Are we alone?

[Kalinka1]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

What we think is what is ... until it is not .

Crap! now I need another rum to ponder on whether or not to believe what I just thought. I am getting confused

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by boatman61

No.. Its the oldest known piece of Literature.. not necessarily the oldest story..
Tribal histories were handed down by mouth before the art of writing was developed.. one just has to visit some of the remote aboriginal or S American Indian tribes to realize this.
In fact the Aboriginal Dream Time stories are likely even older than both The Bible and Gilgamesh.. by many thousands of years.

On the subject of the Australian Aboriginal oral histories/stories I found Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines a really good read.

[MicHughV]

if any aliens were watching the current election debacle...they'd be laughing in their beer..." hey Mabel, come check out this soap opera.....bring me anudder beer while you're up...this show will go on all night....in fact, 'jes leave the cooler close to me....gonna need it !!!.....then set the our speed to warp speed so we can get as far away from this planet as possible...."

"yes, dear.."

[er9]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

if any aliens were watching the current election debacle...they'd be laughing in their beer..." hey Mabel, come check out this soap opera.....bring me anudder beer while you're up...this show will go on all night....in fact, 'jes leave the cooler close to me....gonna need it !!!.....then set the our speed to warp speed so we can get as far away from this planet as possible...."

"yes, dear.."

we think the atmosphere is here to allow life on earth to exist but its probably a giant cosmic surgical face mask put around us by aliens so we dont infect the rest of the universe.

their both color blue....coincidence?

[MicHughV]

I think it will be totally cool to see an alien from another planet...the movies always depict an alien with human type form or characteristics..but for all we know....it could just be a jellyfish blob with 20 eyes..."the thing"....we'll call it....the " thing from outer space"....hell, might not even have eyes....sees by thought control....x-ray vision....the mind boggles..
we think the "speed of light" is fast....but maybe there is more.....warp speed....you are here...zip....you are there...there would have to be more....some constellations are many light years from here...you could travel a life time at light speed and not make it to the other reaches...that's the fascination of it all.....who knows what is out there....

[carlosproa]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

I think it will be totally cool to see an alien from another planet...the movies always depict an alien with human type form or characteristics..but for all we know....it could just be a jellyfish blob with 20 eyes..."the thing"....we'll call it....the " thing from outer space"....hell, might not even have eyes....sees by thought control....x-ray vision....the mind boggles..
we think the "speed of light" is fast....but maybe there is more.....warp speed....you are here...zip....you are there...there would have to be more....some constellations are many light years from here...you could travel a life time at light speed and not make it to the other reaches...that's the fascination of it all.....who knows what is out there....

For me Octupus are the closest animal in my mind to be an alien. They are so smart and so different than us.

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by boatman61

No.. Its the oldest known piece of Literature.. not necessarily the oldest story..
Tribal histories were handed down by mouth before the art of writing was developed.. one just has to visit some of the remote aboriginal or S American Indian tribes to realize this.
In fact the Aboriginal Dream Time stories are likely even older than both The Bible and Gilgamesh.. by many thousands of years.

Even Homer-considered by many to be greatest writer--never wrote anything, just spoke it from memory --others heard it and some wrote it down after hearing it much later as a good "story". lol

[geoleo]

:Lucy" considered 3.5 million yo - and planet earth considered 4.5 billion years old ----is quite a gap that is unknown as far as human bean development. Maybe plants were first and us beans developed from them?????? I think the mystery of organic life on earth will never be known because we are a "party to the argument". lol

[Thumbs Up]

You guys are a bunch of conspiracy theorists.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by carlosproa

For me Octupus are the closest animal in my mind to be an alien. They are so smart and so different than us.

You need to watch the movie Arrival.

[Dave_S]

I remember as a kid, looking at the night sky and wondering how far it goes and realising there is nothing in the heads of people on earth who can understand the answer to that question.

It's either infinity or it's not. Neither answer is within our comprehension.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

... we think the "speed of light" is fast....but maybe there is more.....warp speed....you are here...zip....you are there...there would have to be more....some constellations are many light years from here...you could travel a life time at light speed and not make it to the other reaches...that's the fascination of it all.....who knows what is out there....

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, is still 40,208,000,000,000 km away. or about 4.25 light years.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is on an interstellar mission. It is traveling away from the Sun at a rate of 17.3 km/s. If Voyager were to travel to Proxima Centauri, at this rate, it would take over 73,000 years to arrive. If we could travel at the speed of light, an impossibility due to Special Relativity*, it would still take 4.22 years to arrive!

*According to Einstein’s ‘special relativity’, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light.

Of course, stars are not actually stationary objects. Our Sun, being fairly far from the Galactic Center, takes over 200 million years to circle the Galaxy once. Some of the stars near us are moving faster than us, and some slower.

[OldManMirage]

I remember reading an article in the past that theorized that arachnids and/or roaches could have come from offworld because we have such a universally adverse reaction to them.

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, is still 40,208,000,000,000 km away. or about 4.25 light years.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is on an interstellar mission. It is traveling away from the Sun at a rate of 17.3 km/s. If Voyager were to travel to Proxima Centauri, at this rate, it would take over 73,000 years to arrive. If we could travel at the speed of light, an impossibility due to Special Relativity*, it would still take 4.22 years to arrive!

*According to Einstein’s ‘special relativity’, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light.

Of course, stars are not actually stationary objects. Our Sun, being fairly far from the Galactic Center, takes over 200 million years to circle the Galaxy once. Some of the stars near us are moving faster than us, and some slower.

My friend is a physics professor. He doubts the possibility of faster than light travel but says that inter-dimensional shifting may be possible for interstellar exploration. That's way above my paygrade.

[Dave_S]

Don't some of the current theories allow for worm holes.
Our laws of physics may not apply universally.
During the big bang infancy, energy travelled at greater than the speed of light.
Quantum entangled particles act instantaneously over any distance.
Photons seem to have their own idea of time.