Has Earth been visited by aliens?

[Joolee1980]

Some people think it has and i wondered what evidence there was for this.

[naomi24]

backdrifter, certainly. I've just grabbed this off the internet, and haven't read it all through, but I think it will suffice.

http://www.main.org/p.../glxywest/vimanas.htm

The bible holds one particularly vivid account of something that sounds very much flying machine. If you want to check it out in full, it's in the first chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel of course, wouldn't have had a clue what he was seeing, so bear in mind that although he described it in some detail, he described it in the only way he could - and he thought it was God. This is basically what he says:

//And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire........... And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters .......//

(I have to ask what omnipresent God needs to come hurtling out of the north - and to make such fuss and noise doing it?).

Incidentally, the possibility that Ezekiel speaks of a flying machine was disputed by an eminent Nasa engineer, but after studying the text he subsequently changed his opinion.

It's all food for thought. :o)

[Mogadon]

...no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air...

- Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer,
head of the U.S. Naval Observatory

[jake-the-peg]

Particularly good quote mogadon when you consider that at the time it was said Sir George Cayleigh had already built and run sucessful gliders

[chakka35]

Backdrifter, you are quite right. A mental aberration on my part. Thank you for your correctioin.

[Garmard]

I have read that Area 51 has for the past 50 or so years kept a crashed alien vessel in one of its hangars. Scientist have been able to extract technology over the years and with this came the invention of the microchip, P.C's and believe it or not......Velcro?

[chakka35]

Quite right, Backdrifter. A mental aberration on my part. Thank you for correcting me.

[woofgang]

yes we visited....some of us liked it so much that we stayed

[Garmard]

In the next century we will overcome our almost arrogant, simplistic view that we are the only ones in such a vast universe filled with probably googles of stars and then we will be ready to get out there and meet whatever species exists.

[chakka35]

Garmard, I know nobody - certainly on this site - who takes the arrogant view that we are the only people in the universe. The question isn't even whether other beings might be advanced enough to have some form of travel so far beyond our comprehension.

The question is why on earth (sorry!) they should come to this little speck of dust, orbiting just one star out of 100,000,000,000 stars in just one galaxy out of thousands of millions of galaxies. It's as if a microbe on one grain of sand on the miles of Chesil Beach should decide (once it had found a way of getting there) to visit a microbe on a specific grain of sand on a beach in Havana.

[webbo3]

Reading Bill Bryson's "A short history of nearly everything", this comes from one of the chapters.

The average distance between stars is over 30 million million kilometers, even at speeds approaching those of light these are fantasically challenging distances.

still statisically the probability that there are other thinking beings out there is good. nobody knows how many stars there are in the milky way but estimates range from 100 billion or so to perhaps 400 billion - and the milky way is just one of 140 billion or so other galaxies many of them even larger than ours.

Cont..

[Garmard]

Oh dear chakka35, why on earth do explorers climb Everest, explore the South American jungle, Antartica.......Because we are curious and it is born out of intelligence.
So one day when we go finally jump to the nearest star-Alpha Centauri it is to find out what life is like elsewhere because that is our God given nature, the same reason aliens visit here.......they are intelligent species.

[Garmard]

We are arrogant in a sense that there people out there who believe point blank that life doesn't exist beyond our little planet.........A Medieval view, like the Sun revolves around the earth and our planet is the centre of the universe.

[webbo3]

In the 1960's a professor called Frank Drake worked out a famous equation designed to calculated chances of advanced life existing in the cosmos, based on a series of diminishing probabilities.

under drakes equation you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that have planetary systems, divide that by the number of planetary systems that could support life, divide that by the number on which life, haven arisen advances to a state of intelligence and so on....,

at each division the number shrinks colossally - yet even with the most conservative inputs the number of advanced civilizations just in the milky way always works out to be somewhere in the millions.

Now whether they travel billions of miles to make crop circles or scare a redneck in a pickup truk in Arazona is another matter.

Dave.

[Garmard]

That is probably based on life as we know it webbo3.

[naomi24]

Chakka, if they have visited earth perhaps it's because they detected the presence of life here. We're in our infancy as far as space travel is concerned, but we send out life seeking probes, so there's no reason to assume they haven't done the same - only they're possibly better at it. ;o)

[Garmard]

Yeehaa! Naomi24. I could kiss you. You are bang on the button, why can't anybody else see this?

[naomi24]

//Now whether they travel billions of miles to make crop circles or scare a redneck in a pickup truk in Arazona is another matter. //

Dave, I don't think we're taking the trouble to look for life in space just to make crop circles or to scare alien rednecks. Space travel is all about exploration and progress.

[naomi24]

Oo-er! Be my guest, Garmard. (Blush). :o)

Actually, I don't know why other people can't see it. Curious.

[webbo3]

Garmand \\That is probably based on life as we know it webbo3//

Exactually, we are basing everything on our existance, how fast we can travel in our spaceships, whos to say that an alien civilization have'nt the ability to travel faster, have found out how to use worm holes (if they exist) etc.

200 years ago, cars nad plnes would have been inconprehencible to the people then, whos to say in 300 years time we cant have maned space travel to the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Naomi, I was'nt saying aliens come here to make crop circles and abduct people, if they did come here im sure they would make themselves known to us in a more interesting way.


Dave.

[naomi24]

Oh I see Dave. Thanks. I thought it was a bit contradictory to the rest of your post. Sorry, I misunderstood. :o)