Anybody ever get the feeling that some people are starting to grasp for straws?

[Ydoow]

Is there a spell check on forum posts?

Clearly not. It never helps a conspiracy theorist\'s point when they try to define intelligent life, but can\'t spell \'intelligent\' themselves

All the evidence points to it, and the arguments against are mostly all purely hypothetical.

That statement is wrong.

I don\'t believe there is any evidence to indicate we are alone in the galaxy.

The absence of evidence, is not the evidence of absence.

And furthermore, one of the biggest things going on now is finding Earth-like planets that appear to have life-capable resources similar to earth, and they\'ve found tons of them and they keep finding more.

Do they hold life? Who the hell knows.

But to say this is evidence against life in the galaxy, I think not.

If they have been around for long enough, chances are they\'d have destroyed themselves already.

And if we don\'t know about them, how do they know about us?

Their signals would have reached MUCH further.

The probability of discovering us by chance is almost IMPOSSIBLE.

I don\'t agree with the logic of that first sentence.

Why would the probability of self-annihilation substantially increase the longer a species exists?

That\'s 100% counter-intuitive in regards to evolutionary laws, and Dinosaurs lived for Millions upon Millions of years, far beyond anything we can comprehend, but didn\'t self-annihilate.

This only applies to intelligent life? You need to define intelligent life and what separates us from everything else.

If you\'re to argue that because humans use tools to greatly manipulate their environment, and that leads to self-annihilation, then I feel you are wrong still.

Human nature is filled with anger, jealousy and other emotions that lead to violence. But having intelligence doesn\'t inherently lead to violence.

Alien species could have entirely different emotions, or none at all.

It very much depends on the culture, history and social structure these \'aliens\' were raised in. Which I highly doubt anyone could predict.

Finding us by accident is INSANELY unlikely, I completely agree.

But take a step back.

We\'ve found hundreds of Earth-like planets in hope they have life. Why then, is it so unlikely they could have found us?

Why would they search for planets with life?

Well why do we search?

The answer may not be the same, but my point is that there are reasons for searching.

Maybe they, like us, just wanted to prove they weren\'t alone.

Maybe they wanted resources.

Maybe they wanted a new planet.

My ultimate point in all this, is that you can\'t prove it one way or the other; aliens do or don\'t exist/visited us. Not yet at least.

And saying 'It\'s stupid, it\'s unlikely, the chances are slim, there\'s no reason, there\'s no evidence' are all superficial arguments that don\'t hold any water because those are really just excuses for a lack of having evidence in either direction.

[Alfastar]

I stopped this very unrealistic and not proven \'\'documentary\'\' at 01:45. Saying that dino\'s are aliens. Are this persons desperate because there never got a strong proof that there was aliens or talk there alone because there got some money and PR?

Sorry, but whats next? Saying that Mimas is a Dead star type spacecraft?

And why is this program still on the History channel? If I look to the History channel, then I expected no non-proofed \'\'historical\'\' aliens talk...

[Ydoow]

I stopped this very unrealistic and not proven \'\'documentary\'\' at 01:45. Saying that dino\'s are aliens. Are this persons desperate because there never got a strong proof that there was aliens or talk there alone because there got some money and PR?

Sorry, but whats next? Saying that Mimas is a Dead star type spacecraft?

And why is this program still on the History channel? If I look to the History channel, then I expected no non-proofed \'\'historical\'\' aliens talk...

The first 2 or 3 seasons of this show were REALLY great. Now they\'ve run out of material and are just crazy and stupid.

They used to give actual evidence, physical evidence.

Like a map of Antarctica accurate enough to be comparable to satellite imagery dated before the discovery of Antarctica.

They had lots of crazy things like this in the first 2 episodes, and it really made you think

[Kryten]

They used to give actual evidence, physical evidence.

Like a map of Antarctica accurate enough to be comparable to satellite imagery dated before the discovery of Antarctica.

That\'s not really evidence; all maps showed a \'terra australis\' well before antarctica was discovered, to \'balance out\' the weight of the land in the north; it\'s inevitable that one of these complete guesses would seem close enough to someone as suggestible as the clowns at the \'history\' channel. The rest of the evidence they show for anything is just as shaky.

[VincentMcConnell]

Kryten, there\'s no way they could have known how individual shorelines looked from above Antartica:

1.) Before Antarctica was discovered

2.) Before flight was supposedly done.

Remember, the ancient people said that the Gods took them up in flying chariots to look down upon their land. They describe the landmarks with perfect accuracy from above... As an Atheist, I don\'t believe 'Gods' took them up at all. I think that a superior being took them into the air, maybe even into space, and said, 'That\'s your land. Look down on it.' or something. That would explain a lot of really strange ancient myths.

[VincentMcConnell]

They used to give actual evidence, physical evidence.

They had lots of crazy things like this in the first 2 episodes, and it really made you think

They still have a good episode every once in a while, even in the newer seasons. Sometimes, though, it just gets a little whacky. You\'ll notice that in the more 'radical' episodes, Giorgio doesn\'t appear. I\'ve asked him personally about this and he said that when he doesn\'t agree with something, he won\'t show up in that section of the episode. Your best and safest bet on the AA hypothesis is to really only listen to things Giorgio Tsoukalos says in support of the hypothesis. He has the most knowledge on the subject and usually only provides believable ideas about Ancient Astronauts.

[Kryten]

Kryten, there\'s no way they could have known how individual shorelines looked from above Antartica:

1.) Before Antarctica was discovered

2.) Before flight was supposedly done.

And they didn\'t. I\'ve seen the maps you\'re talking about, they only match if you\'re mind\'s so open that you\'re brains fallen out.

[N3X15]

Remember when the history channel used to be about history and not Hitler and Aliens running pawnshops?

[Kryten]

Remember when the history channel used to be about history and not Hitler and Aliens running pawnshops?

Hitler was years ago. People are nostalgic about the Hitler Channel now, it least it wasn\'t this rubbish.

[VincentMcConnell]

And they didn\'t. I\'ve seen the maps you\'re talking about, they only match if you\'re mind\'s so open that you\'re brains fallen out.

Ok. How does this not look the same to you?

[Kryten]

Ok. How does this not look the same to you?

...

Because I\'m not blind.

And notice how they have to use forced perspective on the real one to make it look even that \'similar\'.

EDIT: Come on, it has rivers. IN ANTARCTICA. How can that not strike you as blatantly wrong?

DOUBLE EDIT: Oh god, In?ula Atlantis. Is that where this is going?

[VincentMcConnell]

...

Because I\'m not blind.

And notice how they have to use forced perspective on the real one to make it look even that \'similar\'.

EDIT: Come on, it has rivers. IN ANTARCTICA. How can that not strike you as blatantly wrong?

DOUBLE EDIT: Oh god, In?ula Atlantis. Is that where this is going?

Really? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That\'s very similar. Notice the big chunk missing on the right, the arm that extends to the right and the curve at the bottom left. Some of the coast lines are even the same. Here\'s your job. Without looking it up or anything, I want you to perfectly draw Shorty Crater on the lunar surface from above. When you\'re done, let\'s see how similar it looks.

Those aren\'t rivers, they\'re cracks of some kind. And the same picture can be found under the title of Atlantis, but also when you google image 'Ancient Map of Antarctica.' If you don\'t see the similarities, I\'d be worried you\'re blind.

[Kryten]

If you look up the actual context of that map, it\'s placed between America and Africa. Just where Antarctica really is, right?

Also, look at this;

Look at it from the side; it\'s at least as similar to that map as Antarctica is, and it\'s right where the map says it is. And was known, if poorly, for a century and a half before that map was made.

EDIT

Those aren\'t rivers, they\'re cracks of some kind.

There are just as many gigantic cracks in Antarctica as there are rivers. Who\'s grasping at straws\' now?

[VincentMcConnell]

You can point out more differences in St. Paul\'s than the other two. And I\'ve seen that map at the bottom of a flattened globe, too.

[Monkthespy]

This is just turning into a pointless argument.

You both have your opinions, good job. So please, stop arguing if ancients mapped Antarctica or not. It\'s pointless, as we will NEVER know for sure without time travel or something.

[Kryten]

And I\'ve seen that map at the bottom of a flattened globe, too.

Then whoever put it there was lying to you, simply put. That\'s not where Kircher put it, and he\'s the only source for it.

EDIT: And notice how they say a map from the 1670s is \'ancient\'? No bias there, I\'m sure.

[vexx32]

Oh my, what a pointless argument. We\'ll never know for sure what happened centuries or millennia ago... it is pointless to try. The best we can do is look to and prepare for the future, and I often think many people are too obsessed with the past, since there are so many things that could happen in the future that should get more attention and yet we ignore them. We ought to be changing what we still can, not bosessing over what may or may not have happened millennia ago.

[Iskierka]

Original map seen here.

Given its location, I\'m pretty sure it\'s not meant to be Antarctica.

Given the Latin in the corner of the map translating as 'The situation of the Island of Atlantis, once engulfed by the sea in the mind of the Egyptians and Plato\'s description,' I\'m pretty sure it was never intended as Antarctica, or more than a guess with respect to shape. Specially since you can far more easily argue that, viewed in the normal north-south orientation, it\'s much, much closer to being a mirrored Africa. Or even, gasp, Greenland, the island which it is close to.

And finally, given the accuracy of the -known- coastlines of Spain, and France, and to a lesser extend the north of Africa, I really, really don\'t think this guy gave a damn about how well the map was drawn, hence there is no reason to expect any similarity to any landmass that it may have been intended to look like.

---

As for the argument of detecting signals that was brought up: no. Early analogue TV stations could easily be MW-class transmitters, since we had no way to overcome signal to noise issues beyond producing more signal. Those have been in use maybe half a century, but have now been almost totally replaced with low-energy digital transmission.

Even before the transition to digital, however, we were already trying to optimise, by using tricks such as directional transmission to make the signal spread laterally, and using frequencies which refracted in the upper atmosphere, causing them to only minimally escape. This latter effect is strong enough that it isn\'t uncommon for it to be genuinely possible for West-coast Americans to sometimes pick up Japanese TV at night, despite being a third of the way around the planet.

As if these emission-reducing methods wouldn\'t have been enough on their own, the power reduction with digital transmission is absurd. TV satellites can readily only be on the order of 10-200 watts output, and further to that, they\'re directional: almost all of their signal solidly hits Earth and is absorbed. We\'re emitting hardly anything these days, and extending the problem, we\'re sitting right next to a lamp emitting 24 thousand billion times as much energy as we are using in total all over the globe.

Not to mention these days you need that little card in the box to actually decrypt the signal and watch it.

As a note, I don\'t believe we\'re alone. I just don\'t believe anyone would have visited us. I\'m doubtful of the possibility of such distant travel in the first place, I know that any theories as to rapid interstellar travel are so far difficult to justify, definitively impossible, or require enough energy that they would require violating thermodynamics to even come close. Which is pure no, as thermodynamics is the one area which the argument 'we could be wrong' is not going to work with. Even if they could travel and seeded either us or life in general, why pick a planet 10% too large for your little science experiment to be able to leave, or that was so hostile to it?

The probability of alien life existing is high; the required molecules for Earth-like life have been detected in significant quantities in nebulae, and demonstrated to form readily in conditions found on most young planets with atmospheres. I\'d say the probability of intelligent life is too. It\'s the probability of any life getting anywhere that is the stumbling block.

---

TL;dr: Aliens visiting us is bollocks. At least any who gave us anything; perhaps some visited, saw the slave labour in Egypt, and decided 'screw this we\'re out.' To address a final two points, 'Chariots of fire' would be something skimming meteors would look very much like, and given the level of detail I\'ve heard in any ancient accounts, it would be easy enough to just know what was built on top of something or know the relative distances between places, and make a plenty-accurate description of it from above. You severely underestimate human ingenuity and ability to reason.

[Alfastar]

Oh my, what a pointless argument. We\'ll never know for sure what happened centuries or millennia ago... it is pointless to try. The best we can do is look to and prepare for the future, and I often think many people are too obsessed with the past, since there are so many things that could happen in the future that should get more attention and yet we ignore them. We ought to be changing what we still can, not bosessing over what may or may not have happened millennia ago.

Yea, history is happens in the past. When I write this then I write in the past. I think we all must more focus on the future and not alone in the past.

Original map seen here.

Given its location, I\'m pretty sure it\'s not meant to be Antarctica.

Given the Latin in the corner of the map translating as 'The situation of the Island of Atlantis, once engulfed by the sea in the mind of the Egyptians and Plato\'s description,' I\'m pretty sure it was never intended as Antarctica, or more than a guess with respect to shape. Specially since you can far more easily argue that, viewed in the normal north-south orientation, it\'s much, much closer to being a mirrored Africa. Or even, gasp, Greenland, the island which it is close to.

And finally, given the accuracy of the -known- coastlines of Spain, and France, and to a lesser extend the north of Africa, I really, really don\'t think this guy gave a damn about how well the map was drawn, hence there is no reason to expect any similarity to any landmass that it may have been intended to look like.

---

As for the argument of detecting signals that was brought up: no. Early analogue TV stations could easily be MW-class transmitters, since we had no way to overcome signal to noise issues beyond producing more signal. Those have been in use maybe half a century, but have now been almost totally replaced with low-energy digital transmission.

Even before the transition to digital, however, we were already trying to optimise, by using tricks such as directional transmission to make the signal spread laterally, and using frequencies which refracted in the upper atmosphere, causing them to only minimally escape. This latter effect is strong enough that it isn\'t uncommon for it to be genuinely possible for West-coast Americans to sometimes pick up Japanese TV at night, despite being a third of the way around the planet.

As if these emission-reducing methods wouldn\'t have been enough on their own, the power reduction with digital transmission is absurd. TV satellites can readily only be on the order of 10-200 watts output, and further to that, they\'re directional: almost all of their signal solidly hits Earth and is absorbed. We\'re emitting hardly anything these days, and extending the problem, we\'re sitting right next to a lamp emitting 24 thousand billion times as much energy as we are using in total all over the globe.

Not to mention these days you need that little card in the box to actually decrypt the signal and watch it.

As a note, I don\'t believe we\'re alone. I just don\'t believe anyone would have visited us. I\'m doubtful of the possibility of such distant travel in the first place, I know that any theories as to rapid interstellar travel are so far difficult to justify, definitively impossible, or require enough energy that they would require violating thermodynamics to even come close. Which is pure no, as thermodynamics is the one area which the argument 'we could be wrong' is not going to work with. Even if they could travel and seeded either us or life in general, why pick a planet 10% too large for your little science experiment to be able to leave, or that was so hostile to it?

The probability of alien life existing is high; the required molecules for Earth-like life have been detected in significant quantities in nebulae, and demonstrated to form readily in conditions found on most young planets with atmospheres. I\'d say the probability of intelligent life is too. It\'s the probability of any life getting anywhere that is the stumbling block.

---

TL;dr: Aliens visiting us is bollocks. At least any who gave us anything; perhaps some visited, saw the slave labour in Egypt, and decided 'screw this we\'re out.' To address a final two points, 'Chariots of fire' would be something skimming meteors would look very much like, and given the level of detail I\'ve heard in any ancient accounts, it would be easy enough to just know what was built on top of something or know the relative distances between places, and make a plenty-accurate description of it from above. You severely underestimate human ingenuity and ability to reason.

I believe too that there are lifeforms on some exoplanets, And maybe even in our solar system (And no, I mean not earth), but here in our solar system we find outside earth on some planets alone microscopic life.

And I also believe in intelligent lifeforms on other planets in our milky way. I don\'t believe in rare earth theory\'s, but in theory\'s that we are not the only intelligent lifeforms.

I think it is time to soon make a international big interplanetary manned spaceship, and not focus only on militarily.

[vexx32]

I\'ll say one more thing I thought of as I was thinking on things like this earlier today, and then I\'ll go annoy someone else... because this isn\'t strictly on-topic, really.

In my opinion, the past should be remembered as best we can, but we shouldn\'t go digging (mostly in the metaphorical sense)... some things will have been deliberately hidden by those who have had the foresight to see that anyone who looks back will be better off not knowing. We should take the lessons left behind by the past and use them not to dig further into the past, but to look ahead into the future. Anyone with any foresight (and there have been many) will have deliberately hidden anything that may send the future into chaos and suchlike.

In other words... let the past be. Whilst it was instrumental in paving the way for the present, it is not important (and probably not wise, either) to be digging deeper than what was deliberately left behind. I mean, if we all believed our past was perfect, we\'d all strive to keep it perfect. If we somehow could convince the future population of the world that all the problems in the world at that time are all their creation alone, they will strive to right their perceived 'wrongs'.

Of course, this assumes anyone in the past was actually planning centuries ahead, but honestly it\'s quite likely they were. Statistically, anyway.

[Richy teh space man]

No one mentioned the Nazca lines? They can only be seen from above properly..

I think its more then likely we have been visited by extraterrestial life in the past, and they may still be visiting us but just keeping a low profile.. after all they probably think we\'re a violent and relatively simple people (which compared to them we probably are)

[Johno]

Okay, let\'s be generous; let\'s say that there are a million sentient species in our galaxy.

Further, let\'s be even more daring and say that this million species are all similar enough to us to be recogniseably life forms, maybe even similar enough to develop some kind of a dialogue with.

Further, let\'s go RIGHT OUT THERE and say that all million began their development at such a time that we all exist within +/- 100,000 years of each other.

EVEN THEN, the scale of the Galaxy all but guarantees that no two of them would ever cross paths.

Consider the difficulty involved in getting a human to Alpha Centauri (the closest star to the Sun). You\'re looking at 700,000 years travel by the fastest projected methods of transport[1]. That\'s just to get there, never mind back; and even then, whilst we might be able to guess at whether life exists on a theoretical planet near the star (based on the gas composition - we can detect that, and if we were to detect a 20% Oxygen atmosphere, it tells us that there\'s very likely life there), it\'s still a big gamble to send someone[3] there. How do we know we\'re not just sending them to a jungle with nothing bigger or smarter than an insect living there?

There is no evidence of any other intelligent species; and frankly, even if there were lots, we wouldn\'t expect any evidence. The distances are just too great.

[1] Of course, this is assuming (as we\'re about 90% sure) that travelling faster than light is a logical impossiblity[2]. If someone out there has developed FTL travel, then that\'s a game changer. But it\'s also a physics changer - we\'ll need a whole new framework of physics to understand how that could happen.

[2] As opposed to a physical impossiblity. It is physically impossible for a human to fly; however, given the right technology we can overcome a physical impossibility. Although it is impossible, the concept itself makes sense. However, nobody can make a square circle - it\'s a logical impossibility. The concept does NOT make sense. According to our current understanding of Physics (and remember, we really hope we\'re wrong - a lot of us are Star Wars or Star Trek geeks!!), the concept of travelling faster than light may well be LOGICALLY impossible, or internally inconsistent. Therefore, we\'re not expecting developments in technology to fix the problem.

[3] Given that they\'ll be travelling for longer than the entirety of human history has existed, that\'s a big ask. The only practical way to even consider doing this with current technology would be to send an entire, self-sustaining community on a massive asteroid ship. It may become possible to put crews into some form of cryo-sleep later on, but even that\'s no guarantee of anything longer than a normal human life span.

[mincespy]

Okay, let\'s be generous; let\'s say that there are a million sentient species in our galaxy.

Further, let\'s be even more daring and say that this million species are all similar enough to us to be recogniseably life forms, maybe even similar enough to develop some kind of a dialogue with.

Further, let\'s go RIGHT OUT THERE and say that all million began their development at such a time that we all exist within +/- 100,000 years of each other.

EVEN THEN, the scale of the Galaxy all but guarantees that no two of them would ever cross paths.

Consider the difficulty involved in getting a human to Alpha Centauri (the closest star to the Sun). You\'re looking at 700,000 years travel by the fastest projected methods of transport[1]. That\'s just to get there, never mind back; and even then, whilst we might be able to guess at whether life exists on a theoretical planet near the star (based on the gas composition - we can detect that, and if we were to detect a 20% Oxygen atmosphere, it tells us that there\'s very likely life there), it\'s still a big gamble to send someone[3] there. How do we know we\'re not just sending them to a jungle with nothing bigger or smarter than an insect living there?

There is no evidence of any other intelligent species; and frankly, even if there were lots, we wouldn\'t expect any evidence. The distances are just too great.

[1] Of course, this is assuming (as we\'re about 90% sure) that travelling faster than light is a logical impossiblity[2]. If someone out there has developed FTL travel, then that\'s a game changer. But it\'s also a physics changer - we\'ll need a whole new framework of physics to understand how that could happen.

[2] As opposed to a physical impossiblity. It is physically impossible for a human to fly; however, given the right technology we can overcome a physical impossibility. Although it is impossible, the concept itself makes sense. However, nobody can make a square circle - it\'s a logical impossibility. The concept does NOT make sense. According to our current understanding of Physics (and remember, we really hope we\'re wrong - a lot of us are Star Wars or Star Trek geeks!!), the concept of travelling faster than light may well be LOGICALLY impossible, or internally inconsistent. Therefore, we\'re not expecting developments in technology to fix the problem.

[3] Given that they\'ll be travelling for longer than the entirety of human history has existed, that\'s a big ask. The only practical way to even consider doing this with current technology would be to send an entire, self-sustaining community on a massive asteroid ship. It may become possible to put crews into some form of cryo-sleep later on, but even that\'s no guarantee of anything longer than a normal human life span.

Thank you, you\'ve summed it up PERFECTLY there!

I\'m just gonna stay out of this thread now, I think that we are alone in the galaxy (I hope we are).

[Richy teh space man]

Thousands of years ago people thought they couldn\'t sail around the world..

Hundreds of years ago they thought man wouldn\'t fly.. or travel into space..

Experts also said we\'d never fly faster then sound..

If history is any indication of the way we overcome challenges then we\'ll find a way to travel faster then light someday, possibly by bending the fabric of space and time to do it.. (unless we wipe ourselves out first)

[Kryten]

Thousands of years ago people thought they couldn\'t sail around the world..

Hundreds of years ago they thought man wouldn\'t fly.. or travel into space..

Experts also said we\'d never fly faster then sound..

The analogy doesn\'t work; these things don\'t break the laws of physics themselves, people just thought they were impractical; FTL does.