A
Amaris
Guest
This. Sometimes I think we're either too early, or too late in the game.
"Nasa Discovers Earth's 'Older, Bigger Cousin'"
- Thread starter SPCTRE
- Start date
If you ever see a mysterious laser being pointed at you and you can't figure out where it's coming from, it's probably aliens trying to make contact.
Once the laser pings Gort's cruiser, it's all over.
Would have to think early. If life had been around forever (or just long time), you'd think there'd be evidence. junk, radio waves, whatever. maybe there is and we don't recognize it as such. Or we're just from a quiet neighborhood. Enough cultures throw enough crap out into space, should be able to find something eventually. Needle in a haystack, I suppose, but we're at least digging in the hay.
More likely that there's nothing out there, or it's so alien we can't see it. Or we're the only ones that care about space/leaving the planet and everyone else is a dolphin or something.
Vast distance means we could just be too far away to ever notice, but kinda cancel that out with the vast time scale involved. If we don't destroy ourselves, imagine we'll make a pretty good mess of the neighborhood over the next couple thousand years. Given even longer than that, who knows? What's a million years from now do to evidence of our existence? And we're talking scales in BILLIONS, so if someone else was out there, seems like we might be able to see that somehow. Or they prime-directive'd us.
Kinda same argument against time travel ever being invented. If it was ever invented, we'd likely already have proof. Humans just aren't that tidy, we'd eventually find a wristwatch in the fossil of a TRex or something, it would start getting crowded in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, that sort of thing. That we've seen NO evidence likely means there never will be.
Conspiracy theorists will insist that NASA has found evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and covered it up, out of belief that the public couldn't handle the truth, which was something the Brookings Report postulated.
I suspect that, or we've been prime directed.
I have to admit, it would explain a lot.
I suspect that, or we've been prime directed.
I have to admit, it would explain a lot.
I saw it in a movie once. 
Yes, but we shot them right after they landed.
Even then, though, we've put out enough garbage into the universe that there will be evidence for a while, even if the planet is a cinder.
Suppose a trashed, radioactive cinder is also evidence, though, just gotta get closer to see it.
Someone's ancient probe comes winging by the moon, and sure we'll notice. Or more common, but harder to pick out, all the signals we've put out, intentional or not. Radio, TV, light, etc. And that's moving a tad faster than a probe
If we kill ourselves off within the next century, then our legacy to the cosmos will principally be a burst of radio waves only one or two hundred light years thick?!? If we do, any civilization out there that comes online and isn't scanning their heavens exactly in that window as that burst passes by them quite probably would never know we even existed.
Maybe superluminal travel just isn't possible for living beings.
But also maybe any day now we will discover a quantum entanglement intergalactic equivalent of CB Radio and make communications contact with huge numbers of civilizations all at the same time.
It would almost be a relief. We could share our knowledge, culture, etc, and maybe even visit each other through robot telepresence if the bandwidth is good enough - without any risk that any of us would ever invade one another, because we can't actually reach each other.
This is very cool! It had been my understanding that the detection of exoplanets to be very nearly impossible.
I would compare these discoveries to.... Galileo making a telescope and discovering the moons of Jupiter.
I am also lucky because of the exploration of our own solar system, from Mercury to Pluto.
All this during the same era!
I feel lucky to be alive at this time.
It had been my understanding that the detection of exoplanets to be very nearly impossible. I would compare these discoveries to.... Galileo making a telescope and discovering the moons of Jupiter.
I am also lucky because of the exploration of our own solar system, from Mercury to Pluto.
All this during the same era!
I feel lucky to be alive at this time.
