Intelligent life out there?

[Brando]

Last night on TV (Thursday 9/2/99) I caught a snippet of a news magazine show (I think it was on ABC) that listed three good reasons why, if there is intelligent life out there, we haven't "met" them yet.

They said:
1. They were here earlier but "there was no one to talk to" and went on to explain how humans have only been around for a miniscule amount of earth time.
2. "It's a matter of scale", implying that maybe they're here now but they're just too small for us to detect.
3. That intelligence life simply is so rare that we haven't bumped into them yet (for instance, we consider humans to be "intelligent" but there have been a billion viable species in earth's history that have managed just fine without "intelligence".)

Then they said that there was one more theory to consider and they'll tell you after the commercial break. I never got back to the show. Did anyone see what the other theory was?

Well, I have one of my own. WE consider ourselves intelligent. But have WE scooted off to the far reaches of the universe yet? Nope. Maybe there is intelligent life out there, but dang it, it's hard to travel that far to earth! I think we expect intelligent life out there to be miracle workers, beaming around on some advanced technology. What if they're just like us? Smart, but pretty much stuck in their neighborhood?

Any thoughts? Cheers!

[EnigmaOne]

"They" have been monitoring out radio and television transmissions and have determined that there is no intelligent life on Earth.



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--Kalél
Common ¢ for all ages...
Doncha just hate word problems?
"If it takes a four-month old woodpecker, with a rubber bill, 9 months and 13 days to peck a hole through a Cypress log that is big enough to make 117 shingles, and it takes 165 shingles to make a bundle worth 93¢, how long will it take a cross-eyed grasshopper, with a cork leg, to kick all the seeds out of a dill pickle?"

[E1skeptic]

Why don't you check this web site: SETI.FAQ?

Enjoy!

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Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities.
-Voltaire

[Revtim]

2. "It's a matter of scale", implying that maybe they're here now but they're just too small for us to detect.

I didn't see the show, but I think it's more likely that when they say "it's a matter of scale" they didn't mean size of the life, but the "size of universe" factor you later brought up.

[Rich Barr]

Brando: [[What if they're just like us? Smart, but pretty much stuck in their neighborhood?]]

Or even if they're NOT stuck in their own neighborhood. Have you ever visited East Succotach, West Dakota? Even if you'd heard of it, even if you knew there were people there, would you bother?

We humans think we're pretty hot stuff, but other people might not agree.

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Rich Barr
massivemaple@hotmail.com
AOL Instant Messenger: Hrttannl

[Brando]

Revtim:

Thanks for your reply. But they really were talking about the size of the life form. In fact, along with aliens being too microscopic, they also mentioned that maybe the aliens are too _big_ for us to detect (which I can't even imagine, but oh well).

Good day!

[tomndebb]

That's it! Aliens are really tectonic plates! They are currently having a debate between those who follow the Prime Directive and those who are more Interventionist in nature. The Interventionists keep rumbling into the Primers. The Primers have gathered themselves into mountain ranges to hold off the Interventionists, but the ensuing feud still causes earthquakes, aiding the Interventionists cause.

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Tom~

[ChrisCTP]

No basis, no citation, no foundation, no reference, I just want to comment and give you an anal probe and then I'll be gone.

It'd be pretty damn conceited of us humans to actually believe that we're the "only ones."



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Veni, Vidi, Visa ... I came, I saw, I bought.

[Akatsukami]

Actually, I think that it would be pretty damn conceited to believe that there are a zillion species out there, but that we're being avoided for some reason.

A lot of these ideas have borrowed (i.e., stolen) from Enrico Fermi, Frank Tipler, and others. However, reasons that we don't see the galaxy swarming with intelligent life:[list=1][*]We're the first (somebody has to be)[*]The evolution of a level of intelligence sufficient to support an industrial civilization is, in fact, so rare that we shouldn't expect to see more than one per galaxy[*]Interstellar travel is much harder than we think it is[*]Industrial civilizations destroy themselves (nuclear war, resource exhaustion, Kyoto protocol, etc.) before they establish an interstellar colony[*]Industrial civilizations quickly reach the point where their members spent all their time surfing the Web instead of planting interstellar colonies[*]Intelligent species are much less adaptable to different environments than humans and[list=1][*]are incapable of adapting to other planets, or[*]don't realize this and kill themselves off trying[/list=1][/list=1]
It should be noted that essentially all of these arguments are arguments against the existence of other industrial civilizations. Flintknappers may come three to a given star, but we'll never know unless we go there ourselves.

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"Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away."

[shiningnight]

I'm a christian and I do believe intelligent life is out there.
I think most fellow christians will freak hearing this but God is an ET.
(hard to create a place you,re from)
Scientist used to look for other places with oxygen, light, water &
a certain tempature range when looking for ET's possible home.
Now the've found life here on earth that they'd never imagined 10 years ago. We look at the universe thru our eyes. We have our scences to acquire input for our nurons and electrical impulses etc... to interpret and percieve our universe, world and reality itself our way.
We ourselve have developed, than expanded our capabilites beyond our physical limatations thru technology to better interact with our universe.
Each step has been based on our perceptions and interactions with our own environment. 'Dolfins, earth worms, moles, birds etc... all have different aspect to deal with and overcome. If we'd been them our technolodgy be different.
perception is what I'm getting at.
Using technology we can percieve and realize things we couldn't otherwise.
What if other creatures percieve things totally differently. What if they see sound and hear colors. ( we can today using radio astronamy ) Maybe instead of seeing light thru there eyes they see objects by the ripples and waves in magnitism or gamma radiation. People are to limited at the way they think of things. Space, Time, Reality etc...
are all just definitions to help us
cumpute or rationalize our perceptions & events based on the way
we interact with the atoms molicules, radiations, and energies of our suroundings.
Life, Reality, time, Space, all this could be totally different under different cercumstances. Our world is percieved by us our way. They could cruise by us and not even see us. (Our magnetic signature might be too low for an example). And we might not see them. Maybe they zip around too fast ( like flash the comic hero )
For us to detect. I don't think our reality exist anywhere but here. And only to us.


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Shiningnight

[manhattan]

Akatsukami got it right, an phenomenon I’ve noticed in other forums. But it’s difficult to argue criteria that are by their nature speculative and/or subjective.

His reason #3, about interstellar travel being difficult, is the most easy for us mere earthlings to understand, especially when combined with Rich Barr’s example of going to East Succotash.

Pretend you’re an advanced civilization and wanted to set out to meet the neighbors. You have a lot of resources, but they’re not unlimited. Likewise, your species has a limited life span, or at least limited patience. So you can only send out so many missions, and each mission can go only so far (299,792,458 meters per second – not just a good idea, it’s the law).

Your first choice might be to go visit places that you have evidence that intelligent life exists. That ain’t earth, because we’ve only been producing radio waves of any strength for a little while. Evidence of our existence hasn’t even reached most of the denser parts of the galaxy. (insert quips about "intelligent life" and "denser parts" here)

Next, you might choose simply to head out into a planet-rich area and see what’s what. For most places, we’re not on the wish list that alien scientists take to the Council of Elders when mission planning. Take a look at a map of the galaxy and you’ll see that we really are in the cosmic equivalent of nowhere.

So for all we know, there could already be groups of little green men communicating with each other and even visiting. If so, they might even be contemplating a stop in our little arm of the milky way. But first they have to go through more likely possibilities, so don’t clear a landing field for them just yet.

Or we could be it, space-travel wise, but that would be a shame.


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Livin' on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine

Brando, to get back to your original question, I caught most of the same show, although I think I came in 5-10 minutes in. I remember the "they were here, where were we?" hypothesis, and the question-of-scale (re Voltaire's 'Micromegas' character) and the 'rarity of life' argument. I believe the final issue that was raised was that there may be life on the moon of Jupiter called Europa, for the same reasons we (as I believe you referred to) discovered life around mid-ocean volcanic vents.

What kind of surprised, disappointed, and disgusted me was that they didn't even touch on the obvious possibility that there are intelligent forms of life 'out there' and we are encountering them on a virtual daily basis -- but I guess you can't blame Stossel for not wanting to open that particular vermiform repository. He did only have one hour to fill, anyway . . . However, given that he was talking about undiscovered forms of life, he could have legitimately brought up the controversy about 'rods', which (if they turn out to be real) will certainly force a re-evaluation of our entire paradigm of terrestrial life.

[Brando]

DIF,

Thanks for your reply. Remind me: what are rods? I knew this once...

Brando

'Rods' are a form of life which first (IIRC) came to light as a result of a feature on the Sci-Fi Channel's 'Sightings' show -- not normally a venue I place a tremendous amount of reliance on, due to the mixing of phenomena and some of the 'experts' they cite. However, in this case, a pretty damn good video had been taken by a guy who was visiting a sinkhole in Mexico which is so deep skydivers use it for basejumping. In the midst of the video, across the frame flits a succession of rod-like 'creatures' with 'wings' that undulate in a manner similar to devilray fishes (or 'skates'). The guy has subsequently shown this video (and other people have recorded similar ones) at several convocations since his initial recording (sometime in '98, IIRC) and the general reaction has been one of reserved interest. It appears highly unlikely the 'rods' are an artifact of electromagnetic interference, but to be sure, the guy has been asked to attempted to recapture the images using a standard film camera. That was the last I heard . . .

[Brando]

So, the rods float more than they fly? Are they translucent? The image in my mind based on your description is a hot-dog shaped jellyfish with wings. (That's embarassing to admit.)

Anyway, so these things look so unlike anything else that it is assumed it's not real? If it was taken seriously, I'd assume biologists would be all over it. What is it about these things that make them seem "otherworldly" rather than a new earthly species?

Call me intrigued!

Brando

[Troy McClure SF]

This might be a little off topic, but I seem to remember about a year ago, scientists discovered single-celled life forms on a Martian hunk o' rock. Is this true? And if so, does this mean that there _is_ extra-terrestrial life (even if it is single celled), or was I missing something?
If so, why the hell isn't this a big deal?! (remainder of rany reserved until someone affirms/denies the above.

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--
JMcC from SFCA
<A HREF="http://members.tripod.com/~weirdstuff/index.html">http://members.tripod.com/~weirdstuff/index.html</A> <-drop by

[pldennison]

jjtm, the consensus seems to be that a lot of people jumped the gun, and that the formations found in the Martian rock were explainable by nonbiological processes. So they probably were not remnants of Martian life. That's not to say for sure, but probable not.

Brando, perhaps my quick description of 'rods' left something to be desired, to judge from your response. Rods appear to be straight, rigid, shaft-like entities. Along their entire length on each side run (apparently) extremely thin, almost membranous, 'wings' which ripple very rapidly up and down with a wavy motion, which apparently provides both lift and forward motion.

The other bizarre thing about them (as if they needed more) is that some people (besides the original reporter) have related catching sight of 'rods' flying through the clouds, with the rods being upwards of a hundred feet in length! In other words, it appears these things (if they're real) vary in size from a few inches to dozens of feet, move so rapidly through the air that they are not even apparent to the human eye unless frozen in 'mid-beat' by a camera, and have existed from who-knows-when without once ever revealing their presence by, say, hitting an animal or a tree or a person, etc.

It's hard to imagine by what process such a creature could come to exist and yet elude detection since time immemorial. Assuming for the sake of discussion that they are real, they beg a number of questions. Do they ever rest? Are they insect, bird, mammal, or something off-the-wall like an 'atmospheric fish'? What's their evolutionary thread? Are they even terrestrial? Or is someone pulling off a really classic hoax by some technical means other people haven't stumbled across as yet? I'll post here if I see anything more on them.

[shiningnight]

What, No reply? Not even a suggestion to get a reality check ? Come on folks, I was hoping for some kinda reply so I'd no if I made any since or if it just seemed like long winded gibberish. I was trying to suggest the possibility of a severe communication\interaction gap.
BTW When I first seen the mention of
rods I thought it might be about something I heard on tv about bacteria growing on nuclear reactor cooling rods (anyone else catch anything about this ?) but these sound even more interesting. Got any links DIF ? Or know where I might get more info ? Also DIF I never thanked you for the warning\welcome on a previous post. Thanks.

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Shiningnight

[Brando]

Wow.

DIF, thanks for the excellent link, which led to a great site entirely about rods.

I am eager to read the whole content of that site. I'm specifically curious on whether rods have mass to them, and if so, why can't we feel them when (if, I suppose) we run into them (if they're all around us).

Brando

Brando, try the following link. Follow the sublink to subject 2177, labeled 'rods'. There are further links from there. Hope this helps. (Note: I have not delved these links very deeply, I can't make any vouchsafes for them.)

http://www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi?7&6&119

Well, assuming the evidence of the photographs and videos is reliable, then I'd say it's pretty certain they have mass, since flight is an adaptation to gravity.

It would seem most amazing that they haven't been seen before in countless high-speed photographs, but then -- maybe they have, but they've always been written off as film defects or reflections/lens flares. After all, human society existed for thousands of years completely oblivious to microbes until van Leeuwanhoek (sp?--some Dutch guy, anyway) invented the microscope. We've only had photography for about 200 years, and really high-speed photography for about 75, so perhaps it's not all [i]that[i] incredible that we could have overlooked a form of life that's literally to fast for the eye to follow . . .

[rjk]

Yes, it's off-topic, and should be in another thread. It probably is; I got this URL someplace here (maybe the kangaroos?)

Here's the site: www.roswellrods.com


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Bob the Random Expert
"If we don't have the answer, we'll make one up."

When the Smithsonian has a specimin in a glass jar filled with formaldihide, then I'll believe in your 'flying rods'. Not before.

Life almost certainly exists 'out there'. Possibly some intelligent life, but rarer.
But let's not rush to meet them. 6 Billion Humans may be all they need---to feed everybody at an alien Octoberfest.
Saurkraut, anyone?

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We have met the enemy, and He is Us.--Walt Kelly

[Therealbubba]

Carl Sagan's computation of the Drake equation put the probable number of civilizations capable of of being as "advanced" as we are in this galaxy over the life of the universe at seven. He thought that such a small number over aeons would almost guarentee that no two civilizations would exist at the same time.

That does not rule out other life forms, just the ones we'd ever hear from.

Therealbubba

[bantmof]

Evidence of our existence hasn`t even reached most of the denser parts of the galaxy. (insert quips about "intelligent life" and "denser parts" here)

And the other factor at work is that distance attenuates signals, and it doesn't take much distance (on a galaxy-sized scale) before our puny little non-directional signals would be undetectable through the noise. IIRC, the ones detectable out to the largest range are military radars, which are both reasonably directional and strong. I forgot the exact numbers, but I seem to recall the theoretical detection range for TV signals and so on is tiny (some tens of LY, IIRC, but that's just from memory, so I might be way off on that).

BTW, I don't really buy the "it's a scale problem" argument for a number of reasons. OTOH, the "they tried phoning 5 million years ago but we weren't home" argument seems perfectly plausable, if you assume there's some other intelligent life in our general vicinity.

It would be quite a cosmic irony if intelligence were relatively common in the universe, but the sheer distances involved were so mind-numbingly huge that intelligent species almost never found any other intelligent species. The best bet for that is probably regions of higher stellar density near galactic cores. We're way out in the boondocks, here.
--
peas on earth

[bantmof]

Re: "Rods" (and their bothers, the Cones?), color me skeptical unless some unambiguous evidence shows up. You have to go through all sorts of gyrations to explain away why we never find any bodies, why they never run into anything, why they never stop to rest or slow down to eat, and especially why they've only shown up on video, but not film. And one first has to rule out all the mundane explanations: hoaxes, video artifacts, out of focus insects blurred between frames due to shutter speed, etc.

Would it be way cool to find some ultra exotic new species? You betcha. It'd make somebody's career, to prove it. Would I bet on this being such a thing? Nope.

(Yes, I know the web site says they have video of insects that does not match the appearance of the "rods", but this in no way implies insects are not responsible for them). If I had to place a bet, I'd say: an insect can move a reasonable distance in a single video frame, and flapping wings could produce the ripply fins "attached" to them. That's just my own guess - could easily be wrong - but there are a whole host of such mundane explanations that need to be ruled out before leaping to wild conclusions. Getting one simultaneously on video and ulra-high speed film is probably the first order of business.

Sadly, things like this, even if later proven to have a mundane explanation, invariably generate a cult of "believers". Mundane explanations are no fun, I suppose.
--
peas on earth

[Akatsukami]

Therealbubba writes:

Carl Sagan's computation of the Drake equation put the probable number of civilizations capable of of being as "advanced" as we are in this galaxy over the life of the universe at seven. He thought that such a small number over aeons would almost guarentee that no two civilizations would exist at the same time.

Yes, but Sagan also assumed (apparently a priori; I've never seen any rationale for the assumption) that no industrial civilzation would ever expand significantly beyond its original physical limits.


That assumpton has always seemed bogus to me. In a very small fraction of the time available to it, such a civilzation could easily occupy the entire galaxy, even assuming relativity to be strictly true. Indeed, I believe that I have read an article asserting that it would be possible to make a profit trading in some commodities at sub-relatavistic speeds (I'll see if I can find a reference; it's been a while.), if we assume that industrial civilizations must be capitalistic.

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"Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away."

[WallyM7]

The Drake "equation" is nonsense. Study it and you will find that it is completely devoid of information save for the term regarding the rate of star formation in the galaxy. Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins agree that if evolution were replayed, we would not be here. That implies that intelligence is rare. Whether it bestows a survival advantage is arguable. We just got here, so it remains to be seen. We think of dinosaurs as a failed species, but they were around for a couple of hundred million years.Their stupidy didn't do them in. It was a comet, meteor, volcanic activity, climate change take your pick, that did it. My feeling is that the Universe may well be teeming with life, but intelligence is rare. Even Sagan said there maybe as little as ten E.T civilizations in our Galaxy. Looking for a needle in a haystack would be child's play in comparison.
Of course, there was the time I was abducted by the Vegan She-Devils....never mind. My therapist said I shouldn't talk about it.

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You are unique - Just like everone else.

[Polycarp]

RJK...yep, it was the kangaroos.

Wally, I ran into a quote recently, I think from Duncan Lunan, that hit me hard: "The Drake equation is a measure of our ignorance." You cannot argue with the basic concept of the equation (well, on this board you can argue about anything), just on the values to be assigned.

RJK said (by way of signature):

Bob the Random Expert
"If we don't have the answer, we'll make one up."

--Great: you have all the makings of an expert theologian!!

And why haven't any abductees mentioned the glowing raccoons?

[WallyM7]

Well, yeah, I guess you have a point, Polycarp. The equation tells us what we don't know, which is the beginning of an intelligent inquiry. My complaint is that many people have been charmed by this little string of squiggles. I'm no mathematician, but any equation that requires you to insert arbitrary quantities by hand, term after term...well, you get my point. I think we should consign it to the flames, along with the Anthropic Principle( you know, the thing that goes "We're here because we're here")

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You are unique - Just like everyone else.

[bantmof]

along with the Anthropic Principle( you know, the thing that goes "We're here because we're here")

Err, that's not _quite_ what it says. :-)

There are two forms of it (weak and strong). The strong AP is a bit silly, but the weak definately is not. A failure to understand the weak anthropic principle is usually behind the argument, "Think of all the possible universes that couldn't sustain life, e.g. if various physical constants were different; since ours does, there must be intelligent design behind it and therefor god exists". The weak anthropic principle debunks this line of reasoning. It is not a tautology as you state above.

--
peas on earth

[Polycarp]

Hmmm...do the strong and weak anthropic principles have any correlation to strong and weak atheism?

[DW3]

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. - Calvin & Hobbes

[Snappy Plissken]

Ooo. How come nobody's brought up...yanno...my point I always make when lured into these convos?

Y'see, what *we* consider life...isn't always life. Hmm? An'...well, what about life on computer chip kinda things? Silicon-based critters? Or ones like, that live in 2 dimensions instead of 3? Or what about ones that live in like...equivalent of (Warning! Exaggeration in progress!) 1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit or almost at absolute zero? Or perhaps live in the depths of space without having any qualities we know to be "living" as we know it? I mean...maybe the planets themselves are alive, just not the way we think of things being alive. And in the same sense, they wouldn't consider *us* alive and so wouldn't go looking for us. Eh? That's *my* theory.

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Snappy, The Crazy Toddite - Friend of Skippy

[WallyM7]

Actually, that's not as crazy as it sounds, Snappy.

The "Gaia Hypotheses" states the our planet can be viewed as a super-organism. There are some well regarded scientists that support this view.

My opinion on this is neuteral because I don't know enough.

But the idea doesn't strike me as outrageous.

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If you're an optimist, you haven't been paying attention.

[Sam Stone]

Please name a well-regarded scientist who believes this. While you're at it, please point me to a peer-reviewed journal where this theory is justified.

[shiningnight]

Try Discover magazine. (Oct.1999)
This theory has been around for awhile and is gaining more and more support. HTH


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Shiningnight

[WallyM7]

Lynn Margulis champions this theory.

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If you're an optimist, you haven't been paying attention.

[WhiteRaven]

You mean the Earth has produced intelligent creatures?

oh, the dolphins mabey?

[gorkamorka]

The surest sign that intelligence is to be found elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us

[LonesomePolecat]

Originally posted by manhattan

Your first choice might be to go visit places that you have evidence that intelligent life exists. That ain’t earth, because we’ve only been producing radio waves of any strength for a little while. Evidence of our existence hasn’t even reached most of the denser parts of the galaxy. (insert quips about "intelligent life" and "denser parts" here)

The signals we've been broadcasting wouldn't be strong enough to reach them, anyway. I don't know exactly what the distance is, but the weak sort of electronic signals we've been sending eventually fade until they are no longer distinguishable from the general background noise. They're still there, it's just that there wouldn't be any instrument strong and/or sensitive enough to pick them out from the static.

[dal_timgar]

suppose these aliens showed up around 1900 and have been watching since then, hiding with their stealth technology. due to the fact that they are so advanced, they have greatly extended their life spans. suppose the average life span is 1000 earth years. do you think they might have a different concept of how long we were worth watching b4 making contact? or might have some "strange" ideas of what our state of civilization should be to make us worth contacting.

the trouble with figuring out aliens is that, 'they're alien.'

Dal Timgar

[WhiteRaven]

Originally posted by dal_timgar
suppose these aliens showed up around 1900 and have been watching since then, hiding with their stealth technology. due to the fact that they are so advanced, they have greatly extended their life spans. suppose the average life span is 1000 earth years. do you think they might have a different concept of how long we were worth watching b4 making contact? or might have some "strange" ideas of what our state of civilization should be to make us worth contacting.

the trouble with figuring out aliens is that, 'they're alien.'

Dal Timgar

I have alot of trouble with the whole "we cant understand them, because they dont think like us" line. (or in understanding God because hes infinite blah blah)
Its not hard to get your mindset into an "alien" mindset, nor is it very difficult to imagine things without letting your personal bias' to corrupt your thought.
Ok, so it might be hard for some people. Its certainly not hard for me. I love psychology because it makes me realize that alot of people dont think "the same" as me. Yet I can come up with a decent hypothesis on how they DO think with some careful observation. (really easy too). I read alot also, and tend to let myself escape into the writers/characters perspective, yet I have no trouble to get my mind to think similar to thiers even though they think nothing like me.
Its called being Objective. Its not perfect by any means, but it gives us something to work with. Saying that we cannot possibly imagine it because you cannot, or will not try to, doesnt mean that we cannot. Is it Wholely scientific? Probably not. Does it work? In many cases yes.
So what am I trying to say? Just because a species has developed in a different enviroment, has a more advanced technology, longer life spans, or a different view on civilization does not mean that we cannot imagine what it would be like to be one of them. Writers do it all the time.

[erislover]

Assuming an exponential technology curve, it would be very unlikely that any alien race able to contact us would have anything in common with us.

If they are at the stage where they could travel through space fast enough to meet us where we couldn't sense them with our radio telescopes, they'd probably ignore us anyway. All they'd need to do is monitor our broadcasts, see what paranoid, violent xenophobes we are and just scoot off to study some quasars. Or something.

[tracer]

WallyM7 wrote:

Lynn Margulis champions this theory.

Woo, it's eerie seeing a message from WallyM7, if you don't notice that it was posted two years ago. It's like he's come back to haunt us or something.

[kasuo]

I'm taking a class titled Interstellar Migration and extraterrestial intelligent life was mentioned. Given the numerous stars in our galaxy (about 300 billion) and assuming life can be supported in stars that are similar to the Sun (G2V), there could be a good number of civilizations out there. However, there was mention of a possibility of a noninterference ethic similar to Star Trek's "Prime Directive". Perhaps intelligent life has visited the Earth yet they do not want to establish contact as they might fear it will interfere in the natural development of our civilization.

I'd buy that.