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Why the space aliens have never shown up? Seven reasons offered

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The Fermi Paradox: Where are They?

Some experts think They became AI, some that They were killed by their AI, and others say They never existed. Who’s most likely right?:

Science fiction writer Matt Williams delves into seven hypotheses into which scientists and science fiction writers have put a lot of thought…

4. The Aestivation Hypothesis: “aliens are not dead (or non-existent), they’re just resting!” (August 7, 2020) Just as many life forms on Earth go into torpor during hot and dry conditions, they are awaiting more favorable conditions before they emerge.

It makes the most sense for the aliens to have become artificial intelligences, say many theorists:

Indeed, an increasing number of futurists, astrobiologists, and SETI experts are starting to think that advanced intelligence eventually transitions into a digital mode of existence. Living as digital beings within powerful supercomputers, post-biological aliens (or future posthumans) will demand unhindered access to powerful and efficient means of information processing—a hypothetical mode of existence known as “dataism.”

But as Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong, and Milan Ćirković argue in their new JBIS paper, there’s a cost to information processing, particularly when the computer performing those calculations is temperature dependent. As computer scientists and information physicists know, the potential for information processing increases as temperature decreases (energy is required to cool a blazingly fast computer, after all). So rather than squander energy and resources in the current era, Sandberg and company believe it makes more sense for an advanced, computer-based civilization to aestivate and wait until the Universe is much colder than it is today. – George Dvorsky, “Hibernating Aliens Could Explain the Great Silence” at Gizmodo

The paper, “That is not dead which can eternal lie: the aestivation hypothesis for resolving Fermi’s paradox,” is open access.

News, “Seven reasons (so far) why the aliens never show up” at Mind Matters News

The sheer number of reasons should tell us something. If the aliens did show up, no one would bother about their reasons.

See also: Tales of an invented god

and

They’ll always be Out There. As long as there’s an Out There out there.

Comments
The problem could also be that now everyone is looking down @ their phones, and not seeing whatever is overhead. And to see the Roswell evidence in person all you have to do is become the head of the CIA or NSA. Or have the Government open it up for public viewing.ET
September 9, 2020
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EDTA "Let me see the Roswell evidence in-person, and I might just become a believer again." This reminds me of the heated controversy over the reality of extrasensory perception especially in mediumship. Several extremely well reputed mediums were extensively tested over a period of years by expert investigators like William Hodgson who were all initially skeptics with much experience in exposing fraudulent mediums, and were found to be genuine. Their communications with discarnates were totally unexplainable by fraud of any sort including cold reading and using detectives to dig up information on the deceased communicators. These sessions were events that definitely happened in real space-time as reported in detail (from stenographic records) in the various papers published in the journals of the time. But the many materialist skeptics still to this day insist that such events are impossible and therefore could not have happened - they could only just possibly be convinced if they were to personally witness the events, and even then they would still doubt their own experience and senses. So strong is the intellect. Like the genuine mediumistic communications, the good cases of interactive UFO encounters are rare in human experience and hard to believe and are unduplicatable, but being real experienced events in space-time still obstinately refuse to go away just because they violate certain fixed preconceptions about how the world works.doubter
September 9, 2020
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ET, Yeah, herons are skittish if they see anyone. But I can whip my cell phone out, activate the camera (which I can access directly from the lock screen), zoom all the way in and take a pic in 5 seconds. Surely some percent of UFOs are visible for that length... >The crash in Roswell, 1947, is more than enough evidence That is an excellent point. WJM was asking what it would take, and there's another answer: Let me see the Roswell evidence in-person, and I might just become a believer again.EDTA
September 9, 2020
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I have a nice cell phone camera. I don't always have it on and ready to take pictures, though. I saw a nice heron in the water waiting for fish. As I went for my cell phone to get a shot, it flew off. Seeing that I didn't get the picture, does that mean the heron wasn't there? Cell phone cameras are only good for close shots. To zoom in it takes time. Time for the UFO to move on. The crash in Roswell, 1947, is more than enough evidence to say we have been visited. It wasn't a weather balloon.ET
September 9, 2020
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Doubter, >There are plenty of hypotheses that could account for the characteristics you complain about, just limited by our imagination. For instance, the “graduate student on a holiday” hypothesis. I think it's the nature of the hypothesizing that is getting me hung up here. It's almost too creative for me to swallow. Is "extraterrestrial vehicle" even necessary for example, or is that too gratuitous? Let me try to illustrate: Using my imagination for the moment, what if these sightings are actually just "space insects", living creatures that exist out in space, not tied to a planet (although they might have once been). They evolved the ability to do interstellar flight, and here they are, buzzing semi-randomly around our planes like a house fly goes after my food. They're no smarter than a chimp, but have radiant energy properties, etc., that affect our electrical systems or burn something. Sometimes they're gregarious and are seen in formation like geese. And very long-lived; they always return to space to die, just like insects crawl behind something in the basement to die. Will this explanation work? Does it satisfy the observations that need explaining, yet do so without more hypotheses than necessary. Can we pare away the "grad student" stuff in other words? Occam's Razor and all that. Tell me what you think. (I'm seriously getting into analyzing this...) WJM, >It would be a better path to list potential reasons why the existence of such beings is not well-known and universally accepted. Let me start that list, as it seriously does sound like a useful project: 1. Sightings are still too few to convince a critical mass of people. 2. Sightings are too infrequent; we can't each have a neighborhood club that sits outside every Friday night guaranteed to see a few. 3. Sightings from 120 years ago resembled the most bleeding edge technology of that day (slow-moving, cigar-shaped objects that resembled the dirigibles of 100 years ago, e.g.). As we move towards today, the craft continued to be just ahead of us, until science fiction really took hold, and they zoomed ahead of us as far as technological capability. This seems too much of a coincidence to not indicate something. (I read every book in our library on the subject back when...this was pointed out back in the 1960s.) 4. The US military (or anybody's military) is not panicked about them to the point of devoting a ridiculous % of its budget to fighting them or even setting traps for them. (Not that I could suggest how to do either of those things.) 5. This one area has attracted more forgers of photos than any other (except perhaps for ghost photos). It even outstrips the number of paleontological bone forgeries for Darwin. 8-) That's concerning as a co-phenomenon, and has seriously damaged the reputation of UFOlogy. 6. Everybody has a cell camera now, darned good quality also. Yet the number of claimed sightings and new photos is not going up to match the increase in cameras. See here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings By the way, thanks for sticking with me on this. I have found it very interesting to discuss.EDTA
September 8, 2020
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EDTA@11 "I cannot fathom any purpose for aliens “showing off” in front of us when they could just as easily reveal themselves or hide completely. .... If it were intelligently directed, surely it would be more under-control." All we have to go on is the body of good and well documented cases, encounters with apparently physical extremely advanced-technology vehicles. Abductive reasoning from the evidence implicates the ET hypothesis as the most likely. We have absolutely no idea why the ETs are appearing in our skies, absolutely no idea of what their motives for visiting us are, and absolutely no idea of the nature of their society and their biology and psychology. Accordingly, in our ignorance we have no reason to rule out their existence based on their not meeting our parochial and culturally and psychologically biased expectations. There are plenty of hypotheses that could account for the characteristics you complain about, just limited by our imagination. For instance, the "graduate student on a holiday" hypothesis. Maybe the ETs are basically studying us, but as part of this they are maintaining a graduate student education mission, where these immature budding researchers are allowed to occasionally interact with the humans as a part of their training. Or maybe they go against the rules and just go on a lark occasionally, resulting in apparent capriciousness and some apparently unprofessional encounters. Then there is the lack of crashed saucers that you complain about. Since we have absolutely no idea of the nature of their science and technology (it being probably far too advanced for us to fathom), we have no reason not to hypothesize that their level of vehicle technology incorporates such extremely high reliability that it is expected that during the period of their observation of us there will be no propulsion failures and crashes that humans could discover and try to learn from.doubter
September 8, 2020
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The premise, that aliens have not arrived, is laughable given the weight of the evidence otherwise. It would be a better path to list potential reasons why the existence of such beings is not well-known and universally accepted.William J Murray
September 8, 2020
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At one time, about 40 years ago, I would have agreed with your hypothesis. And it does spark the imagination. But our lack of progress in catching them has dulled my enthusiasm. Beyond that, I cannot fathom any purpose for aliens "showing off" in front of us when they could just as easily reveal themselves or hide completely. They are only scaring a small number of us, so intimidation is not their goal. The energy emanated by the phenomena also seems information-poor and therefore purposeless. (The ability to make a compass spin for example just requires pulsating energy, which can be naturally-occurring.) If it were intelligently directed, surely it would be more under-control.EDTA
September 8, 2020
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I agree that we don't really really know what these things are. All we can do is use abductive reasoning to the most likely explanation given the evidence. If something looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck. With this type of unidentified aerial phenomenon, their appearance and flight behavior and various physical interactions like radar, EMI and magnetic point strongly to their being some sort of physical vehicles using some sort of technology far beyond the present human level. Origin, unknown, but it is known that there is at least some probability of the existence of other intelligent life in the Universe that may have developed a science and technology far beyond mankind's. Some other even more fantastic origins can be imagined, like time travelers from our own future, extra-dimensional beings from outside of our Universe, occult beings, and it goes on. But extraterrestrial beings from some other planetary systems is the least incredible or most credible hypothesis, certainly better than time travelers. So the known possibility with the most credibility is nuts and bolts physical vehicles piloted by very advanced ETs.doubter
September 7, 2020
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I do not claim to have an explanation for those better sightings. So I can't attribute them to anything. But that's my point: I'm not saying what I think they are, because we don't have the ultimate evidence: an actual craft. All we have are observations of things we cannot for the life of us seem to catch. They remain tantalizingly out-of-reach. I was actually a UFO believer in the last half of the 1970s. But since then, we still don't have anything such as a crashed craft.EDTA
September 7, 2020
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EDTA Your dismissal is the usual confirmation bias of someone with a closed minded fixed position on an issue: you cite a couple of weak cases, not ones listed in my post, and pretend they are typical of the evidence. Confirmation bias definition: "a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to error". You ignore the sources I listed and the links I included - probably you found them too hard to plausibly debunk. How about the RB-47 encounter I listed, for instance - here's a link for data on this encounter: https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/rb-47-ufo-encounter-july-17-1957/ :
"An Air Force RB-47, equipped with electronic countermeasures (ECM) gear and manned by six officers, was followed by an unidentified object for a distance of well over 700 miles, and for a time period of 1.5 hr., as it flew from Mississippi, through Louisiana and Texas and into Oklahoma. The object was, at various times, seen visually by the cockpit crew as an intensely luminous light, followed by ground-radar and detected on ECM monitoring gear aboard the RB-47. Of special interest in this case are several instances of simultaneous appearances and disappearances on all three of those physically distinct ECM electronic “channels,” and rapidity of maneuvers beyond the prior experience of the aircrew."
Here's the abstract and summary of Haines' study of 56 aircraft encounters involving electromagnetic effects, that I linked in my post:
"Reports of anomalous aerial objects (AAO) appearing in the atmosphere continue to be made by pilots of almost every airline and air force of the world in addition to private and experimental test pilots. This paper presents a review of 56 reports of AAO in which electromagnetic effects (E-M) take place on-board the aircraft when the phenomenon is located nearby but not before it appeared or after it had departed. These effects are not related to the altitude or airspeed of the aircraft. The average duration of these sightings was 17.5 minutes in the 37 cases in which duration was noted. There were between one and 40 eye witnesses (average = 2.71) on the aircraft. Reported E-M effects included radio interference or total failure, radar contact with and without simultaneous visual contact, magnetic and/or gyro-compass deviations, automatic direction finder failure or interference, engine stopping or interruption, dimming cabin lights, transponder failure, and military aircraft weapon system failure. There appears to be a reduction of the E-M energy effect with the square of increasing distance to the AAO. These events and their relationships are discussed. This area of research should be concentrated on by other investigators because of the wealth of information it yields and the physical nature of AAO including wavelength/frequency and power density emissions."
Would you care to attempt to plausibly debunk just these? They're just the tip of an iceberg. I'm waiting.doubter
September 7, 2020
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UFO=aliens skeptic here. I read some of the above linked pages, and it's not very impressive. Betty Hill was clearly prone to hallucinating. The Melbourne, AU case? They took photos, which were, of course confiscated by an unidentified person and never seen again. Design skeptics here chide us for positing God when they say materialism will do as an explanation. But they will stick up for alien spacecraft when optical artifacts and various mental phenomena will do here. But I would accept a captured/crashed spacecraft or a live alien as evidence.EDTA
September 6, 2020
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Doubter It gets the same type of treatment ghost sightings do And I understand your frustration I honestly do And even though I don’t support the idea of star trek style aliens are awaiting us, I do think there’s something else going on Because I have often contemplated the fact that we never really find those UFO sightings in great extent out in space but we find them all the time here on the planet So I don’t personally think they’re little green men or grays But I also don’t think it’s humanAaronS1978
September 6, 2020
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It gets tiresome to continue to repeatedly encounter the facile assumption that there are no aliens here, dismissing the UFO phenomenon with a wave of a rhetorical hand. The typical orthodox mainstream science position - ignore the evidence. As if there weren't ample evidence accumulated over the last 70 years that at least some unidentified aerial phenomena are somebody else's hardware, apparently vehicles of some kind exhibiting flight characteristics light years beyond any human technology. I'll repeat the post I sent in earlier on this to further make this point: The extraterrestrial hypothesis remains very plausible as the explanation for the major category of UFO-related phenomena, vehicle sightings especially with optical media, radar and EMI interaction. Some of the theoretical arguments against the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) for UFOs are that there is zero knowledge of other life much less other intelligent life, if it actually exists it is apparently impossible for it to get here, the apparent ridiculousness and absurdity of some of the phenomena (such as alien abductions, many UFOnaut encounter accounts, brilliant “advertising” lights), the supposed parapsychological connection, and the supposed similarities with historical accounts of things like faery sightings. But as far as I am concerned real data, evidence, always trumps theory. These following cases and many others of the same sort were real events in the world, in space-time, occurring to real people that presented as described. Their testimony and other evidence can’t reasonably be dismissed just because they appear fantastic or theoretically preposterous. Especially with good observers like pilots and police officers (sometimes multiple) whose testimony would otherwise be accepted in a court of law. The burden is on the skeptic to credibly demonstrate how these cases are actually misperceptions, hallucinations, errors, hoaxes, useless anecdotes, etc. And on the skeptic of the ETH to come up with a more credible general explanation for the many cases of physical interaction with physical apparent vehicles. Some people have observed strange apparently structured material objects in the atmosphere that give the strong impression of being vehicles, somebody else’s hardware. The best cases stand on their own merits as evidence that on some rare occasions what seem to be alien vehicles appear to humans, sometimes producing physical effects including radar returns, radio interference, ground traces and leaving images preserved on photographic film or electronic media. For a detailed summary scientific review and analysis of the various types of physical evidence related to UFOs, there was the Sturrock panel report, see https://ufoscoop.com/physical-evidence-related-to-ufos/. The relatively recent (in 2004 and 2015) sightings and radar trackings of small UFOs shadowing US Navy carrier battle groups, featuring multiple pilot and ship radar reports and HUD video display recordings amount to some of the best data. Some of these HUD videos were released by the Defense Department a few months ago. Just a sampling of some of the better older data: – The 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting Except for the WWII “foo fighters”, this begins the modern era of UFOs. A good analysis is at http://www.martinshough.com/aerialphenomena/Arnold%20analysis2.pdf . There do not seem to be any valid optical, geometric, geographical, psychological or other reasons to doubt the major features of Arnold’s sighting as reported and they are internally consistent. The analysis results in a range of 16-20 miles, a minimum length of 70-90 feet, and a speed of 890 to 1200 mph. Arnold described the objects as trimmed-off in the rear thin shiny “saucer-like” discoids reflecting sunlight blindingly like metal at certain angles. – The Chiles-Whitted Case – Montgomery, Alabama, United States – July 24, 1948 – The Nash-Fortenberry Sighting (aircraft encounter with formation of UFOs) – Virginia, United States – July 14, 1952 – The RB-47 UFO Encounter – Gulf Coast Area, United States – July 17, 1957 – Socorro / Zamora UFO Incident – Socorro, New Mexico, United States – April 24, 1964 – Coyne Helicopter Incident – Mansfield, Ohio, United States – October 18, 1973 – “Dogfight over Tehran”, the 1976 Iranian Air Force Incident, a multiple pilot/ground/radar/visual/EMI signal case. Details at http://www.nicap.org/760919tehran_dir.htm . – The Cash-Landrum Case – Huffman, Texas, United States – December 29, 1980 – Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 Over Alaska – Alaska, United States – November 17, 1986 – Belgium Triangle UFO Sightings – Belgium – October, 1989 – Illinois Triangle UFO Sighting (by multiple police officers) – Illinois, United States – January 5, 2000 The 1999 French Cometa committee report, summarized at https://www.ufocasebook.com/cometamain.html . This was an in-depth study of UFOs, covering many aspects of the subject, especially questions of national defense. The study was done over several years by an independent group at the French Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense, or IHEDN, and by other qualified experts from various fields. They took the extraterrestrial hypothesis very seriously when considering the many of the best French cases. For an exhaustive analysis of electromagnetic effects generated by UFOs, see Fifty-Six Aircraft Pilot Sightings Involving E-M Effects – Haines (1992), at http://www.nicap.org/papers/92apsiee.htm . My view is that this phenomenon is complicated, being composed of several different types of phenomena of fundamentally different natures that interact in various ways. Other explanations than the ETH, some involving paranormal phenomena, subconscious influences of the Zeitgeist, extra-dimensional or time travelling aliens, etc. etc. may possibly apply to other subcategories of UFO-related experiences including alien abductions. I think both the modern “zeitgeist” and accounts of real physical alien vehicle encounters could stimulate subconsciously generated fantasies like alien abductions and subconsciously generated fantastic or apparently ridiculous “occupant” encounters (like the Betty and Barney Hill case). The phenomenon is probably composed of many different components and levels. So as to the question of which potential explanation is the real nature of the UFO phenomenon, it is probable that the question is simplistic and that the answer is “all of the above”. One thing is sure: at least one type of UFOs, the vehicle sightings with physical interactions like radar and EMI, the ones focused on here, are somebody else’s hardware. And that somebody else isn’t from our planetary system.doubter
September 6, 2020
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The fermi Paradox is literally the atheists take on god and a other beings not of this universe like angels and demons If they existed where are they? You can even put a better argument forward for angels and demons as inter Dimensional biengs (4th dimensional) then you could aliens that are bound directly to our physics However many of the arguments for aliens (if not all) depend on making them into god like beings capable of defying our physics and go to great lengths to hide themselves from our Insignificant selves (remember We are insignificant according to many scientists but important enough for aliens with god like magical powers from cool tech to hide away from us) But here’s the thing if aliens do exist they are bound to the same physics we are and we have to keep in mind there a certain principles of living organisms that will be universal One is the need resources. This can easily be argued as universal If you are bound by our physics, then you are bound to the laws of thermodynamics, hence you require resources to exist And if you claim they have found a way to break these laws (blah blah advanced tech and magic are indistinguishable fallacy) then you might as well call them gods and admit that you have faith But any species capable of interstellar travel probably has to invest incredible amounts of resources to do so and if they are very likely doing this it’s because they require resources or will certainly need them when they get here I would be wary of any kind of interstellar species because the odds are they’re not going to come in peace, they’re going to come for our little planet full of resources For all we know, a higher level being is one that’s capable of surviving any where and it’s methods of doing so might not be tasteful to us. It’s simply evolution, what ever adapts survives good or bad It’s funny that the gentleman above complains about how the Fermi paradox assumes the behavior of aliens yet every one of the theories mentioned assumes the theory of aliens in the Fermi paradox simply asked the question if they were interstellar aliens why aren’t they here why haven’t we seen them yetAaronS1978
September 6, 2020
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Ack! Energy efficiency again! Aside from the superbasic fact that life is the EXACT OPPOSITE of efficiency, this doesn't even consider OUR motives in the 1950s space race. We wasted huge amounts of materials and energy to move Alan Shepherd into orbit for a few hours. In fact, there's a pretty good argument that all wars and conquests, including the space war, are SOLELY intended to cause totally wasted consumption of weapons and fuel and industrial labor and lives.polistra
September 5, 2020
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I definitely feel like an alien.Eugene
September 5, 2020
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How do we know they aren't already here? Suppose the have cloaked ships and are able to alter their appearance so they look like us?Seversky
September 5, 2020
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