How to contact ALIENS?

[Megha]

According to me, ALIENS are present and used to visit us earlier!!!!!

But then why did they stop wandering around on the earth

That's b'cze they saw the wars we fought and the killings we did and the violence we all created not only during the WORLD WARS, but also since many centuries and even now asTERRORISM


The world is so big that our earth is like a micro-organism on it. So there might be billions of other planets and satellites with life on it. And with all the violence created by us, why the hell woud they like to meet this man who may be a danger to their life? They can simply visit some other planet! Take it this way, if you have got two places to visit, one with people howling at each other madly and the other with peace and a friendly environment free of pollution, you would definately choose the second one and so they did.

We should stop fighting with each other and live in peaceful environment whether it is Iraq and America or India and Pakistan or Osamaand Saddam.


Please think over it seriously!!!!!
Megha from India.

[Wolverine]

Hi Megha, welcome to the forum. Now that you're here, please remember to read the forum rules.

This was originally posted in the wrong place; Universe Today Story Comments is the place to discuss these articles.

I've moved the thread to (hopefully) a more suitable location.

[seohtu]

This thread has absolutely amazing potential to turn into something very ugly, and quickly. Realizing this is a scientific forum, my first 20 responses to the OP had to be shot down for their political nature. Trying my best to address this from an unbiased scientific standpoint.

Mankind has been at war since before recorded history. The level of bloodshed for *whatever* cause has always been high. If aliens were visiting us then, what would the difference be now? Is it simply an issue of scale? We have more people and greater destructive ability, so the previously bloody and violent history of man now pales by comparison? Would an interstellar civilization be impressed or deterred by our current destructive capabilities? I would have to think we would still seem rather primitive and uninspiring to them, and whatever cause they had in the past to visit us would remain even today.

"The world is so big that our earth is like a micro-organism on it" doesn't make sense to me, and I really can't find anything else in the post that can be discussed intelligently while avoiding political and possibly religious issues. I am certain, however, that all the aliens would have to do to unite this planet and eliminate 99% of our inclination toward war would be to expose themselves to us and indicate their unwillingness to deal with us while we remain at war.

Sincerely,
Derrick Baumer

[SirBlack]

I imagine any alien society would have wars and violence in their own history as well. I also imagine that anyone with the technology to cross the vast distances between stars would not find us much of a threat. And hey, maybe some visiting alien would look our world and feel sorry for us, and be inspired to help us sort things out... well, maybe...

[Swift]

Megha, welcome to the board. I like your message of peace, but I don't know that it has anything to do with aliens visiting us or not. Why do you believe aliens have visited us in the past, do you have any evidence of this?

[Enzp]

To me, we need to establish a common ground for discussion. Your premise is based upon the notion that aliens have bneen here walking among us. I have no reason to believe that, and you have offered no evidence to support such a claim.

Santa Claus used to visit my home every Christmas, but now he no longer comes. Why do you suppose he has forsaken me? Could it be my political views? COuld it be that I am unkind to others?

Or perhaps there is no Santa Claus to visit me in the first place?

But even if I grant Aliens for purpose of discussion, how do you know they are not still here? How do you know I am not one of them?

And if I grant that they did indeed leave after having been here, why must I assume it is because we did something to scare them off? Perhaps they had to get back home before some galactic cloud of energy cut them off from home? Perhaps their mission here had a finite time schedule and it came to conclusion?

Perhaps they came here to watch our TV, then cable came along and they stayed home more often, and finally when Dish TV came out, they found they could just stay in their space ships and watch from orbit.

For all the evil and ill will in the world, there are plenty of people who are neither evil nor full of ill will. How many terrorists have you met personally? How many megalomaniac generals have you met personally? Here in the USA, when there is a person who does something utterly inhuman and terrible, there are still 300 million who did no such thing.

If America wages war on someone, it does not mean all Americans are waging that war. Where you are, there may be violence and evil, but I bet that the majority of people there are not like that. I can point out many places in this world where bad things happen, but I can then point to all the other areas where evil is not the order of the day, and those areas far outweigh the bad spots.

But welcome to the forum, nonetheless.

[eburacum45]

hello, this is steve's daughter, I'm only 13 so bear with me.
if any being has to live in close contact with each other every day, there will always be falling out, even violence. I'm sure this planet isn't the most peaceful of the lot, but it probably won't be the most violent either.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Wow ...

Even Eburacum's Daughter, is Posting, now ...

Unfortunately, The OP, Is NO Where, In Sight!

Chalk it Up, To a Hit and Run?

[eburacum45]

The dad speaks;

If you can communicate with a teenager,
talking to aliens is relatively easy.

[SolusLupus]

The way I see it is...

If aliens are out there today, I think they'd at least experiment with talking with us through radio transmissions. If we prove too violent to talk to, and try to attack us, they use their ultra-drive thingamawhatsits and flick us off in their native gesture. After all, if they have the resources to be close enough to be attacked by us, they must have some sense of decent travel abilities

Of course, if they were teenage aliens trying to pull a prank, they'd probably do a different kind of hit-and-run...
Which reminds me of a comic I read once... where SETI got a transmission from a supposed "alien" that said "What's your description?". The listeners at SETI thought it was a joke from some guy with a radio, but decided to respond anyways, by explaining that they were some famous celebrity.

About fifty years later or so, they got a new transmission. "What're you wearing?" A complete non-sequitur, but I find the concept funny. If you didn't get it, it's probably my fault :P

Nonetheless, I think that proclaiming that we're so horribly violent that no alien would possibly even think of contacting us is ridiculous. For every violent person in the world I see, I see thousands of others others that aren't violent. It doesn't necessarily mean they're saints that go out of their way to help everyone, of course, but they still don't go out of their way to harm others.

Then there's the theory that only carnivores or omnivores can obtain the imagination and intelligence to get to the top of the food chain, and thus the top of the evolutionary chain... but I'm not going to go there.

My 2 sense. Er, cents

[Faultline]

A friend of mine once said...

"If aliens want to come here and start trouble, the'll be in for a fight! We've been fighting our whole existence so we ought to be pretty good at it by now!"

And I countered with...

"What if they've been fighting among themselves also? What if they are ten times older than our species and have been fighting the whole time?"

He only answered with a sentence describing our fate if we met such a race. His phrase ended with a word I can't use here.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Sounds Like The Race, of Harry Turtledove's World War Series ...

Massive Technological Advantage, BUT, No Experience, What So Ever, Of Actual Combat!

Matched Up, Againt The Veteran, Human Armies, of World War II ...

Well, Let's Just Say, It Wasn't Pretty!!!

[Hazzard]

Its nice to think that either Earth or its human inhabitants have not only attracted the attention of galactic neighbors, but encouraged them to visit. But frankly, the numbers dont give much support to this to say the least self-indulgent idea.

[Ilya]

Sounds Like The Race, of Harry Turtledove's World War Series ...

Massive Technological Advantage, BUT, No Experience, What So Ever, Of Actual Combat!

Matched Up, Againt The Veteran, Human Armies, of World War II ...

Well, Let's Just Say, It Wasn't Pretty!!!

"Advanced, but stogey and unimaginative aliens arrive to conquer Earth, and technologically backward but creative humans run rings around them."

That formula has been done who knows how many times, and I ALWAYS hated it.

[Van Rijn]

"Advanced, but stogey and unimaginative aliens arrive to conquer Earth, and technologically backward but creative humans run rings around them."

That formula has been done who knows how many times, and I ALWAYS hated it.

Well, sort of. In the Turtledove stories, the aliens were technologically stagnant. Their computer and weapons technology was roughly the same as what the U.S. has today (computer technology perhaps slightly better, weapons perhaps slightly worse). Spacecraft, fusion and recycling technology were ahead by a bit - several decades at least. There were no magic technologies, and they had limited supplies of weapons (tanks are heavy!). They had nukes but only used them a little to soften us up.

In the story, humans had many more weapons, but it was a bit like Gulf War I with earth playing the part of Iraq. On the other hand, our technology grew at speeds orders of magnitude faster than the aliens.

And you know what? None of that matters. If aliens have the technology to reach our solar system, they certainly can throw rocks: All they need is to hit the earth with a few moderate sized asteroids, give it a few years, and clean up or enslave the scattered remnants of humanity.

For a fun story, I'm willing to go along with a "trick" that will allow humans to prevail, but if any aliens existed, were here, and wanted us gone, we're gone.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Well, sort of. In the Turtledove stories, the aliens were technologically stagnant. Their computer and weapons technology was roughly the same as what the U.S. has today (computer technology perhaps slightly better, weapons perhaps slightly worse). Spacecraft, fusion and recycling technology were ahead by a bit - several decades at least. There were no magic technologies, and they had limited supplies of weapons (tanks are heavy!). They had nukes but only used them a little to soften us up.

In the story, humans had many more weapons, but it was a bit like Gulf War I with earth playing the part of Iraq. On the other hand, our technology grew at speeds orders of magnitude faster than the aliens.

And you know what? None of that matters. If aliens have the technology to reach our solar system, they certainly can throw rocks: All they need is to hit the earth with a few moderate sized asteroids, give it a few years, and clean up or enslave the scattered remnants of humanity.

For a fun story, I'm willing to go along with a "trick" that will allow humans to prevail, but if any aliens existed, were here, and wanted us gone, we're gone.

One, of The Alien's Concerns, As Expressed, REPEATEDLY, In The Novels, Was their Desire, to Take Our Planet, While Causing It, As Little Damage, As Possible.

Also, that Little Gambit, Was Somewhat Neutralized, By Two Points, of Turtledove's Authorial Skill:

• Being a Smaller Star, Without a Very Large, Gas Giant, The Lizard's Home Star, Tau Ceti, Has a Much Smaller Contingent, of Minor Planets, Especially, In Closer Orbits; As Such, they Are Unaware, Until Made Aware, of The Millitary Potential, of Asteroidal Bodies.

• This Awareness, Is Arrived, at 20 Years Later, When a Brand New Crater, on Mars, Turns Out, to Have Been Caused, By The Americans, Using it, For Target Practice; In Effect, Putting a Huge Freakin', "Kick Me" Sign, On The Earth, itself!!!!

In The Latest Book, However, Humanity Makes, It's Very First Forays, Into, Even More Advanced, Technology, Thus Laying the Groundwork, For Much Fun, Ahead ...

[boppa]

And you know what? None of that matters. If aliens have the technology to reach our solar system, they certainly can throw rocks: All they need is to hit the earth with a few moderate sized asteroids, give it a few years, and clean up or enslave the scattered remnants of humanity.

For a fun story, I'm willing to go along with a "trick" that will allow humans to prevail, but if any aliens existed, were here, and wanted us gone, we're gone.

funnily enough im about(yetagain) 3/4 of the way through footfall

thors spears...(steerable sats/from orbit)
and as the name of the novel suggests
footfall(do as i sy or ill drop a `dino killa' or two on you
although it does have a message that rang true to me tho
when all is down to live or die,then even things like orion seem like the better of two evils
good old bang bang

[SolusLupus]

I think we will someday. There's a lot of years ahead of humanity. We've only been spending a few thousand years getting a foothold. A few million years back, there was no sapient (that we know about) life.

We've been sending signals out into space for how long now? Half a century?

Yeah, that seems like a while in terms of our lifespan, but think about it. Even if we send signals that go out at the speed of light, and assuming that they don't degrade (they don't, right?), that's still only a few decades worth of light-years. And even then, I doubt it's a "general broadcast". Isn't it more a focused signal? (I'm not sure how telemetry works, or even if you'd call it telemetry). I mean focused as in, you point in a direction and basically send a beam of light to hopefully be picked up.

I've seen a lot of assumptions made amongst people talking about alien life on these forums. Assumptions that they'd evolve at the same rate as us, that every group of alien animals will always evolve to sapiency (I mean, sapiency seems pretty new to earth - 10,000 years of sapient humans, millions of years with - I would suppose - unsapient life - get my drift?), that they'd be able to pick up our signals, that they'd wish to colonize entire galaxies, etc. etc.

I predict that someday, we will find life.

I predict that when we do, we'll be surprised at what we see. I also do think that it will cause a lot of interest in society. We will still move on, of course, and do our everyday things. But if we discover alien life and contact them, it would be a notable mark in history books. It would make a notable change in science books. Eventually, biology textbooks will probably be changed by discoveries we make. Not just textbooks, but perceptions in general.

That's my guess.

[Enzp]

I have a book around here someplace where the spaceship lands on a planet where horse mounted knights are running around and they manage to overpower the space ship people, and then learn to make use of the space technology. Pretty dumb, but somehow I enjoyed it.

Lonewulf, by degrade i hope you don't mean diminish, because the radio signals we send out do indeed diminish the farther you go. 50 light years away, no one will pick up our TV broadcasts because they will be buried in the noise. This is similar to you trying to pick up a radio station in Paris, France on your table radio in Texas.

[Halcyon Dayz]

I have a book around here someplace where the spaceship lands on a planet where horse mounted knights are running around and they manage to overpower the space ship people, and then learn to make use of the space technology.

That might be The High Crusade by Poul Anderson.
An alien spaceship lands near a 13th century English town were the
locals just happen to be gearing up to go on a crusade.
Very funny.

[LurchGS]

[QUOTE=Enzp]I have a book around here someplace where the spaceship lands on a planet where horse mounted knights are running around and they manage to overpower the space ship people, and then learn to make use of the space technology. Pretty dumb, but somehow I enjoyed it.

Excalibur Alternative, by David Weber - based in a universe originated by David Drake, where a contingent of Roman soldiers does the same thing.

I find the concept... plausible (to quote Mr Savage and Mr Heinemann). At least so far as the vigor and emotional attitude of the 'superior' alien and what trouble that could create for them. If, however, we are ever visited by a vigorous and expansionist group of aliens, I'd agree with others. We're toast with butter.

[SolusLupus]

Lonewulf, by degrade i hope you don't mean diminish, because the radio signals we send out do indeed diminish the farther you go. 50 light years away, no one will pick up our TV broadcasts because they will be buried in the noise. This is similar to you trying to pick up a radio station in Paris, France on your table radio in Texas.

Well, that works too. Not too sure if it was what I was thinking of, but it works

[Enzp]

Halcyon, I believe that is the book.

[eburacum45]

Tau Ceti is likely to have quite a few asteroids in its solar system, according to a number of news items I've read (including this one).
If any beligerent spacefaring aliens come from that system they are very likely to masters of asteroid warfare as well as asteroid management.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Tau Ceti is likely to have quite a few asteroids in its solar system, according to a number of news items I've read (including this one).
If any beligerent spacefaring aliens come from that system they are very likely to masters of asteroid warfare as well as asteroid management.

Wow ...

Too Bad, that Didn't Come Out, before The Books, Were Written, huh?

The Point, Still Stands, though, As The Fictional Tau Ceti, in The Novels, Is Devoid of Small Bodies.

Combined With their Methodical Aproach, to Pretty Much, Well, Everything, The Aliens, in The Worldwar and Colonization Series, Would Be VERY Unlikely, To Know What to Do With them, At Least, Until Shown, By their, More Innovative Opponents.