Are we alone in the Universe?

[Livewire]

Simply put, do alien lifeforms exist, somewhere out in the universe? If they do exist, are they sophisticated and powerful, or simply primitive life forms?

Aliens, or visitors from the Heavens, have been ingrained in mankind's psyche for millennia. Did ancient visitors inspire early religions? And what of more modern sightings and events, such as those of Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947?

Discuss.

 

[Alice]

I personally doubt very seriously that aliens have ever set foot on the Earth, though I would be very surprised if they don't exist at all.

 

[Livewire]

I personally doubt very seriously that aliens have ever set foot on the Earth, though I would be very surprised if they don't exist at all.

That's more or less what I think on the matter. I do think they're somewhere.

 

[Mr. X]

Its a question that truly can never be answered as no, only undetermined or yes.

With the multitude of planets in our galaxy as well as others the odds are good that life exists. We just don't have the technology to detect it.

As for sophistication, it really can't be determined. Other life forms would have developed completely differently from our own so we can't really classify them with our standards.

Edit - As for them inspiring us, enough technology can turn a person into a 'god'. Walking on water? antigrav shoes. Turning some material into food/drink? Molecular reconstruction device. Ascending into the sky? Forgive me, but... Beam me up Scotty.

 

[Esper]

If you look at how long life has existed on our planet, how long we've existed as a species, and how much our species has advanced technologically in just a few thousand of years of its existence then you're sort of left with the assumption that if there are aliens out there they're probably crawling around in the mud somewhere like most life on Earth has been doing since life first began.

Of course there are hundreds of known planets, probably millions or billions (or more) in reality that we haven't found yet, so odds are that at least one of them had some kind of life that happened upon some kind of technology that's similar in purpose to our own, but unless there's some kind of developmental plateau where a species can't advance past space ships and nuclear power those aliens are probably already teleporting to alternate dimensions and other things we can't even imagine. The odds that they'd only be a little bit more advanced than us (say, a couple millenia - enough for them to have visited primitive humans, but not enough for them to ascend to a higher state of existence as pure thought or whatever) are kind of too small to consider possible as far as I'm concerned.

tl;dr Aliens probably exist in some mud on some planet and maybe some of them are already gods, but they didn't visit Earth.

 

[Yoshikko]

I believe they exist, and I'm even willing to believe that they have been here sometime, but that's such a surreal thought that I can't really wrap my mind around it. If you think about the universe, which is endless and counts millions of galaxies, all with planets and solar systems like ours, then the thought of earth being the only planet inhabited by lifeforms is just absurd.

 

[-Jared-]

I do think aliens exist somewhere. They just have to, given the size of the universe, and the number of planets out there.

As to the question of if they have visited us...I don't know. They might have the technology to visit us, and if they are similar to humans in thought processes, they might want to visit just because, you know, they can. xD On the other hand, why would they want to? I don't think Earth could possibly be THAT interesting, if they have the ability to travel throughout the universe, there has GOT to be more interesting things than Earth.

Of course, this is all assuming traveling though space is not only possible, but easy and efficient and whatnot.

 

[dinosaurodon]

According to universe-ologists or whatever they're called, the universe has been around for ~14 billion years, the Earth has been around for ~4 billion years, life appeared on Earth ~2 billion years ago, and humans evolved ~500,000 years ago; Taking into account that there are hundreds or even thousands of Earth like planets in the Universe that have been around since the beginning, and that there might be life on a few of them, that life must have had millions, or even billions of years of time to get ahead of us in evolutionary terms. So IMO, there is life in the Universe and that life is millions of years ahead of us technologically. If you look at how humans have got from riding horse powered wagons to walking on the Moon in ~100 years think about the technology the Aliens have created in a few million years. Difficult to comprehend isn't it?

 

[Black Ice]

It's possible that aliens in some other planet evolved in a sophisticated manner like humans, but 99.99999999999999999999999% of the species on Earth aren't humans. I'm just saying, it takes quite a bit of luck to become intelligent.

I'm certain that there are other life forms in the universe. Maybe if they're intelligent, they are so in some way we can't even comprehend. I dislike how intelligent aliens are always portrayed as human-smart instead of just alien-smart or something.

Super 8 had a cool alien though.

 

[Alex]

I refuse to believe we are the smartest beings in the Universe. We're idiots.

I think there are aliens out there. I find it hard to believe that we'll make contact with them. But you really never know. I think one of the most dreaded things by the Human race is being contacted by aliens. We wouldn't have a clue what to do in that situation. But man, what a day that would be.

 

[Livewire]

This was in the news the other day and it'd be best to share here:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sidesho...ed-object-spotted-near-mercury-154443870.html


Interesting.

 

[OriginGiratina]

I wonder if they exist. Why should we think that we are the only living things? There may be other strange creatures out there who maybe are curious about us too. No one may know if they do exist or what is their characteristics until they see them in reality.

 

[Livewire]

I wonder if they exist. Why should we think that we are the only living things? There may be other strange creatures out there who maybe are curious about us too. No one may know if they do exist or what is their characteristics until they see them in reality.

I watched the fourth kind the other day, and it led me to google to research some alien phenomena and documented encounters since the 40's. Pretty crazy stuff. I do think they're somewhere out there.

 

[Sheep]

The universe is so big and filled with so many galaxies (our galaxy is just a little near-invisible speck in said universe) that I'm sure there's some other form of life out there.

 

[Broken_Arrow]

I don't believe they exist,i believe that earth is the only planet that has life on it...and if so not like the movies show that they are smarter and civilized more than us because i think that Humans are the smartest creatures...i never think Alians would exist.

 

[The Void]

I believe it is possible. I'm not saying I believe in aliens nor am I saying that I don't believe in them (whoever says aliens don't exist has either made sure by exploring the entire universe or are talking ridiculous hypothetical nonsense) but I'm saying that I believe in the possibility that aliens exist.

 

[Dopefish7590]

I imagine that aliens do exist... The universe is just so vast, infinitely so, it would surprise me if Earth was the only planet in existence that had any life on it. Because really, if the universe is infinite, there is infinite possibility, and if it isn't, we probably haven't even seen enough of it to make any conclusions. If we do find any alien, it will almost definitely be primitive, but you really do have to wonder if you are working with the truly infinite here, and the implications of such.

 

[インフェルノの津波]

I don't think that we're the only intelligent life in the universe. Its inconceivable. The universe is near limitless (maybe it is and we don't know.). So, I do believe Aliens exist. Doesn't mean I think we should go searching for them. At least, not yet.

 

[Patatas Fritas]

The idea that we're "alone" in this Universe is preposterous, the Universe is an infinitively expanding matter, it seems impossible that Earth is the only planet which has the correct conditions for life. And even then we don't know what the "correct" conditions are, it could be different somewhere else.
I don't believe we should go looking for them however, especially not now, we're not technologically advanced enough anyway - It takes years for a transmission to go that far, and years for a response to come back with current technologies.

If we do find any alien, it will almost definitely be primitive,

I disagree, it's unlikely we were the first forms of life in the Universe either. And consider it took millions of years (and even then humans have only been around for about 500,000) for us to be what we are today. Aliens could be primitive, perhaps they're at a 'similar' stage to us, or even more advanced, I don't think we should try and assume anything about where aliens are in terms of development.

As for UFO sightings, why not? It's perfectly possible. And just shows more for the whole being advanced thing I mentioned earlier, you have to remember that UFO stands for "Unidentified Flying Object" and most of these UFOs were seen at night, and at night your vision is restricted, it's probable these "Alien Spacecrafts" were just random things floating around.

 

[femtrooper]

Of course there are 'aliens'! There are millions, perhaps billions of other planets in the universe...so to say our planet is the only one with life...yeah right! Life doesn't have to mean people like us, it could mean a planet with deer-like creatures, or wolves. Life that doesn't have spaceships or something like that. But hey, time is a factor. A whole civilization could pass before our eyes in a blip and we would never find them because their time would be completely different that how we view it. Same thing with us. Millions of years could pass and some other civilization could miss us because a million years could be like a second to them.