# Really...so anyone have a feeling about UFO's? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 3, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876 "2013-03-03T02:28:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/21 "2013-03-03T12:19:45Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Somebody has to be the Elder Race, the Ancient Ones, the first technological intelligent species in our galaxy capable of leaving their home planet. > > The sad truth is that it is probably US. We’re not capable of leaving our home planet - not really. By the same definition, I’m capable of living underwater, because I can dive under the surface at the swimming pool. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/22 "2013-03-03T12:50:14Z")
I think the OP was written by an extraterrestrial. A human wouldn’t have phrased the question that way. Really. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/23 "2013-03-03T13:52:34Z")
I think that advanced civilizations will abandon the physical universe, and (instead) focus upon the life of the mind-virtual reality will become a more fruitful area for research,because it is unbounded (while relativity and the velocity of light limits physical exploration). So advanced civilizationswill stay home, and direct their efforts elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/24 "2013-03-03T23:30:58Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > We’re not capable of leaving our home planet - not really. > > By the same definition, I’m capable of living underwater, because I can dive under the surface at the swimming pool. Well technically we’ve been capable of leaving our home planet for over 50 years, but I get your point. That doesn’t mean won’t be able to colonize other planets in our solar system in the future, or send probes to other stars. “Humanity” could be the elder race, if your defination of humanity is broad enough. Or we could go extinct by century’s end. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/25 "2013-03-04T01:19:23Z")
With every star system a race colonizes, it gets that much harder for it to go extinct. All it’s eggs are in many baskets. If a race can colonize 1 star, then over time it can colonize many. How long would it take to colonize the entire galaxy? It seems the rate of colonization would accelerate really quickly as new planets simultaneously build ships to go to new stars. Even if you say it’s an absurdly long time, 100 million years, it should have happened by now. Well if the galaxy is 13 billion years old, it seems someone should have expanded into the whole thing by now? The fact that no one has, seems to imply that we are alone, or life extinguishes before it advances enough to colonize other star systems. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/26 "2013-03-04T01:46:11Z")
> [@Willcross](#): > > With every star system a race colonizes, it gets that much harder for it to go extinct. All it’s eggs are in many baskets. If a race can colonize 1 star, then over time it can colonize many. How long would it take to colonize the entire galaxy? It seems the rate of colonization would accelerate really quickly as new planets simultaneously build ships to go to new stars. Even if you say it’s an absurdly long time, 100 million years, it should have happened by now. > > Well if the galaxy is 13 billion years old, it seems someone should have expanded into the whole thing by now? The fact that no one has, seems to imply that we are alone, or life extinguishes before it advances enough to colonize other star systems. It took over 3.5 billion years for the Earth to evolve intelligent life capable of leaving its home world. In the earlier universe, once star formation began, there really wasn’t anything but hydrogen to fuse. It took billions of years of stellar births and deaths for enough heavy elements to form. So who knows? Perhaps life in this universe wasn’t possible until only 4 or 5 billion years ago — until enough of the heavier elements could form more and more terrestrial planets with the right chemistry. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/27 "2013-03-04T02:21:59Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > It took over 3.5 billion years for the Earth to evolve intelligent life capable of leaving its home world. > > In the earlier universe, once star formation began, there really wasn’t anything but hydrogen to fuse. It took billions of years of stellar births and deaths for enough heavy elements to form. So who knows? Perhaps life in this universe wasn’t possible until only 4 or 5 billion years ago — until enough of the heavier elements could form more and more terrestrial planets with the right chemistry. True, but (on the face of it) it seems probable that somewhere life should evolve to be as intelligent as us. If it took us 3.5 billion years, and it took another planet only 99 percent of that 3.5 billion years, that would give them a 35 million year head start on us. It only took us 40,000 years to go from caves to the moon. 35 million should be plenty of time it would seem. And its not just 1 other planet out there, there are billions of other planets with that chance. So why didn’t they colonize the galaxy? I think for the reasons I stated earlier. But who knows? No one I guess, and that’s what’s sad. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/28 "2013-03-04T02:35:15Z")
There are 300 billion stars in the milky way, if 1 percent of them have planets, then you get 3 billion planets. If 1 percent of those planets can support life, you get 30 million good planets. If 1 percent of those develops life, you get 300,000 life bearing planets. if 1 percent of those develops to our technology, you get 3000 different aliens with our level of tech. Even with those pessimistic numbers, it seems that 3000 different attempts, over billions of years, 1 of them should have expanded into the entire galaxy. Now to really blow your mind, there are hundreds of millions of galaxies. This leads me to believe that intergalactic travel is impossible. Otherwise, someone would have done it by now. Interstellar travel is probably also impossible. I think life is common, but no one makes it out of their solar system. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/29 "2013-03-04T02:58:07Z")
Well, as Woody Allen once said, there’s another civilization out there who are 15 minutes more advanced than us. Which is really handy since they don’t need to rush to get to appointments. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/30 "2013-03-04T02:58:41Z")
Right, the Drake Equation. Trouble is, is there’s reasonable arguments from almost anywhere in the spectrum from life is so rare, we might be the only ones, to the universe is teeming with life, but is either isolated by physical laws, practical unfeasabilities, uninterested in making contact, simply unable to find each other/haven’t found us, or are aware of us but choose not to interfere (in a Star Trek “Prime Directive” sort of way), are among us like the nano-spy bots mentioned above (although, highly unlikely), or… we are indeed the first, etc. There really is no telling. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/31 "2013-03-04T03:54:29Z")
> [@Willcross](#): > > There are 300 billion stars in the milky way, if 1 percent of them have planets, then you get 3 billion planets. I would expect a much larger number based on our solar system ratio of planets to suns. Gravity loves a party. > [@Willcross](#): > > Now to really blow your mind, there are hundreds of millions of galaxies. This leads me to believe that intergalactic travel is impossible. Otherwise, someone would have done it by now. Interstellar travel is probably also impossible. I think life is common, but no one makes it out of their solar system. what makes you think we would know if we’re being studied? Certainly we’re not going to get an invite to dinner by a species that can travel the universe. We would be to un-evolved to warrant communicating with. At best we would be observed by interplanetary Anthropologists in a manner not detectable by us. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/32 "2013-03-04T04:50:23Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > As someone years ago mentioned to me on here, it’s not just a matter of distance; it’s also a matter of time. Our own planet is 4.5 billion years old, and humans have had some technology for, what 200 years now? That alone is mind boggling. Then throw on top of that that the nearest star (after the sun) is 4 light years away. Four years traveling at the speed of light! > > Yeah, there’s life out there, but there’s no possible way we will ever, ever come in contact with it. Ever. Well, 100 or 200 years of technology doesn’t mean much unless you assume that’s the average amount of time a technological species retains its tech level. 200 years explains why we haven’t found them yet, but doesn’t really explain why they haven’t found us, assuming they’re looking. I also don’t think speed of light, or the awesome distances between stars is that limiting. It might be 4 lys from the Sun to the nearest star, but don’t forget we’ve got asteroid belts and fields, and the Kuiper Belt out past the gas giants, and the Oort cloud stretching out to the Oort cloud of our neighbor star. Solar systems more or less overlap, so as long as you’ve got advanced fusion power and don’t need solar power, and can get by comfortably with consuming the occasional asteroid, comet, planetoid, rogue gas giant/red dwarf star or something, you could ride one system’s Oort cloud around to another, and another, and another without having to make a big scary jump across the vast “empty” void of space between stars. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/33 "2013-03-04T06:19:46Z")
The distance is limiting from the perspective of lifeforms. Of course, advanced species may have cracked the whole death problem, but 4 LYs works out to over 24 _trillion_ miles. Just to the nearest star. Our current best propulsion tech can barely reach a fraction of 1% of the speed of light. It would take several _thousands_ of years to get there unless we developed radical propulsion systems that are only sketchy, theoretical musings now (if at all possible, let alone practical). Either way, here’s an [interesting read on NASA’s site](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/ipspaper.html) about some pie-in-the-sky thinking in this regard. > [@NASA](#): > > The need to exceed light speed: Simply put, the universe is big. The fastest thing known is light, yet it takes over four years for light to reach our nearest neighboring star. **When NASA’s Voyager spacecraft left our solar system is was traveling around 37- thousand mph. At that rate it couldn’t reach the nearest star until after 80-thousand years.** If we want to cruise to other stars within comfortable time spans (say, less than a term in Congress), we have to figure out a way to go faster than light… ---
**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 4, 2013, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/34 "2013-03-04T07:44:31Z")
As for the OP, I believe that penguins live in the Antarctic - that doesn’t mean that I think one is waddling down my block. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/35 "2013-03-04T08:03:47Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > And any civilization that is capable of visiting in some form is probally more than capable of doing it _without_ being caught. I don’t understand this type of thinking. I guess it’s brought on by too many movies or TV. Or maybe by the fact that so many people believe in UFO’s but have no proof to back it up. I doubt in real life there would be a Prime Directive (except in cases where the life was still a soup or shortly thereafter). You have amateurs scouring space and the VLA has spent tons of time searching for evidence of ET life. We are dying to make contact. I doubt we would travel the far reaches of the universe just to sneak around. Not only that, as has been pointed out technology is still brand spanking new. Devises still exist in great numbers to destroy ourselves many times over. And new nations are developing that technology all the time. If we figure out how to get over that hump, that is information that we would almost have an obligation to share. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/36 "2013-03-04T10:06:09Z")
There is some research somewhere which found that the incidence of UFOs only occurred in the 1950s et seq. The theory drawn is that people became susceptible to the idea of space flight and started to see phenomena which reinforced their active imaginations. Plus there have been a lot of experimental balloons and aircraft over the last 60 years which have contributed to the belief in UFOs. That aside, other posters have correctly pointed out the diminishingly small odds of an intelligent race stumbling across Earth just as we reach nuclear physics. Ok…it is possible but really really unlikely. I suspect we’ll just have the microbes on Titan for company for quite a while yet. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/37 "2013-03-04T11:55:19Z")
I know astronomy, meteorology, and aviation very well. Most UFO stories I regard as pure bullshit (especially those where Matthew and Bubba were abducted by aliens while out fishing at night), but I have seen things in the sky that simply cannot be explained any other way. It’s always been in the company of witnesses so I know I wasn’t hallucinating. The odds against our being visited must be very low, given the number of planets in the Galaxy, but if there are extraterrestrials, the probability is greater than zero. It would be logical for them to map out areas capable of sustaining life as they know it prior to embarking on any voyages of exploration. If they’re carbon-based, our part of the Galaxy would be included in any such preliminary survey. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/38 "2013-03-04T12:22:29Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > I don’t understand this type of thinking. I guess it’s brought on by too many movies or TV. Or maybe by the fact that so many people believe in UFO’s but have no proof to back it up. I doubt in real life there would be a Prime Directive (except in cases where the life was still a soup or shortly thereafter). > > You have amateurs scouring space and the VLA has spent tons of time searching for evidence of ET life. We are dying to make contact. I doubt we would travel the far reaches of the universe just to sneak around. > > Not only that, as has been pointed out technology is still brand spanking new. Devises still exist in great numbers to destroy ourselves many times over. And new nations are developing that technology all the time. If we figure out how to get over that hump, that is information that we would almost have an obligation to share. The point is this: it is extremely unlikely that two sentient species will meet and have technology of approximately the same level. Given the billions of years that the universe has been around the chances are that one species will be at least millions of years ahead of the other. So, yes, when humans start the exploring game, we no doubt will want to communicate with other species (and the prime directive makes little sense anyway). But that’s a very different situation to a random species visiting Earth. In such a situation, chances are, they would be so unimaginably far advanced than us that they would have little to nothing to gain from communicating with us. They could probably learn all they need from observing us (and would probably know more about us from doing so than we know about ourselves). As for everything else, I wouldn’t claim to know how an extraterrestrial species would think. If they cared about us starting a global war, perhaps the easiest thing for them to do would be intercept our missiles. Perhaps the only “advice” they could give on working out such problems would be: Step 1: Engineer your genome so you no longer have aggressive and tribal tendancies. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/39 "2013-03-04T13:51:44Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > . . . They could probably learn all they need from observing us (and would probably know more about us from doing so than we know about ourselves). . . . Do you mean that across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours could this moment be watching us? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876/40 "2013-03-04T14:12:34Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Do you mean that across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours could \*\* this moment\*\* be watching us? Ahhh-but which moment? Assuming that they, like us, are limited to the speed of light, then aliens who may be watching earth right now are not seeing _us_ . If they are on a planet 250 or 500 light years away, then they are watching Napoleon’s armies marching in Europe, or they are watching Martin Luther posting his theses on a church door, etc, etc. And if they decide to come visit us, maybe it’s because they want to help us. Maybe they want to help us improve our technology… so they are coming to show us how to build a steam engine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-so-anyone-have-a-feeling-about-ufos/651876.md?page=3)