Are we truly alone in the cosmos? New study casts doubt on rise of alien life in our galaxy

NBC News ^ | July 15, 2018 | Seth Shostak

[PJ-Comix]

t’s something people tell me all the time, and usually in hushed tones: “With a trillion planets out there, we really can’t be the only intelligent beings in the galaxy.” In other words, given the enormous amount of real estate in space, aliens are sure to exist. So why haven’t we found any?

I don’t dispute this straightforward idea because, after all, it underpins the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). But not everyone agrees. A recent paper by three researchers at the University of Oxford is throwing shade on those who feel confident that the cosmos is thick with extraterrestrials.

The Oxford academics were addressing a puzzle known as the Fermi Paradox, which describes the disconnect between our expectation of many worlds swarming with aliens and the fact that they remain undiscovered. Nearly 70 years ago, the celebrated physicist Enrico Fermi mouthed a deceptively simple question: “Where is everybody?” He made a quick estimate of how long it would take for any society bent on building an empire to colonize the entire Milky Way and realized it was only a few tens of millions of years, which is nearly 1,000 times shorter than the age of the galaxy.

This raised an obvious problem: There’s been more than enough time for aliens to spread out, and yet we don’t see them.

[wildbill]

I’m down with the idea that there really are extraterrestrials that have come to visit Earth from places so unimaginably far away that my mind boggles.

They may harm us, farm us, love us or bring gifts.

But my question is this: If these beings can fly sophisticated craft across millions of miles of space, how come they keep crashing their spacecraft flying around here.???

[UCANSEE2]

But nobody on earth can tell me the creature that evolved ito the small horse predecessor, let alone the marine animal that evolved from.

[UCANSEE2]

But my question is this: If these beings can fly sophisticated craft across millions of miles of space, how come they keep crashing their spacecraft flying around here.???

Turbulence and wind shear.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

OOPS, my bad. It should have been obvious. D’oh!

[sailor76]

I'm more worried about Illegal Aliens.

[dfwgator]

Yes we are, get over it.

[wildbill]

Your reply got me thinking. Since they would have been fling for lightyears in the vacuum of space, none of their pilots would have any training in flyng in a planet with an atmosphere.

Gotta watch for those dust devils near Roswell, eh?

[wildbill]

Your reply got me thinking. Since they would have been fling for lightyears in the vacuum of space, none of their pilots would have any training in flyng in a planet with an atmosphere.

Gotta watch for those dust devils near Roswell, eh?

[Jamestown1630]

I agree with you. Life on Earth is so prolific, exuberant, irrepressible - even extremophiles living in conditions that we wouldn’t have thought anything could, until relatively recently. We might even have kinds of life - and possibly intelligent ones - living here beside us that we simply don’t ‘see’ for what they are.

I don’t think that the Mind that gave rise to life on Earth stopped there; or that It ever stops creating.

[tjd1454]

Strongly disagree. What you are referring to is the “dark forest” theory, which holds that everyone “out tbere” is so scared of everyone else that they are “hiding”. It is a very weak rebuttle to the Fermi Paradox, which is fundamentally unanswerable. Civilizations many milllioms of years advanced beyond our own would unquestionably have visited and very likely colonized our planet, exploiting our natural resources, etc.

[tjd1454]

Strongly disagree. What you are referring to is the “dark forest” theory, which holds that everyone “out tbere” is so scared of everyone else that they are “hiding”. It is a very weak rebuttle to the Fermi Paradox, which is fundamentally unanswerable. Civilizations many milllioms of years advanced beyond our own would unquestionably have visited and very likely colonized our planet, exploiting our natural resources, etc.

[JAKraig]

Strongly disagree. What you are referring to is the “dark forest” theory, which holds that everyone “out tbere” is so scared of everyone else that they are “hiding”. It is a very weak rebuttle to the Fermi Paradox, which is fundamentally unanswerable. Civilizations many milllioms of years advanced beyond our own would unquestionably have visited and very likely colonized our planet, exploiting our natural resources, etc

______________________________________________________

I don’t mean to be rude when I say you are shortsighted, please don’t take it that way.

A society advanced millions of years ahead of us certainly don’t need our resources. If you learn to harness fusion surely you can make any material you desire. Mining would be a thing of the past.

This doesn’t mean they couldn’t have visited us just that they really would not have much incentive to do so.

If they had thought to leave their DNA behind they would have only done so after teaching all they could of their existence. How cruel to leave their seed and then leave them in poverty and ignorance of what they are.