Odds of Alien Life 'Very High,' House Panel Hears

Breitbart News ^ | 12/05/2013 | Breitbart News

[Carbonsteel]

The likelihood of life on other planets is "very high," a planetary scientist told a House committee in a hearing some Democrats chided as evading U.S. issues.

"The chance that there's a planet like Earth out there with life on it is very high," Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary science and physics Professor Sara Seager told the House Science Committee.

"The question is: Is there life near here, in our neighborhood of stars? We think the chances are good," she said, answering a question from Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, who asked: "Do you think there's life out there, and are they studying us? And what do they think about New York City?"

[ifinnegan]

Yes, but your comments are independent of what actually transpires in the cases of contacts of UFO’s and the like. The phenomenon is very much like claimed encounters with supernatural creatures. It’s loony tunes stuff.

[GraceG]

Knowing how crap works in Washington this is being done to “soften us” tot he idea that aliens exist because our government made contact in the early 50’s, probably made contact with multiple space faring species and then formed a pact with the one that probably promised the sick bastards in washing to most amount of goodies instead of the ones that said “we can help you but you gotta be responsible and work hard etc...” we probably got betrayed in the 60’s when the aliens didn’t deliver fully and overstepped their bounds on the “treaty” that was made with them by abducting more than they were supposed to do or something like that.... Which all led to the government really clamping down on any alien existence information...

Why...

Well because then the politicians in Washington would have to admit to betraying us...

Why...

Because all the FDR socialist politicians were chumps who didn’t realize they were going to be screwed by ETs.

Why now...

Because most of the Politicians then are almost all died off and they current corrupt bastards think they can sew unrest by eventually exposing the existence of aliens to the nation....

Oh don’t worry, they will still fight like hell to prevent us from knowing how badly we were initially screwed over by them....

[Windflier]

Perhaps interspecies communication is more difficult than we think. We haven't done too well with other earth species.

Orcas, whales, and dolphins may be exceptionally intelligent for animals, but they lack whatever higher functions of mind that cause a species to master their physical environment. Same for chimps and elephants.

If a bipedal hominid species arose on another planet, and became tool makers like us, there's a strong likelihood that they developed language, mathematics, and high technology, as well. If any of them have a thousand year head start on us, and if they haven't blown themselves up, then there's someone out there we can talk to.

[null and void]

Perhaps using light, or even some phenomena that we're not familiar with yet.

Quantum entanglement, Einstein's spooky action at a distance.

Why would anyone use electromagnetic waves, be they light, RF or x-rays? They are pokey slow and any munchkin with an antenna can tap in for free.

Use entangled pairs, one at the transmitter and one roving. Every subscriber has a half pair hooked up, don't pay you bill and they unplug your half pair from the signal, just like cable TV.

Hyper secure, only your half pair gets that signal.

Instantaneous even across interstellar distances.

[GraceG]

Why in the universe would there be a congressional committee hearing on this?

I am wondering too, everyone knows the Shadow Government exclusively deals with aliens and is the only agency that is allowed to deal with these matters.

[ifinnegan]

Yes, you’ve stated that.

You’re kind of obtusely missing the point.

[Windflier]

Narrowband radio broadcasts are detectable with current technology at a distance of hundreds of light years or more.

I'm curious to know how we know that, considering the fact that we don't have a receiver hundreds of light years away from here to check it.

Serious question.

[ifinnegan]

Can’t argue with that. Must be a subterfuge.

[OldNavyVet]

The sheer numerical odds overwhelmingly favor life elsewhere in the universe.

I think you're right. Modern science is daily providing informtional facts indicating the truth of Darwin's evolution theory.

Recommended reading: "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones. It's a modern update (377 pages) of Darwin's work that's loaded with newly discovered facts supporting Darwin's theory.

[Kip Russell]

The Neanderthal was the absolute apex predator of ice-age Europe and his DNA was halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee.

Incorrect. Chimpanzees share 94% of our DNA, whereas Neanderthals shared 99.7% of our DNA. Rather than being halfway "between" chimps and humans, they were actually 95% of the way to the human side...which explains why we were able to intrebreed with them.

To put it into perspective, Neanderthals and humans differed by only 0.3%, just twice the difference of 0.15% between some Africans and Europeans.

[353FMG]

What do you mean — “looked like”?

Plenty of them still around and they all vote democrat.

[ifinnegan]

I’d answer that by saying, yes you make a fine point, but the answer is that in theory such should be the case given what is known about the physical properties of the waves and universe.

Obviously it can’t be empirically determined.

[null and void]

We know how sensitive our receivers are. We know how strong a signal we can transmit. We know how that signal propagates through space (how wide it spreads as a function of distance) and we can make a very good estimate of how much gets absorbed and scattered by crap in “empty” space.

If you do the math on the signal and distance and the resulting signal strength is higher than the detection threshold, you can hear it.

[Kip Russell]

Big time. I wish George Lucas had never made them. I think they took something away from the original trilogy of films. My kids like them, but I think they might as well be a different movie.

It's because they're kids, as explain by the character Barney Stinson in "How I Met Your Mother". In the episode titled “Field Trip,” Barney discovered that a woman he was seeing hated the Ewoks. This news devastated him as he believed her strong opinion against the furry little Endorians meant she was in her late 30’s, which puts her far outside his preferred age bracket for the female species. Here’s the graph he presented to explain how her hatred of Ewoks could determine her age:

By his logic, those born before 1973 were too old to appreciate the adorable teddy-bear like Ewoks when Return of the Jedi debuted, while those born after loved them. Of course, he didn’t account for the fact that the graph wouldn’t apply to someone who didn’t see Star Wars until they were older. A similar graph could be drawn up to determine age based on Jar Jar Binks appreciation.

[FredZarguna]

Nope. Can't agree. The entire might of a galactic empire and its evil leader with [supernatural powers, to boot] brought down in forty-five minutes by fuzzballs?

An insult to the audience.

Attack of the Clones, while awful, is a better film than ROJ.

[Kip Russell]

Use entangled pairs, one at the transmitter and one roving. Every subscriber has a half pair hooked up, don't pay you bill and they unplug your half pair from the signal, just like cable TV. Hyper secure, only your half pair gets that signal. Instantaneous even across interstellar distances.

As per quantum information theory, quantum entanglement can't be used to transmit information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

[Windflier]

The phenomenon is very much like claimed encounters with supernatural creatures. It’s loony tunes stuff.

I don't doubt that a lot of it is, but there are hundreds of thousands of solid, down to earth people who've given sober accounts of witnessing flying craft that can't be explained as being of terrestrial origin.

I'm not going to call those people looney tunes. Who am I to tell them that they didn't see what they saw, or that they must have been hallucinating?

I can choose to disbelieve their accounts, but I'd never tell some trained and experienced pilot who's seen a UFO that he's out of his gourd. All I can do is take his story at face value and try to compute the probable validity of his story with what details he gives me.

I think the trouble UFO witnesses run into, is that they've just witnessed something that goes so far outside the realm of ordinary human experience, that it invites disbelief. And you know - I can't fault anyone for not buying it. I suppose it's something that any one of us would have to see for ourselves to gain the same kind of certainty that witnesses have.

[Kip Russell]

You’re kind of obtusely missing the point.

It's late and I'm tired...please enlighten me.

[FredZarguna]

You can’t transmit information at superluminal velocities with quantum entanglement.

[Kip Russell]

I'm curious to know how we know that, considering the fact that we don't have a receiver hundreds of light years away from here to check it.

Perhaps I phrased that poorly. How about this: "Narrowband radio broadcast should be detectable with current technology at a distance of hundreds of light years or more, given our understanding of how radio works."