During a huge citywide power outage in LA, the police department was flooded with hundreds of reports of people seeing thousands UFOs in the sky and fearing aliens. Eventually the police realized that the people were seeing the stars for the first time.
True story about the ignorance of the public: During a huge citywide power outage in LA, the police department was flooded with hundreds of reports of people seeing thousands UFOs in the sky and fearing aliens. Eventually the police realized that the people were seeing the stars for the first time.
light pollution prevents the stars from showing in the city, so if it could be the first time people have seen the stars
I believe in simple life forms and maybe some relatively complex organisms, but not intelligence like the so-called 'grey aliens', because I believe in ghosts and if aliens existed, than there could be alien ghosts, and I just can't see that. BTW, Star Wars is just a movie, so that doesn't count.
N = R^{\\ast} \\cdot f_p \\cdot n_e \\cdot f_{\\ell} \\cdot f_i \\cdot f_c \\cdot L \\!
where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
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 fâ" = 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 for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
Yeah I had to watch a vid about the potential of alien life in astronomy class last year (it was at the end of the course and we had nothing better to do). It was explained. The problem is that it's very very difficult to even give an estimate of those figures. We'll need a lot more information. We haven't done enough observation of the universe to properly give a good guess.
R*: we're getting close to figuring that out, probably within 20 years if NASA starts again.
fp: we know that fraction is a small number, but it's impossible to literally wait for the dust to settle. With the new classification for 'lanet' meaning it needs a regular orbit and other things, that number got smaller.
ne: so far, we're the only 1 in trillions or more. We know our habitable zone, but we don't yet know if life could start outside of it or within a wider boundary. We've potentially just adapted to it too much to leave.
fa[]: we're a 1 in trillions or more. We'd need to find more life elsewhere to make this figure increase.
fi: we're a 1 in whatever else we find. This involves developed life on Earth, but there is no proper definition of what makes an animal be considered inteligent.
fc: if we count the whole world as a civilization, that's a 1 for 1.
L: so far we've got about 60-70 years of sending noticable signals (around WWII).
Space is so incredibly vast; we have no way to know what's out there. My mind says that there must be at least one other civilization out there somewhere. Though, represented by the numbers provided above, the chances of us ever meeting members of the civilization, should it exist, are very, incredibly slim.
I personaly believe aliens are real. If the universe is constantly expanding, wouldn't there be some other form of life on another planet out there somewhere? And how do we know that an alien species would need oxygen and water? Maybe they need carbon, helium, or some undiscovered element for instance.
Just think about it. If there are 9 planets per solar system, like ours, and there's supposed to be billions of solar systems just in the Milky Way galaxy, that's at least 10 billion planets in our galaxy. The universe is always expanding, always growing. There has to be truckloads of galaxies out there. If there are that many, with 10 billion planets per galaxy, that's so many planets there isn't a number to count it. If people think that there isn't at least ONE other life form out there... Just look at the diversity of Earth, millions of species. Aliens might not even be carbon-based organisms like us, but silicon-based, so they could live with extremely high temperatures.
I hope I have got all that right, I'm not completely sure.
