I believe in UFOs as well but I dont think it is as ludicrous as television makes it seems. Although I am a believer, I am still skeptical because although the galaxy is large, I don't have any first hand experience and the evidence is not well pieced together. I will give UFOs the benefit of the doubt...

In Aliens? Yes.
In UFO's manned by people from other planets? No.

I do believe in UFOs. There are occasions in which something flies over the head of someone and that someone doesn't know what it is. Unidentified Flying Object, not necessarily "alien spacecraft."Do I believe aliens visit our planet and watch us? No. Do I believe there are little green mean in orbit somewhere? No. I believe that aliens could exist, but that if they do, they are humanoid. Maybe they resemble human-animal bipeds. Maybe they look like four-armed people. Maybe they just simply have tails. I don't believe, if they do exist, that they are small, big-headed telepaths with laser rifles.

Saucers manned by green men? No, why would they bother on this primitive planet..
People seeing fat ducks flying and mistaking them for green men in frisbees? Quite possible.
Alien life-forms on other planets far far away, with biology, tecnology and society from completely different structure to close to ours? Very likely, we're here after all.
Loonies wanting to believe? That's humanity for you.

Uhh, what makes you say that? Earth (and humanity in particular) is hardly primitive, unless you think that anything below godlike immortality and faster-than-light travel is primitive.

It is not unlikely that 'they' would bother for the same reasons that we do. Even finding some truly primitive organisms in space would have a huge impact; finding actual sentient life on other planets would be one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind.

Same here. This is a tricky question to answer simply with a yes or a no.

Aliens. Now do I believe in aliens? Definitely. I have a picture taken years ago that if you look closely, you can spot them.

http://www.illegalaliens.us/images/A...l%20Aliens.JPG

The first option isn't a direct 'yes,' it's 'they could exist.'

Well, for one, humanity is still quite young. We've made so much technological advancing that evolution can't keep up. You would think our distant "cousins" have had their time to build up their smarts, while and before setting out.
No, you don't have to be god-like to be advanced, but faster-than-light travel sure could come in handy, unless you want to spend forever traveling from star A to star B.

So, either grey/green/bug faced freaks like to conquer new holiday planet, which really isn't that hard for someone managing to get here
or
they go with the Star Trek style, "you don't go messing primitive races society suddenly".

My point, since we've had no visitors yet, they either aren't there, they're not interested or maybe they study us behind Mars by watching Oprah..

That's it! It's officially time for me to give in and SLEEP.

It's 4am here. I'm out.

I believe it isn't unlikely that humanity will soon be controlling its own 'evolution,' extreme technological advances being a new form of 'evolution' by themselves. Though that's pretty much a different topic. There's a great Stephen Hawking lecture about this issue, if anyone's interested.

Not necessarily. It is just as possible that we are much more advanced than our 'cousins,' and it will be up to us to seek them out. It is also quite possible that their intelligence and way of thinking is very different.

That's somewhat true, but 'forver' is a pretty relative term, in this case. I don't think it's possible to effectively speculate about lifespans of extraterrestrials, but it's not impossible that they are much longer (or shorter) than ours, and travelling between solar systems is thus possible. There's also the possiblity of generation space-ships and suspended animation.

Well, if by 'visitors' you mean actual alien-manned UFOs near Earth, then I agree.

As for extraterrestrial life in general, there are other possibilities. For one, actual visits might be impossible because we are simply too far apart (in space or time). Thus, effective communication could only be possibly using some kind of (radio) signals. Humanity has been actively looking for those signals for a very brief period of time, so, who knows?

Yes, I believe in UFO's. For the simple reason being that I think that we are not alone within the universe. I just don't see Earth as the only planet in the entire universe that houses intelligent life.

Although I have only seen a UFO once, (and to be fair, it was dark, I was tired, and it could have been a plane - although it was moving very erratically, as I recall) I truly believe that there are UFO's out there. Maybe not aliens as such, but until we actually get a visit from them, we'll never know.

As someone said earlier, the statistical probability that other life does exist convinces me that there are aliens in the universe, but people who claim they've come to this planet still have a very Earth-centric perspective. WHY this ball of dirt?

Also, I'd like to hear what religion has to say on this matter. Would the revelation that there's undeniable proof of alien life shatter its credibility? Or would it refuse to acknowledge it? Anyone care to offer religious insight (as I have none)?

PS, thread creator, I live less than an hour west of Milwaukee. Cool.

It is unlikely that anyone would *come* here. I think it is unliekly that the technology could exist anywhere in the universe; if it did, it'd most likely stil lbe a waste of resources to come here of all places.

And if you did, you would make sure you had a chance to communicate without having to come back for every little chat, too.

I belive aliens exist somewhere. I think if they are smart enough to be able to come here, they'll also be smart enough to not do it.

Most of my very Christian friends believe that God created one life in his image and that he only watches over our planet and none other. Therefore, they believe that there are no other lifeforms on other planets. However, some people relate the people of Mt. Zion to aliens. Also, there are religions that believe aliens created humans and should be worshipped.

Biblical verses that supposedly relate to aliens:
http://www.ufoarea.com/aas_bible_accounts.html

Site to locate other UFO & Alien phenomenon:
http://www.doomsdayguide.org/UFO/ufo..._the_bible.htm

There's another problem with life visiting us. The fact that we carry tons of bacteria that could be harmful to anything that has not built up an immunity to them. This would be the same for any alien life coming here. Unless they're moving around us in suits there's no way to completely sanitize yourself and prevent contamination. They could make us sick or we could make them sick.

This is actually a real problem for us if we ever take a visit to mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We could kill any life living on those moons or have severe effects on the evolution of life on that planet just by being there. If I remember right, NASA has forced a few probes down into Jupiter instead of letting them drift in space because they feared the probe(s) would hit a moon like Europa and destroy any chance of life there.

This is another reason why I just cannot believe any life has visited us. Especially the abduction stories. Having such intimate contact (touching, surgery, probes, ect) would of transfered some kind of bacteria or virus that would make people sick or worse.

I don't care if UFOs exist or not. Aren't women weird enough? ;)

Isn't this a threat every day?

I read about types of super-microorganisms that could survive the intense heat that comes from soaring through space, and the blast from crashing into our planet. Any foreign object (eg meteor) crashing into the planet could carry some kind of super-virus/bacteria like this, so why haven't we all gotten sick and died yet? I mean, not all bacteria and viruses are deadly; we have an immune system that fights them off 24/7.

I wonder why we as humans are dumb enough to assume that even if aliens do exist (which they do) that they are flying around our planet looking at us. Is it entirely impossible that they too are just chillin' on their homeworld doing what we're doing? I think not.

Saying there is no other super intelligents in this universe is like saying only one seed will grow in a field....

I believe there is other life on different planets. Could be interesting to see what there is if we ever get out into deep space. Geezzz... I wish everything was closer, like in Star Trek.

While I am hardly advocating "Fire in the Sky" type stories of Jim Bob being probed by Elvis, I do have to point out that if a species has managed to master intersteller traffic, they probably have got sterilization down.

On that not, so I believe that aliens have been to earth, sure why not. I suppose it could be possible. Do I think they're stealing people and jamming things in their butts? No.

I think that things here on earth / this plane of existence are more complex than we realize. UFO's have always been mentioned by ancient man whether it be in the bible or other religious, historical, or mythological texts. My gut tells me they're here, they've always been here, and maybe watching us is part of their job (the only reason I can think of something being here thousands of years). Maybe we trully are trapped in a science experiment with amnesia?

They had a discussion about this on the Discovery Science Channel. They said that this is one of the main reasons why aliens are less likely to visit Earth since they would have to figure out how to get through the atmosphere and survive the unsual bacteria on our planet. Also, there's the whole thing about how they probably wouldn't talk to us b/c our communication pattern isn't as complicated as other animals (many of the physicists and astronomers that were addressed on the issue thought that htey would talk to whales first).

Amen ;).

One of the History Channel programs--wish I could remember the name of it--had a program about proof of aliens and UFO's being visible in religious text and Renaissance paintings. I think one of the Madonna w/ child paintings had a guy in the background looking toward the sky and his eyes were aimed right at a shadow in the sky that looked a lot like a flying saucer.

Hmmm...aliens using us as science experiments without our knowledge...I think that's part of the Scientology belief isn't it (either that or the idea about dead aliens possessing our bodies)? I remember Rodney Dangerfield talking about how he believed that aliens created us and were watching over us as science experiments before he died, then again he wanted to clone himself.

Haha :)

Anyway, I think there must be life somewhere else than just our little planet in the whole universe...

I believe in UFOs, and I'm sure there are aliens out there -somewhere-... I'm just not one of these "WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF BRAINWASHED ALIEN GHOSTS" theorists.

I take this stuff lightly.