Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to To clarify

And more
S — (archived)

In this thread, we've entered a realm of free-wheeling speculation, so please don't think that I am being flippant.

As I've said before, the universe is sufficiently old to allow for the possibility of really advanced civilizations. To paraphrase Haldane, such might be only only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine. We just don't have much to go on. For that reason, I think it foolish to dismiss out of hand all hearsay accounts/reports of UFOs and/or aliens and their alleged activities here on Earth.

Beyond that, assuming that all beings (ETI) live only as long as we do is, I believe, anthropocentric. So, even if SOL travel is impossible for all, sufficiently long-lived creatures might undertake considerably more leisurely journeys. Indeed, there could conceivably be what might be termed vagabond civilizations who take the whole show on the road, so to say.

There are a number of parasitic species on Earth. Perhaps some ETI might be parasitic as well. Do you know of the Brown-headed Cowbird? The female cowbird lays her eggs in the nests of various host species which then raise the alien bird.

As for Fermi's Paradox, there are certainly any number of curious reports going back to antiquity. One can either dismiss them all outright, or one can allow for the possibility that there may be an element of truth in some.

It is true, I believe, that some medieval artists rendered what we would call UFOs in their paintings.

Establishment science is typically dismissive of what it does not understand. As you know, it was only a little over a century ago that the reality of meteorites was not only dismissed, but ridiculed.

"Rocks do not fall from the sky!"

But they do.

In the advance of science, we almost always get it wrong before we eventually get it right. In the process, somebody usually suffers. Recall my point about innocents being burnt at the stake during the Little Ice Age because the church and other ignoramuses blamed a few (thousands, actually) sorry wretches for the failed crops, advancing glaciers, and disease. All because we didn't (and still don't) understand Earth's climate very well.

In any event, certain reports of apparent aliens and their activities have such an aura of strangeness that it is in our best interest, I believe, to at least allow for the possibility that some may be true, and consider the implications for our species and our planet.

S

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