The World's Highest Ranking UFO Believer

[Sooke 13]

"Paul Hellyer recently stirred up global controversy when he testified before a half-dozen former US representatives that aliens exist.

As Canada's former Minister of Defence, Hellyer is the first and only cabinet-ranking official from a G8 nation to publicly state a belief in extraterrestrials."

Also

Honestly I don't see why they would be concerned about this, only 2.000+ nukes went off between 1943 and 1998.

They're clearly over reacting.

[Lenyoga 326]

CGB Spender must be dead or on vacation if this got out already... but it sounds more like human-to-human espionage issues which are probably being interpreted wrongly by bystanders as aliens.

It would be cool if there are a few definite and undeniable public events, non-hostile preferred, of course.

[mistyronin 1181]

That declarations in the video remembers me of the gossips about Area 51. All of them could be explained with the new inventions and tests of the USAF.

In any case, if life exist on Earth, why wouldn't it exist elsewhere?

[ProfTournesol 956]

In any case, if life exist on Earth, why wouldn't it exist elsewhere?

I'd even say that's it's very unlikely it doesn't exist anywhere else.

[Tonci87 163]

I'd even say that's it's very unlikely it doesn't exist anywhere else.

Same here. It is pretty egocentric to believe that we are alone in this huge universum, that only our planet made life on it possible. Of course there is no way to know how many other inhaited planets exist, where they are, or how advanced the population is. In any case I really hope that they are far enough away that we never meet them. No matter how you look at it, it would end in a desaster.

[krycek 349]

Same here. It is pretty egocentric to believe that we are alone in this huge universum, that only our planet made life on it possible. Of course there is no way to know how many other inhaited planets exist, where they are, or how advanced the population is. In any case I really hope that they are far enough away that we never meet them. No matter how you look at it, it would end in a desaster.

Yeah I'm thinking the same,reminds me of what Hawking said in the past:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/25/stephen-hawking-aliens_n_551035.html

[Lenyoga 326]

Yeah I'm thinking the same,reminds me of what Hawking said in the past:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/25/stephen-hawking-aliens_n_551035.html

And that's not even considering bacteria, immune systems, viruses, etc. Most hilarious worst case scenario would be everyone dropping dead after a while, aliens included, because the various microorganisms have no clue how to interact with the unknown species.

By the way, weren't you involved in the conspiracy too?

[krycek 349]

And that's not even considering bacteria, immune systems, viruses, etc. Most hilarious worst case scenario would be everyone dropping dead after a while, aliens included, because the various microorganisms have no clue how to interact with the unknown species.

Something like War of the Worlds,was kinda funny to see them with those advanced tripods and then drop dead from "sneezing".

By the way, weren't you involved in the conspiracy too?

Yeah until I got a bullet between the eyes,now I'm ghosting around.:blues:

[Tonci87 163]

Something like War of the Worlds,was kinda funny to see them with those advanced tripods and then drop dead from "sneezing".

Yeah I remember that one and I do think that this might be a very plausible scenario if any alien ever lands on this planet without a HAZMAT suit. (Although if they are advanced enugh to fly here they should be advanced enough to think of such a possibilit. Or maybe deaseases are unknown to them, in wich case some big pharma company or government will happily perform a vivisection on the alien and then claim he never got here. Doom us all because we killed their ambassador :p)

Is there someone here who didn´t watch the Southpark Episode "pinewood derby"?

http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s13e06-pinewood-derby

[Sooke 13]

I think a War of the Worlds scenario would be highly unlikely.

It's a great lack of humility to think such an evolved civilisation would overlook something as basic as this.

Even ourselves were aware of the danger of such contamination long before we went to the moon and when we were planning our trips to the moon (and Mars) we've been really carefull not to bring any life form other than ourselves (we failed at that).

So thinking a life form that is way, way, waaaay ahead of us would neglect such a basic element of space travel seems ridiculous.

Put yourself in a middle age man shoes. Imagine you'd look up at the moon and want to study its geology.

To you, the only way you could think to achieve this would be to fly there, take a sample and then come back.

You wouldn't even be able to imagine sending a robot there that would do the job for you and then send back the information via radio transmission.

I think this is where we stand in comparison to a civilisation that would be capable of travelling across our galaxy, they most likely handle technology that are way beyond our imagination.

Biological weapons would probably be the first weapons they'd used against us.

[orcinus 121]

I'd even say that's it's very unlikely it doesn't exist anywhere else.

I tend to agree. However there's a huge jump from life to intelligent life. In the case of Earth (the only one we know about) bacteria evolved first as recognisable organisms. Known as prokaryotes, the have (usually) a single circular DNA molecule in the cytoplasm of the cell. Higher organisms - eukaryotes - have their DNS in multiple linear (but coiled and supercoiled) chromosomes sequestered in the nucleus.

I believe the key event was the evolution of mitochondria, These are small, rod-like structures within the cytoplasm that are specialised in aerobic oxidative metabolism of sugars. They are about the size of a bacillus. Unsurprising, as several billion years ago that's what they were. They have their own DNA, a circular molecule, and their own protein synthesis units (ribosomes) that are very similar to bacterial ribosomes (eukaryote cytoplasmic ribosomes are distinctly different). At some point, an early eukaryotic cell was parasitised by a bacteria. Over many millenia, this became a commensal and ultimately a incredibly successful symbiote. Without mitochondria, cells are limited in their energy pruction to anaerobic pathways (glycolysis). This is too inefficient to support he activity of neuraones especially. Without these symbiotc bacteria it is very hard to see how any significant brain funtions could have eveolved.

I suspect that this may be a very much rarer event than the developmet of single-celled organisms.

All speculation, of course. However it could be the answer to the Fermi paradox.

[Sooke 13]

One problem I have with the Fermi paradox is that it's based on the assumption we already have the tools to detect other intelligent life forms.

Without microscope we wouldn't have found out about bacterias and others microscopic life forms,yet those were floating around right under our noses.

Also if we were to discover a planet hosting an intelligent life form similar to us I'm not sure we would be in such a big hurry to get in touch with them...

there's a huge jump from life to intelligent life.

I wonder when will we make that jump :p

Edited January 17, 2015 by Sooke

[orcinus 121]

One problem I have with the Fermi paradox is that it's based on the assumption we already have the tools to detect other intelligent life forms.

Without microscope we wouldn't have found out about bacterias and others microscopic life forms,yet those were floating around right under our noses.

Also if we were to discover a planet hosting an intelligent life form similar to us I'm not sure we would be in such a big hurry to get in touch with them...

I wonder when will we make that jump :p

Well, Fermi's original formulation was "Where is everybody"? - i.e. given the age of the Universe & our galaxy in particular, some alien civilisation or another ought to be here already.

Yeah, the news seems to get more depressing by the day. Have you ever read Barbara W. Tuchman's book "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"? Very readable account of how leaders consistently ignore their own and others' experience and go on to make disastrous decisions.

[krycek 349]

Well, Fermi's original formulation was "Where is everybody"? - i.e. given the age of the Universe & our galaxy in particular, some alien civilisation or another ought to be here already.

Sometimes I wonder if there aren't already lots of(or at least some)alien civilizations in this galaxy trading/fighting etc. between them or minding their own business and they actually might be aware of us but wouldn't give a crap or consider us nothing more than bugs on a backwater planet.

Maybe our egos or sense of superiority as a species that we're so special in this galaxy leaves them cold.We only theorize and we don't know how these aliens look like,their tech level or how evolution took place on their planets.

Something like Lovecraft's cosmicism where the "monsters" are actually very powerful aliens scheming for eons between them and that they sees us as some lowly pawns at best.

Even if an alien civilization still hasn't found us and in the future they might do,the thought of it scares me because they might have very different notions of what's right&wrong or a complete lack of what we perceive as morality.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Krycek

[Sooke 13]

Well, Fermi's original formulation was "Where is everybody"? - i.e. given the age of the Universe & our galaxy in particular, some alien civilisation or another ought to be here already.

Well...maybe they are already here...maybe it's us. Yeah, I know, far fetched.

But like I said in my previous post, maybe they are doing their best not to be seen by us. If you imagine they've been watching us for awhile they probably understood we aren't the kindest species with what we don't consider human.

Put yourself in their shoes, would you really want to meet a species like us ? I sure wouldn't.

Yeah, the news seems to get more depressing by the day. Have you ever read Barbara W. Tuchman's book "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"? Very readable account of how leaders consistently ignore their own and others' experience and go on to make disastrous decisions.

Sounds interesting, thanks ! I'll look it up.

Even if an alien civilization still hasn't found us and in the future they might do,the thought of it scares me because they might have very different notions of what's right&wrong or a complete lack of what we perceive as morality.

I think "morality" is more wide spread than we think amongst animals. They most likely don't understand it the way we do but somehow they can tell right from wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePgC91kcmN0

Edited January 19, 2015 by Sooke