I must say that I've quiet enjoying reading phlogistician posts on this thread. It's always important to have critical analysis from the outside, as the point of view of the skeptic will bring into being thoughts and suggestions that had never before been pondered on the other side.. People should never take this type of thing as nasty behaviour... But it is interesting how people react as if the viewpoint of the skeptic is spoiling the fantacies of the "far out" thinkers..
Sure, many of us *want* to believe these type of things. In fact, I think even a lot of skeptics out there may want to be involved here because they themselves want to find some truths.. Many skeptics may recognise that the possibility of life in our own galaxy on its own is a great plausibility. However they may be very analytical people when it comes to these type of things and simply are looking to find some decent plausible evidence themselves.
Considering how long life could have been existing in our galaxy, and what progression other beings on other planets could have made in their time, it's highly likely that any other intelligences out there in our galaxy have had to escape their own turmoils and move on through the stars, from planet to planet, spreading their own seed through intelligence on how life can be supported in arid worlds etc.
The period of time through which man has evolved on this planet, and will last on the planet, is essentially, a brief flash in the history of our galaxy. There are so many factors that current science could not predict, I am sure, such as what sort of environments could potentially support life. What if, for example, a planet that rotated on its axis once every 35 seconds.... Perhaps there could be beings supported on this planet that could potentially adapt to the environment it lives in.... I think people far too often misunderestimate how simple it is for life to adapt to different circumstances...
I agree very muchly with the reference that was made a bit earlier to humans being like fish. We are only essentially capable of registering inputs from our surroundings through our sensory organs... Our sensory inputs do seem to be limited to a fair few things in the third dimension, however there is potentially a lot of room out there for more that we haven't quiet yet grasped.... To completely refute that this is possible would be akin to saying that you are God and know everything about how the universe works.
Admittedly, I must say that I think many abduction stories are hoaxes or fantacies, but I believe there may be a little bit of credibility therein...
I feel that if there are aliens living on this planet that their main preoccupation would be nuclear war.... There is large amounts of evidence out there on the net to suggest that when nuclear technology become a threat that there was a dramatic increase in the number of UFO sightings and activities, in fact it's possible that there has been a certain level of influence there through our star brothers...
One thing we'll never be seeing, I believe, is proper weaponisation of space.....
The problem was that too much dangerous knowledge fell into our hands and there was a need for ET culture to intercept this and stabilize this as much as possible.
I do not feel that ET culture would be enemies to us, as we would be of interest to them..... a National Geographic for E.T. culture if you like.
I'd like to drop in a theory here. If it is likely that man could in the next hundred years correctly cryogenically freeze humans and send spacecraft that could travel to the closest stars, is it not highly likely that other E.T. races could not have done the same?
I do believe that with current quantum physics that some scientists have managed to cause a photon to appear in another expanse of space immediately... I'm not sure how this has developed as I haven't been hearing much about it lately, but I do believe that we are working on technlogoy that would enable us to send a message to another point faster than the speed of light. (?)
If that is possible then surely it is very possible for E.T. races to have a bunch of journalistic type aliens and even a few bases on our planet.... Whyever not ??