting the solar system, and even then, there's intergalactic space.

Actually, the Fermi Paradox implies that the galaxy should have been colonized everywhere in a diaspora, as even with slow spacecraft, and factoring in the age of our galaxy, the question is: where are they?

As an aside, I think the Kepler mission is one of the most fascinating current missions, given the question it's answering. That question, of course, is: "What is the ratio of habitable planets to stars in our galaxy?"

[the_thing]

Damn guys. I tried to troll gullible idiots and you ruined it.

[Akka]

The only thing that humans have ever found that really could be a hind to other intelligent live is the wow!-signal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal , sadly we didn't have the technology to to analyse if there where a digital code in there back than.