Do you believe aliens have visited or atleast know about us?

Yes, I believe that they have visited us and most likely continue to do so.

Yeah I agree, I also think multiple species have been monitoring the human race closely for the past few centuries. Could also explain a lot about our history:

It's unlikely they have visited or know about us, there isn't credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

I believe its likely there is intelligent life else were in the universe, based on the sheer number of planets and stars.

However the idea aliens have been abducting us, or hiding out in top secret government places is best left to conspiracy nuts and works of fiction

Aliens have probably visited us, considering even a 1000 year leap, a popcorn fart in cosmic time, would have an enormous, almost godlike technological advantage over us. Their technology would be like nothing we have seen. And this is with a mere 1000 head start, in a cosmos billions of years old.

However, I do not think aliens are flying all over the earth to the point where cattle ranchers and trailer park residents are getting messages, probed, or abducted. If aliens were all around us, attempting to make their presence known, why do they never sit still for more than a single shot photograph, admittedly blurry? All these visitations, and not a single molecule of alien tissue or matter. If this matter was traveling in violation of known physics, it would jumpstart our technological advancement by eons. Instead, nothing. It's best to be agnostic about things like this, when the jury is not at all in.

EDIT: Perhaps they're just that good? Totally right about the agnostic viewpoint of aliens though.

Aliens probably created mankind as a joke. Why else would our bodies use the same organ for both waste removal and procreation? They probably thought that was hilarious.

It is possible that Aliens know about earth.

However, aliens that have actually visited earth is insanely unlikely. Furthermore, frequent alien visitations would be incredibly impractical, given the known laws of physics. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And as of now, we lack any evidence of alien visitation.

For FTL travel to be a thing, physics as we know it would completely collapse.

Yep, the FTL barrier combined with the sheer size and emptiness of space makes it pretty unlikely.

Sure, once I see scientific evidence.

Either that or Archeological evidence.

Of which, there is none for either. :P

Did you guys ever see that show "ancient aliens"??

I think they came to visit earth, but that was BEFORE humans "existed."

Duh, aliens are fetishists. They love the ole frosting job from a lover....

Applying human thought and human technological achievement to that of an ET species + their tech just wouldn't work out. Perhaps we missed something that could be the key to FTL, we're a very young species with many distractions and limitations.

You're also not accounting for the various amount of resources other planets/space may be providing that Earth doesn't have. To assume there is no other way but the human way is a bit arrogant and shortsighted.

Who knows... possibly. It's almost certain that there are other intelligent civilizations in the Universe, but obviously the huge distances are a limiting barrier for communication, let alone traveling.

But of course it's definitely possible.

Not yet.

I mod this forum, so... yeah. Obviously.

-Byshop

I believe aliens might know of us, but highly doubt we've ever been visited by them...

Possible, but explain all these whacky paintings..

Arrogance is neglecting the data and knowledge that we do have because it does not fit in with our pet theory.

The issue with FTL travel is that it would outright violate the laws of physics as we know them today. Materials and resources would not allow us to suddenly change the constants of the universe. And I am far more willing to accept the physics of today rather than the wishful thinking of UFOlogists and sci-fi author hacks. Because the physics of the physicists provides us with results, whereas the physics of the hacks has gotten us nowhere.

The only way better technology would get us past the speed of light is if there was a major scientific revolution. One as big as Quantum Theory. Unless we get one of those, nothing will make FTL possible, for as amazing as our technology is, everything we make still abides by the laws of universe.

The issue is not that we cant find a way to get past the speed of light, the issue is that everything we have so far, would indicate that light is in fact, the speed limit. Which has to do with the mass (or rather, lack of) of a photon. Which in turn is caused by the fact that photons don't interact with the Higgs Field. Even getting close to Light Speeds would require an absurd amount of energy. The energy cost to further speed an object up grows exponentially. Thus travelling to earth at FTL speeds, and regularly interacting with humans would cost a massive amount of energy (and thus, finances). It simply put, isn't practical for any spacefaring civilization to do this.

It is possible that Aliens have visited us, but it is extremely unlikely and there is no evidence to indicate that they did. As a result, I can not take alien visitation claims seriously.

1) You have no idea that a 1000 year head start automatically means 1000 years of scientific progress.

2) There appear to be very clear limits as far as actual physics are concerned. As in, the speed of light through a vacuum is apparently the fastest that ANYTHING can travel in our universe, and no amount of technological progress can overcome that cosmic speed limit. This limits the ability of ANY spacefaring species to travel through space. It still amounts to: either you'd better live REALLY close or be willing to invest a LOT of time. No it's possible that there MAY be ways to sort of cheat, such as wormholes or warping space itself. But even then we don't really KNOW that it is possible. And even if it is possible, it'd take INSANE amounts of energy to accomplish. That brings up the question of how an alien civilization is supposed to actually harness that much energy. Still probably wouldn't allow for unlimited space travel anywhere they want to go. Economics would still come into play. This kind of thing would likely be so costly that the aliens would STILL have to be incredibly picky about where they go. Which likely means that they'd either be visiting here VERY infrequently (in which case they wouldn't be participating in government or anything like that), or would only visit once and make damn sure that they got the most out of the trip (we're talking full-on invasion/occupation scenario here).

Bottom line is that the same thing that guarantees that intelligent aliens likely exist (the absolutely insane size of the universe) probably also guarantees that even the most advanced aliens aren't traveling very far from where they came.

@luckylucious: there's nothing wacky about them. It's a matter of faith though. You either believe, or you don't. Let's not go ahead and be judgmental about things.

For an explanation, I think one would have to either see what the artist said about them or otherwise study the written records of the time.

But the fact that there are paintings that show some "wacky" things clearly doesn't mean that those wacky things actually existed (and even if they existed, there's no indication that they were aliens; they could be demons or time traveling mutants from the future). I mean, once in history class when I was a kid, I drew a dick monster that was made out of dicks and ate dicks and pooped out dicks, and he drove a dick car and magically made dicks grow out of the ground by waving a magic wand (that also looked like a dick). If civilization collapsed and then future archeologists found my drawing as one of the few surviving records of the time, they'd be pretty stupid if they took it as an historical account just because it ended up in a drawing.

Hell, movies show some wacky shit too. I'm sure there are plenty of images and figurines of Homer Simpson, but I like to think that someone living 10,000 years into the future isn't going to dig up a Homer Simpson doll and immediately assume that's what people looked like 10,000 years ago.

"If you think you know quantum mechanics, you don't know quantum mechanics." - Richard Feynman..............

That is true, but it also worth noting that quantum mechanics dont mean magic. The main issue is that if FTL was a thing, every model we have about physics would fall apart. And I mean every single model.

These models, carry a hell lot more empirical merit than the hypothetical alien visitations.

Hell, that kind of we dont know everything reasoning has been used to defend everything absurd. Like creationism, god, quantum consciousness and even homeopathy.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't trying to say that every absurd scenario that we cn come up with is plausible just because there's a lot of stuff that we don't know.

The fact remains that based on what we know of life and physics, it's incredibly unlikely that we've ever been visited by extraterrestrials. Repeat visits and alien/government cooperation/conspiracies being even less likely.

Could we be wrong? Sure. But there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to indicate that we're wrong about that. Until we see ANY actual evidence that we've been visited by aliens, the much likelier scenario is that we've never been visited by aliens.

I dont think they are visiting us over and over again. I am waiting for the evidence that is not merely childish. But when Neutonian physics breaks down, shit happens beyond all expectation or likelihood.

Quantum mechanics isn't a magic wand that allows anything to be plausible.

Like, there's this thing in Star Trek where one of the writers says, "I think it would be cool if Data turned into a chick and had a robo-abortion, but how can we make that plausible?" And then the second writer says, "I don't know, just throw in some gobbledygoo about tachyons or something. You know, space magic."

I'm not going to pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but I'm pretty sure that quantum mechanics doesn't work like that. It's not some magic wand that instantly gives plausibility to any implausible scenario that you happen to think up.

That is where you are wrong. I think if Neutonian physics broke down or were somehow bisected, there would be far more insane and improbable shit than you or I could even think of.

There is a huge market for Alien conspiracy crap. Sites will pick up any story from any source...even fictional reddit posts just for ad revenue. The Fakumentaries that have been created throughout the 90's to today doesn't help at all when it comes to research purposes. It's more likely that if aliens know about us then their tech is so good that it's likely from a distance. We know quite a lot about planets light years away just this past couple of decades so imagine what we'll know about them in a few hundred or more years with future tech. Traveling even with wormholes or whatnot is pointless when they could use robots/droids of some sort but even that may be pointless if their tech is that advanced to study us from afar as we have this belief that you have to physically be there to study something in detail

Not sure if trolling.

These are the exact same arguments that have been used to try to justify creationism, and new age woo-woo.

No.

If they did, we would have known about it. There isn't some government conspiracy keeping first contact from us. No scientist worth their salt could keep quiet about something that extraordinary. Not for 70 years.

In Star Trek the Federation uses a prime directive, if a civilization hasn't archived a certain tier, they do not interfere or influence them. They are oblivious unless the plot demands it, which is every single time.

Lol how? Just providing some stir in the thread to keep it interesting.

Contrary to popular belief humans don't know how everything works. It is extremely arrogant to believe modern day Quantum Physics knows everything, due to the fact that there is very little consensus among leading mathematicians and scientists on quantum theory.

Just because humans can't do it, you think aliens can't? Out of all the civilizations out there that have most likely evolved differently you really think not one of them in the vastness of space have figured it out? I think its a possibility.

Again, assuming aliens think like humans. I'm sure civilizations put heavy funding torwards space exploration programs. Assuming every intelligent life forms thinks the same as humans is silly. Also you're implying crafts visiting are like tourists when in actuality it could be a generation ship or a select few of pedigree aliens from that civilization collecting samples.

All in all, this post is applying human achievement and our history to that of intelligent life, which just doesn't work when considering the vastness of space and availability of resources on other planets/science that we simply don't know about.

Then again, just an opinion.

Quantum mechanics definitely abides by strict rules. We know this because experiments can be recreated at will and much of the "magic" we know about that can't be directly observed is known because we can recreate the results with such consistency that we can deduce the effects via mathematical equations.

Sure it does, but top physicists don't understand complex parts of Quantum Mechanics either. We really don't know everything about the subject and to abide by the current rules we have defined so far when talking about ET life seems a bit silly.

Answers about quantum physics among leading mathematicians and scientists have little consensus, which shows how shallow our understanding of the laws around us really are, even when we have gone so far.

"We’re used to thinking that the world exists in a definite state, and that we can discover what that state is by making measurements and observations. But quantum theory suggests that, at least for tiny objects such as atoms and electrons, there may be no unique state before an observation is made.

Before measurement, all we can say is that there is a certain probability that the object is in state A, or B, or so on. Only during the measurement is a “choice” made about which of these possible states the object will possess: in quantum-speak, the superposition is “collapsed by measurement”. It’s not that, before measuring, we don’t know which of these options is true – the fact is that the choice has not yet been made.

This is probably the most unsettling of all the conundrums posed by quantum theory."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130124-will-we-ever-get-quantum-theory

Because we don't know something doe not make it not true. Things we say are impossible today may be possible in the future.

@luckylucious: Right, superposition is really cool and all, but what evidence does it provide that aliens have visited Earth? By what mechanism would that make it possible?

I really don't know, although I believe aliens have visited but its just an opinion. The quote was about how Quantum Physics is a conundrum, so applying current knowledge of the theory to space and ETs just seems irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Point was, we don't really have a complete understanding of Quantum Theory if leading minds can't come to a consensus on how it works, and my point still stands. We don't know the answers, and believing that current technology here proves that aliens can't come and visit us out there is a primitive understanding of the universe and its unknown laws.

The thing is, we have nothing to support the notion that FTL is possible outside of "physicists don't know everything". And this comes into the theory of general relativity. Not quantum mechanics.

Again, the problem here is not that we havent figured out the solution. The problem here is that FTL travel would violate one of the most fundamental laws of physics. In physics every single thing is so damn interconnected. You cant just pick and choose. Remove these formulas that are inconvenient towards your pet theory, and the whole physical world would fall apart. The problem with FTL travel is contradiction. So unless someone provides damn compelling evidence that FTL is possible, claims of FTL travel being realistic will continue to be dismissed by anyone who gives the slightest crap about physics.

The laws of physics are not subjective. The exponential costs of increasing velocities dont suddenly disappear because you think differently. The issue as always, FTL has been proven to be more or less impossible unless you could get your mass at or below 0. Even if you were to travel at light speed, you would cause a lot more problems, such as time travel. and more issues.

None of those things you listed, be it generation ships or a select few pedigree aliens would be practical. The costs of FTL travel are so high, nothing outside of a colonization or invasion would be practical.

Nope. I believe there is other life out there, but to expend the vast amount of energy needed to visit us just to remain hidden makes no damn sense.

Besides, I think it's funny how people anthropomorphize aliens. Bipedal creatures with two arms and a head with two eyes and a mouth hunh? You don't say.

I have reasonable suspicions Obama is an alien.

If they're more advanced & peaceful they wouldn't show themselves.

Doing so would disrupt our entire world. Religitards, economy, government would all go nucking futs. What government do they meet ? Going to one side would anger the other. Do they bring alien pathogens with them and what of ours ?

If you've read up on current astronauts humans aren't built for long term space life. Our bones weaken, the synapses in our brain reduce, & we have no protection from cosmic radiation the earths magnetic field normally blocks. National Geographic just did a study on Mars and everything I read with current technology says humanity won't be going anywhere in space anytime soon.

If anything we'll send more robots & for that reason I believe we'll encounter A.I. from other galaxies first if not just signals. Scientists have been recently capturing bursts of signals & they don't know what they are.

If on the other hand they're more advanced & not friendly we'd never stand a chance. They'd launch asteroids from far beyond earth orbit & wipe us out with ease then come take whatever they want.

I don't think so. Any planet that contains life, much less intelligent life, is certainly several light years away from us, and it would take a lot of resources just to reach us. The visit here would have to benefit them in some way. The only reason intelligent life would go to another planet light years away is to either extract rare resources or to colonize it.

@Maroxad:

Applying our current evolutionary process (human bodies), our technology, our understanding of physics, our thought processes (funding programs and exploration), and our political system to that of another species that could be beyond our vision (the known universe) is laughable to me. FTL might not apply to certain species.

Also perhaps Aliens don't even utilize FTL tech and use a much more advanced safer method. The vastness of space and many think all of these civilizations function the same with the same laws + tech is funny.

You tell us at the end of the posts that these theories are impractical bc of human narrative and what we've been able to achieve/how we think. While a fine opinion, I just think differently than that.

Costs can still exist without money. In this case, the cost is energy. The ammount of energy needed for FTL travel would be comparable to that of the entire sun's lifetime output. Do you see the problem here?

And once again, this falls under General Relativity. General Relativity != Quantum Mechanics

People never thought the earth was flat. ESPECIALLY not the scientific community. Ancient egyptians who realized the earth was round thousands of years ago, not to mention the greeks, chinese and arabs did the same. People didnt need to circumvent the globe. Mathematics and noticing that ships always moved downwards was evidence enough.

An Open mind means having a filter. Being so "open minded" makes you close minded in the end, since it can make you extremely unopen minded to being wrong. When the lionshare of the argument is based on a fallacious "Scientists don't know everything" argument. That we dont know everything about Quantum Mechanics (which, again is irrelevant since high speeds concern themselves with general relativity), does not give people an excuse to make stuff up. What I argue for is that alien visitation on earth is very unlikely based on the evidence we have and what we know. To the point where it is not even worth considering at the moment. I am open to being wrong, but as of now, there doesnt seem to be anything that would indicate us of being wrong. True open mindedness comes from being open to the evidence. I go where the evidence takes me and I do not go astray. For any theory or hypothesis to be taken seriously it would need to be backed by reasoned logic and/or evidence. Alien visitations go against reasoned logic all while having 0 evidence to back it up (those paintings are not evidence).