Aliens Are Almost Definitely Out There, SETI Astronomers Tell Congress

At least, that's what two astronomers told Congress this week, as they appealed for continued funding to research life beyond Earth.

According to ABC News, Dan Werthimer, director of the SETI [search for extraterrestrial intelligence] Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, told the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Wednesday that the possibility of extraterrestrial microbial life is "close to 100 percent."

Werthimer's colleague Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, also told Congress that he believes our chances of finding extraterrestrial life are high.

“The chances of finding it I think are good and if that happens it will happen in the next 20 years depending on the financing,” Shostak told the committee.

I only need 3 reference points to answer your questions.

The creation and fall of Adam.

God’s wrath with the flood and sparing Noah.

Christ’s sacrifice for the salvation of mankind.

To which I might easily reply with this passage from John chapter 10, especially verse 16:

14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

We are told the story that pertains to us. That doesn't mean that there are no other stories, or no other children of the Lord.

Do I assert that this bible verse means that there are aliens? No; that would be foolish. I point it out only to show that you can't use the word of God to prove that there aren't living beings on other planets, either.

It is certainly within the power of the Lord to have populated those worlds, and it is certainly within the power of the Lord to bring those people to Himself if He so chose.

I came to appreciate the magnitude of the distances involved some years ago when, in the course of calculating what would constitue a “practical travel time” to Alpha Centari (the nearest star at 4.3 light years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri)), I discovered that light leaving the Sun would transit our solar system in approximately 6 HOURS.

Actually, I think Fermi was pointing to how much time is involved even for the distances involved.

13.8 billion years is a long time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe).
Assuming (and it’s a big assumption since we have only one data point) that the evolution of life on Earth during the last 4.6 billion years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolutionary_history_of_life) falls within the normal range for these events, the threshold for practical interstellar travel is somewhere beyond now. But how far? Complex, increasingly technological civilization on Earth is only... what? 5-6,000 years old with the geometric acceleration only occuring since the Scientific Revolution starting in the 1500s. Assuming we don’t kill ourselves off (either deliberately or by accident) let’s say it takes another MILLION years for our technological civilization to develop “practical” interstellar travel (however defined). How far would that civilization’s exploration and colonization spread in the next million years after that and in the next and in the next?

Fermi’s point, brilliantly made in his “Where are they?” comment, is that 13.8 billion years is a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time with no evident contact even allowing for the time needed for the rise of advanced civilizations and the incredible distances involved.

My personal view is that an advanced, interstellar, spacefaring civilization would still be constrained by consideraions of resource investment versus expected returns and would establish criteria for what systems were or were not explored. First, sticking to just our galaxy, our solar system is located towards the end of one of its spiral arms. So the Earth is in a pretty marginal location, spatially speaking. Second, from a contamination standpoint, a lifeless, mineral laden planet with a stable environment (even if pretty hostile) is far easier to deal with than a planet with a highly dynamic atmosphere that is also teaming with all sorts of biota ranging from the submicroscopic to the macroscopic, most of which is aggressively predatory. Third, by the time these explorers reach the Earth, just how interesting are we going to be to them? Ethical constraints about disturbing developing civilizations probably would apply but, practically, why bother interacting with beings miliions of years behind yourselves in technology and social development?

In short, we may be too isolated, too difficult, and too boring to be worth contacting more than once (if even then).

The question of why the universe is as it is has always been of great interest to me. So much so, that I wrote a Science Fiction series on this subject. In my book, an average guy is given a revelation by an alien entity. It explains literally everything in a way that could actually be true - how life started on Earth and why, the purpose of evolution and how it really works, and the real reason why humans live in a universe that seems so hostile to life.

The Revelation is not anti-religious, though some religious characters struggle with it in the story. It does take quite a number of shots at ‘settled’ science, however.

I apologize if this post is in poor form, but I think the book fits perfectly in with this discussion. I have not named the book, nor will I offer it for sale here. But I will send it to anyone in .mobi (kindle) format for free if you want it. Just send me a private reply with your email.

Pinging the unidentified aerial phenomena list (ufo) ..

May 8, 1950-This is one of the most famous UFO pictures ever taken.
Photographed by Paul Trent, and first witnessed by his wife.
They were published in a local newspaper in McMinnville, Oregon.
Shortly thereafter, the Trent photos were published in Life magazine edition of June 26, 1950.
The rest is history.
(These photos have been deemed authentic for over 50 years. The analysis of the McMinnville photos by Dr.Bruce Maccabee PhD, can be found here = http://brumac.8k.com/trent1.html )

Those interested in the uap/ufo ping list, please Freepmail
LasVegasDave (freepmail works best)
if you would like your name added to the list.
( Approximately 200+ freepers are currently on the ping list ).

Humans are relatively new in this universe, being just 2 million years old according to the earliest fossils that have been found.

Recorded history goes back a mere 10k years at most.

The Universe is maybe, approximately, 13-14 billion years old as far as we can judge by the light of the dimmest red stars we can see.

During that time entire civilizations could have risen and fallen into ashes of star novas, never having left their imprint or trace of existence.

We might be no different than they, rising, flourishing and eventually falling into the dust bin of history.

The laws of physics governs all. If they didn’t solve the interstellar travel problem then they were trapped on their own planet or solar system, just as we are, never venturing to even the nearest star.

There may be probes or robots like our Voyager out there that are scouts sent out to explore the reaches of space that have no one to report back to.
I
f or when we do run into one of those, we might be able to decipher its data and then learn of a people who for one bright and shining moment were the masters of their own destiny.......................

The find at Gobekli Teppe is at least 12000 years old. Artifacts have been found in strata dating to millions of years old, like the iron pot found in a lump of Pennsylvania anthracite coal or the metal tools, etc. found under table mountain out West. Foot prints of humans and dinos are found side by side fossilized, down in Texas. The good bet is that our estimates of antiquity for humans, etc. are poorly understood. A better bet is that we humans as yet have not developed a correct understanding of dimension Time. We certainly do not understand the dimension from which consciousness derives. And the dimension of spirit? well, that is our least understood dimension.

"In the last 50 years, evidence has steadily mounted that the components and conditions we believe necessary for life are common and perhaps ubiquitous in our galaxy," said Werthimer in his written testimony, adding: "The possibility that life has arisen elsewhere, and perhaps evolved intelligence, is plausible and warrants scientific inquiry."

The problem here is their reasoning. Just because there are conditions without which life cannot exist doesn't mean that, given those conditions, life must exist.

Though most life on earth cannot exist without oxygen, carbon dioxide, or water and though their disappearance would cause almost all life to perish, the presence of those three does not necessitate the appearance of life.

Given, for the sake of argument, the evolution of all life on earth from a single life form, the chances for that happening is a virtual certainty compared to the likelihood of that single life form arising through abiogenesis. And the likelihood of it happening anywhere else in the universe is a product of that improbability multiplied by itself.

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