# Are there currently extra-terrestrial entities on Earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 13, 2011, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504 "2011-03-13T05:02:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![heavyarms553](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@heavyarms553](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heavyarms553)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/61 "2011-03-15T19:37:55Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve seen an ET. It had 3 of them… > Oh, you meant “Terrestrial”. I thought you meant “Testicle”. How… have you only seen 3 extra testicles? I’d imagine that number would usually be even. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/62 "2011-03-15T19:47:05Z")
> [@heavyarms553](#): > > How… have you only seen 3 extra testicles? I’d imagine that number would usually be even. I have an odd number of testicles. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/63 "2011-03-15T20:28:48Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > As a child I had very vivid dreams of being abducted by Greys. Not the stereotypical anal probe type thing, just general harassment. I lived close to an air force base which has many of America’s nukes on its property. > > I later learned my grandma and aunt have also both had contact with ETs. The ones my grandma is in touch with are positive minded, the ones my aunt are in touch with, I am not sure. But multiple people in my family have seen spaceships. Let’s not worry about how they got here. If they did get here, ever wonder why they don’t announce themselves, and instead appear to you, your grandma and your aunt? When Columbus landed, did he openly greet the natives or did he sneak around in the jungle popping up every so often to say boo? This is as much an extraordinary claim as them getting here. It appears that certain people have the propensity to dream this kind of stuff. In the middle ages they dreamed that demons came to them in bed. Now, it is ETs. I think it is genetic also. Perhaps this is a better explanation than that your family somehow attracts aliens? If you want to convince anyone, try to ask them for some confirmable scientific fact that no one on Earth knows. No one who ever thinks they’ve been contacted appears to ask for any proof. ---
**Author:** ![donnie\_darko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@donnie\_darko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donnie_darko)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/64 "2013-07-28T23:26:28Z")
I don’t believe in ETs anymore. I think I was just being delusional. I mean, I think there’s probably intelligent life in the Universe but I doubt we have been visited at least in recent times. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/65 "2013-07-28T23:39:08Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Any particular reason they would come that far to such an insignificant planet such as ours when there are plenty closer? > > There are an estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky Way alone. > Why are they all coming here? Cuz they’ve been to all the others. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/66 "2013-07-29T01:05:12Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > These entities visit infrequently and in such small numbers that it’s highly unlikely that the average person will ever encounter one in their lifetime. Why? That is, why would they come all this way and then **hide** from us? Why not land on the WH lawn or something? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/67 "2013-07-29T01:06:15Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > Most likely, the bulk of ET visitors to our planet do not come here physically, either coming here metaphysically . . . That word does not mean what you think it does. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/68 "2013-07-29T01:10:45Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > This is my solution to ‘Fermi’s Paradox’ of ‘where are they?’ N.B.: [There are others.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox) > [@](#): > > There are several possible resolutions to the Fermi paradox based around looking at components of the Drake equation and figuring out the plausibility of each, indicating what is and what is not particularly likely: > \*\*\* It is rare for life to evolve.\*\* It’s hard to evaluate this plausibility of this until we know more about the origin of life. But, speaking from the Copernican principle, there isn’t anything about the physical or chemical composition of the Earth or the solar system that suggests extreme rarity. Even if only one in a billion star systems have earthlike planets in them, that’s still hundreds of billions of potential sources for life that we could recognise as such. > \*\*\* It is rare for intelligence to evolve.\*\* Again, going by what we know about Earth, and assuming in general that the Earth isn’t in any sort of cosmically privileged position, this proposed rarity is hard to account for; but impossible to decide either way until we have more evidence. In general, the more closely we examine them, the more we find intriguing evidence of cleverness in many animals. Given the millions of potential years for an evolutionary timescale, it’s not unreasonable to posit that wherever life evolves, something intelligent must pop up sooner or later. > \*\*\* It’s rare for intelligent beings to reach a sufficient level of technology to communicate their presence.\*\* In the case of Earth, our radio transmissions have made us visible to anyone who may have been interested for the past several decades - but the switch to wired internet, directional satellites and short-range microwave transceivers for mobile phones is quickly diminishing this. Another possibility is that alien civilizations develop means for communication that are as efficient as ours or more but far less detectable. However - as with the SETI program - species could always deliberately advertise themselves. Even if most species don’t, statistically speaking we should be able to come across signals from those that do. > \*\*\* Intelligent beings are vulnerable to (self)-destruction\*\* Intelligence typically evolves prior to the psychological traits that are necessary to use that intelligence sanely. Humans have conceived of nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction, yet have not progressed very much psychologically since the age of killing each other with rocks and spears. Maybe the period during which an intelligence can survive without being destroyed, either by itself or some kind of natural catastrophe, is too small to allow contact. > \*\*\* The evidence is already there, but we can’t detect it.\*\* The possibilities range from a government conspiracy to withhold contact to messages/media that are quite literally too “alien” for us to perceive. (e.g. Our own era of pumping out vast quantities of easily-decoded AM audio and video may only run about a hundred years, as broadcasting shifts to digital encoding with the frequency spectrum of white noise if you don’t know what’s encoded in it.) > \*\*\* We’re just not interesting enough to contact.\*\* We probably shouldn’t write this one off - the more we explore the cosmos, the more human pretensions to uniqueness and importance we tend to have punctured. But - if extraterrestrial intelligence is everywhere, the more likely it is that one aspect of it will contact us - even if it’s a rogue or a renegade. Alternatively, if intelligence is an extreme rarity, it makes all the more sense to try and contact someone else. Of course, there is the possibility that we are being shepherded carefully by some advanced indetectible intelligence, but if that’s the case it isn’t clear how we should be modifying our behavior or that we should stop looking for anyone else. > \*\*\* Maybe we’re just early to the party.\*\* It took about half of the estimated habitable time frame of Earth for humans to evolve. On a universal scale, we’re estimated to be relatively early in the possible time frame of the universe (The Earth being 4.54 billion years old in a universe that is “only” 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years old.). It’s entirely possible that we’re one of the first intelligences to evolve, and thus everyone else that exists are simply in currently non-intersecting light cones. Your idea would be a variation on “The evidence is already there, but we can’t detect it” combined with “We’re just not interesting enough to contact.” ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/69 "2013-07-29T01:10:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why? That is, why would they come all this way and then **hide** from us? Why not land on the WH lawn or something? They’re sizing us up. Don’t want to play their hand too early. It’s been thoroughly naysayed on this board, but there’s a school of thought that believes they don’t have to be much more advanced than we are. Even with magic star ships, they may not have teleporters. Maybe they actually abduct us with trank guns and (advanced) helicopters. Maybe their medical science isn’t much more advanced than ours, and they really are checking body temps with those anal probes. Or… who knows? They are alien. Motives are likely to be inscrutable. Humans don’t understand each other all that well. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/70 "2013-07-29T01:16:30Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > We are suppose to be small children, that is not the reason we are not traveling between the stars. It’s because we are born here on earth, much like being born in a non-free society where the government keeps the people ignorant and closed off from the rest of the world, Satan tries to keep us that way and prevents us from exploring our inheritance. Children of other stars are freely vacationing on other worlds all the time. We should be learning about other cultures of other star systems, instead we are simply kept in the dark about these wonders. So why can’t Satan keep those ETs from leaving **their** planets? I mean, if there’s only one God for the whole Universe, then there’s also only one Satan, right? His jurisdiction would be universal. Why would he have any more power here than elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/71 "2013-07-29T01:19:17Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > It’s been thoroughly naysayed on this board, but there’s a school of thought that believes they don’t have to be much more advanced than we are. Like the Lizards in Harry Turtledove’s [Worldwar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series) series? Of course, when **they** show up, we **know** it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/72 "2013-07-29T01:51:20Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > I don’t believe in ETs anymore. I think I was just being delusional. > > I mean, I think there’s probably intelligent life in the Universe but I doubt we have been visited at least in recent times. You resurrected your own two-year-old thread to say that you no longer believe what you had. I really don’t have the time to chase down all the odd responses that posts to this thread are liable to evoke when the OP admits disagreeing with the OP. This thread is closed. **donnie** , pay attention to where you are posting and why. We really do not like chasing down this sort of nonsense. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/73 "2013-08-01T23:24:07Z")
Re-opened. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/74 "2013-08-01T23:36:53Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Re-opened. See? ETs are not only here, they have mind-control rays! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/75 "2013-08-01T23:47:22Z")
**Reminder: This is a zombie thread that the OP revived in order to repudiate his former position!** > [@donnie\_darko](#): > > I don’t believe in ETs anymore. I think I was just being delusional. > > I mean, I think there’s probably intelligent life in the Universe but I doubt we have been visited at least in recent times. So, **donnie** , what do you think caused you be delusional and what led you to change your mind? Also, did anything in particular trigger your decision to announce this change of heart, or did you just remember your old thread and realized that your position had changed? ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504/76 "2013-08-02T00:24:18Z")
It was the MIBs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-currently-extra-terrestrial-entities-on-earth/574504.md?page=3)