Ok, I'll be the first to say it,
Not Ironic

IStealUrSoxFromTheDryer: Ok, I'll be the first to say it,
Not Ironic

seconded

I hope he goes all Buzz Aldrin on him.

That's just like a politician saying there is no evidence of corruption by any person in the government.

It's a streetlight.

Keith Basterfield? What an unfortunate name.

I'll jump in on that as well!

UFO researchers (and the rest of us) should want proof. Even if they want to believe at least they are being 'responsible' and waiting for evidence.

now ladies and gentalmen if you would please stand here and look into this little red light all your questions will be ansered

Mr Guy: I hope he goes all Buzz Aldrin on him.

I hope he goes all Lisa Nowak on him

Irony and mercury are a lot alike. As a kid I handled both in a carefree manner but now have people that constantly remind me of the dangers of my youth.

Of COURSE he would say that... he is IN ON IT! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!

/How was that?

Fark Me Runnin It's a streetlight.

Never gets old

/and I second that

IStealUrSoxFromTheDryer: Ok, I'll be the first to say it,
Not Ironic

Agreed.

UFO researcher != UFO enthusiast

as much as I hate all the dumb arguments about irony and proper use of the tag, this one is wrong.

The laws of probability pretty much make it cut and dry:

The Universe is just too damned big for us to be the ONLY living things in it. There has to be SOMETHING out there SOMEWHERE.

Seriously! How arrogant is it to think that we're so special that we're all alone, floating around in the big empty with no other life anywhere else? That's a Christian mindset right there. "God loves us, God gives us, us us us and only us. God made us in his image." Whatever. You just want to feel special.

Truth is, in the grand scheme of things, you're not. I'm not, he's not, she's not, your dog isn't, nothing is. In the grand scheme of things, we're pretty much ants: a species working as a society/collective in orter to further its own existance as a whole, living on a rock orbiting a middle-aged star in the outer arm of one of literally hundreds of (known) spiral galaxies.

Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

Mr. Robo-Pants: Of COURSE he would say that... he is IN ON IT! WAKE UP PEOPLESHEEPLE!!

/How was that?

FTFY

This isn't even sarcasm or coincidence masquerading as irony.

Mr. Robo-Pants: Of COURSE he would say that... he is IN ON IT! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!

At the risk of sounding like the US treasury guy, due to my job I've gotten pretty fair on my check list of US Military Nerdvanas, including the Nevada Test Site. Our tour there was one of the guys in charge of operations during the height of nuclear test and was intimately familiar with Area 51. We visited Sedan Crater, which is basically just around a foothill from Area 51. I personally observed a truck marked, "WARNING: EXPERIMENTAL JET FUEL" traveling in the direction of Area 51, on the road that leads to Area 51, while our tour guide who used to be in charge of the entire test site made the comment, "Gee, wonder what they are doing out there".

I say all that to say this: I remain firmly convinced UFO's ARE the cover up.

I want to be leaves.

All these "UFO Researchers" are in on it. They just want to make others disbelieve by making themselves look like loonies. Some of them probably even ARE aliens.

The truth is out there. Way out there.

TemperedEdge: words...

I agree that there is very likely life on other planets in the universe. In fact I'm almost sure of it. I agree with almost everything you said.

But the argument here isn't whether or not life exists elsewhere, it's about whether or not that life is capable of that kind of travel, and has actually come to this planet. Of that there's no evidence and no real reason to believe.

TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

This is as ironic as that time Jesus came back from the dead and some Jew didn't believe it.

Mr Guy

And yet someone wins the powerball lottery every month. The odds might not be good for an individual planet to have life....but the chances are that the lottery has been won more than once.

About three years ago, I was riding with a friend and his wife when we spotted a UFO in broad daylight: it appeared to be a silver sphere just floating in the sky. I'm not used to seeing these things, but he said that they not only saw them "all the time", but alluded that he'd had negative contact with "the space people" on numerous, previous occasions; my personal opinion is that whatever is behind this phenomenon is an evil source, based upon summerizing everything I've heard. Yes, I believe that this stuff is real, but don't necessarily buy that they are interplanetary, rather inter-dimensional. That and four bucks will buy you a cup at Starbuck's

Irony is like bronzy and goldy, except it's made of iron.

pendy575: And yet someone wins the powerball lottery every month. The odds might not be good for an individual planet to have life....but the chances are that the lottery has been won more than once.

There is proof the lottery has been won more than once. We know of exactly one planet with life, and only one planet with Earth-like conditions. How can anyone say how likely it is for another one to exist?

Two type of UFO's here:

The military kind: experimental jets, etc. absolutely exist, probabaly account for 3/4th of sighting of real aircraft.


The Alien kind: If real, maybe make up 1/100th of all real sightings.

balthan

And 12 months ago most of the scientific commumity would have thought there to be zero chance of water on Mars. And yet here we are.

pendy575: And yet someone wins the powerball lottery every month. The odds might not be good for an individual planet to have life....but the chances are that the lottery has been won more than once.

And yet, the odds against life forming even once are much worse than that, unless there are forms of life so entirely different from ours, we may not recognize them as being alive in the first place.

Antimatter: Two type of UFO's here:

The military kind: experimental jets, etc. absolutely exist, probabaly account for 3/4th of sighting of real aircraft.


The Alien kind: If real, maybe make up 1/100th of all real sightings.

And the other 24%?

TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there.

No, guessing says life is out there. Math says there are too many unknown variables to make any conclusions.

FTA: He says he believes Dr Mitchell may have damaged the work of serious scientific researchers into UFOs due to the former astronaut's broad claims and his inability to source what he's presenting as fact.

BWHAHAHAH, he damaged the UFO research field image?? HAAHH

Mr Guy: TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

You may want to check the math your using. "really making the case that we live in a crowded universe" (new window)
Wait until we are able to start detecting earth size planets, further away.

Mr Guy: TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

No, the math says that the probability of life occurring at least once approaches 1 the more time goes on because of the consistency of the chemical reactions and natural laws and processes that exist in this universe (gravity, evolution, magnetism, etc.). All it is is a matter of time. The more time passes, the more likely even remote possibilities become almost inevitable.

We know life has already developed because we see it every day. We already know sentient life and intelligent life exists because we see it every day. And this is only one planet in one solar system in one galaxy. Logically, there are good odds on life either existing on other planets in other solar systems in other galaxies or that life could exist on other planets in other solar systems in other galaxies.

Now, that said, there is so far no evidence to support the claim that any extraterrestrial life has visited the planet. UFO claims are either delusions or mistaken identity. Crop circles are all man-made, either in the field or in Photoshop. Claims of abduction have never been substantiated by any actual evidence.

So while I certainly believe that life probably exists out there, a belief that is grounded in sound mathematics and logic, there is nothing credible to the claims that such life has visited us.

Antimatter: Two type of UFO's here:

The military kind: experimental jets, etc. absolutely exist, probabaly account for 3/4th of sighting of real aircraft.


The Alien kind: If real, maybe make up 1/100th of all real sightings.

And what about the other 24/100ths of the sighting?
/I was told there would be no math

spectrek: About three years ago, I was riding with a friend and his wife when we spotted a UFO in broad daylight: it appeared to be a silver sphere just floating in the sky. I'm not used to seeing these things, but he said that they not only saw them "all the time", but alluded that he'd had negative contact with "the space people" on numerous, previous occasions; my personal opinion is that whatever is behind this phenomenon is an evil source, based upon summerizing everything I've heard. Yes, I believe that this stuff is real, but don't necessarily buy that they are interplanetary, rather inter-dimensional. That and four bucks will buy you a cup at Starbuck's

"negative contact" Anal probe?

Mr Guy

they have found life in deep ocean volcano vents. The chance of Mars or Earth developing life are astronomical. The chance that the life that develops looks like our environment even higher. The chance that life exists out there? Well...people keep on winning the powerball every month now don't they?

jaylectricity: This isn't even sarcasm or coincidence masquerading as irony.

Not to get too far off-topic here, but all sarcasm is irony.

Mr Guy: TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

The math is saying otherwise... (to keep it simple)

Think about it:

How many planets are out there? (talking about the whole universe, so the numbers is just about infinite)

Within this infinite number, there are a very large number of these planets that would be in a similar distance (and other similar astral circumstances) from their sun/star.

Within this number of planets (which is still extremely large), there are a very large number of these planets that would have a similar composition than earth, hence, have water and such.

So within these planets, all you need if for the same circumstances to come up... and if all these planets have millions/billions of years for it to happen, odds are, the chance of it happening, will.

But from there, the direction that the evolution of the life takes is impossible to predict.

So mathematically, just the fact that we still see the universe as infinite, mean by default, that the odds aren't 1 to infinite that it happened, but infinite to infinite, in other words... it has to happen.

And then, what about seeding? What if it only took one planet to evolve, and their space traveling technology managed to have them go to other worlds and start terraforming it?

Heck, earth could be either this world that will eventually do this, is might be one that was terraformed, and we just don't know it yet.

Mr Guy: No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

I agree to a degree. The odds that life began once are pretty damn slim. But, given that it did happen once, the odds are that it's happened more than once.

Aside from the Big Bang, there are no truly unique occurrences in the universe (and even that may not be truly unique if you look at things in terms of a metaverse). Everything in the universe, from the creation of fundamental particles, the creation of solar systems, the aggregation of those into galaxies, and those into galactic clusters...nothing happens once. If it happens once, it's happened a dozen, or a thousand, or a billion times.

I had a UFO experience once. I was on patrol in the desert when a very bright light came down from the sky to the east of our position. Went dark for a while and then without warning the lights came back on and it shot directly up and was gone. Freaked all of us out. We didn't tell anyone for obviuos reasons. I did however check out the surrounding area discretely. The UFO? Military testing facility close by.

Mr Guy: I say all that to say this: I remain firmly convinced UFO's ARE the cover up.

I just finished reading "Projekt Saucer", in which the author makes a pretty good case that UFOs are man-made, building on Nazi saucer experiments and using Nazi scientists via Operation Paperclip.

Yeah, laugh it up, but it's a fascinating theory and the book is fairly well documented.

DragonFarked: Mr Guy: TemperedEdge: Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

No, actually the math says the odds against us happening even once are pretty slim. I've never really understood how that turns into saying if it happened once, it has to have happened more than once.

You may want to check the math your using. "really making the case that we live in a crowded universe" (new window)
Wait until we are able to start detecting earth size planets, further away.

Earth size planets? durrrr... how about those within our own solar system. Some are similar size. Just this shows that other planets exists... we can't be the only solar system... it's not all stars out there ya know.

...and then they try to discredit the messenger.

Forgot to add:

I'm writing this from my flying saucer so I'm really getting a kick out of your replies....

TemperedEdge: The laws of probability pretty much make it cut and dry:

The Universe is just too damned big for us to be the ONLY living things in it. There has to be SOMETHING out there SOMEWHERE.

Seriously! How arrogant is it to think that we're so special that we're all alone, floating around in the big empty with no other life anywhere else? That's a Christian mindset right there. "God loves us, God gives us, us us us and only us. God made us in his image." Whatever. You just want to feel special.

Truth is, in the grand scheme of things, you're not. I'm not, he's not, she's not, your dog isn't, nothing is. In the grand scheme of things, we're pretty much ants: a species working as a society/collective in orter to further its own existance as a whole, living on a rock orbiting a middle-aged star in the outer arm of one of literally hundreds of (known) spiral galaxies.

Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

i don't think most people debate that it isn't a probability indistinguishable from "1"... but more so that the likelihood of these sparse, uncorroborated, uncomfirmed, unresearched claims of "contact" being speculation and bullshiat are pretty high.

TemperedEdge: The laws of probability pretty much make it cut and dry:

The Universe is just too damned big for us to be the ONLY living things in it. There has to be SOMETHING out there SOMEWHERE.

Seriously! How arrogant is it to think that we're so special that we're all alone, floating around in the big empty with no other life anywhere else? That's a Christian mindset right there. "God loves us, God gives us, us us us and only us. God made us in his image." Whatever. You just want to feel special.

Not arrogant, just that the odds are mathematically stacked against it.


Truth is, in the grand scheme of things, you're not. I'm not, he's not, she's not, your dog isn't, nothing is. In the grand scheme of things, we're pretty much ants: a species working as a society/collective in orter to further its own existance as a whole, living on a rock orbiting a middle-aged star in the outer arm of one of literally hundreds of (known) spiral galaxies.

Math says life is out there. UFOs and anal probes? Maybe, maybe not. But the chances that life formed somewhere else in a place as big as our Universe? Pretty Farkin' good if you ask me...

Even the simplistic and wildy optimistic Drake equation only gives us about 10 civilizations capable of interstellar communication.

For a more realistic, and sobering view of the possibility of life on other planets go here
(pops).

imfallen_angel: How many planets are out there? (talking about the whole universe, so the numbers is just about infinite)

In fact, last time I checked on the theories, some are claming that the Universe itself is indeed infinite, which means not only is the probablity very great that life exists - it's inevitable, along with a roomful of monkeys typing Shakespeare.

Mr Guy: pendy575: And yet someone wins the powerball lottery every month. The odds might not be good for an individual planet to have life....but the chances are that the lottery has been won more than once.

And yet, the odds against life forming even once are much worse than that, unless there are forms of life so entirely different from ours, we may not recognize them as being alive in the first place.

The odds of life forming at a single point in time are astronomical, true. But if we define a single point in time as one whole second, and we round the age of the earth to an even 4 billion years old (which is underestimating it, I know), there have been 5,256,000,000,000,000 points in time since this planet formed. Suddenly astronomical odds aren't so astronomical.