Not so much “proof”, but what’s the closest we came to finding out there MAY be life out there? Searching around, I found two fairly compelling instances:
McMinnville, Oregon photos. After much analysis, it does appear to be a photo of a large disk far away.
The WOW signal. Extraordinarily powerful signal detected in deep space.
Naturally, playing the odds says it’s likely there’s someone else out there at some time. While not calling the above two unequivocal evidence, are there any that are as “close”? Like from SETI or that big dish in Puerto Rico?
This Martian Meteorite is the only evidence I would consider reputable that gives us any suggestion that there may be life elsewhere.
This life would be on the level of bacteria and would not produce flying saucers. As far as I’m concerned, flying saucers are man-made (either by some military out there, or by the imaginations of the people looking at pictures).
The Martian meteorite is pretty thoroughly discredited.
But, as you imply, the universe is so freaking huge that it is unimaginable that there is not life, even intelligent life, somewhere else in it. The fact that we have started discovering extrasolar planets, in abundance, over the past few years (where, previously, it was thought that it might be quite rare for stars to have planets) has made it seem even more of a certainty that someone must be out there somewhere.
While I certainly believe (as do many) that there’s life out there, somewhere, the only thing that came to my mind was the Martian meteorite in 1996, but that doesn’t quite pass muster.
The WOW! Signal is interesting, but it’s more likely it was a fluke than a bonifide alien signal.
If you ever get a chance to do some star gazing and look out into a summer sky and see the amount of stars and other systems out there. Eventually you may get the its mathematically improbable that we are the only living beings out there thought.
It may not be little green men, but the universe is to huge for us to be alone.
And that’s just the start of it- next time you’re at a beach, take a handful of sand. There are more grains of sand in that handful than all the visible stars in the darkest, clearest night sky. Then consider the fact that there are more stars out there that can’t be seen than there are individual grains of sand on every beach and desert combined on this planet.
Mars is essentially in the same orbit.…Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
I don’t think you can really put these in the same category. One is what appears to be a slightly weird shape in a photograph, to go from that to “alien life”, is a ridiculous logical leap of faith.
That latter is a genuine unexplained signal from outer space. Its still a long way from evidence of alien life, but until its explained, its very intriguing.
Just in case Icerigger didn’t make this totally clear, Argent Towers’s post was a direct quote of former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle in 1989.[1] Here, it was intended as a joke. When VP Quayle said it…not so much.
