Are we alone in the universe?
 

I voted no, but I don't think it's as common as others may think. I think that simple life (bacteria) is common, but advanced (machine building) life (as ourselves) is very rare.

My theory is that in the Milky Way alone, there may be as few as under 50 planets with advanced life at our level or above, and why do I think that? Because if advanced life was more common we would have seen traces of it already, since we haven't (maybe the WOW signal back in 1977 was alien, but not confirmed), logic dictates that advanced life is very rare, and therefore we are too far away to ever get in contact with anyone at our level or above...sad, but this is what I think.

What are your thoughts ?

I voted no...Mostly for my own safety! Mankind seems bent on conquering, can you imagine dozens of other life forms, all as aggressive as us??? Yikes!

I believe we can never be alone in the Universe, because we have each other. A species that thrives on regular physical and emotional contact will be very likely to find others off-world, however long in coming. -LBD.

No, I think theres countless alien civilizations out there, but they are so far away, that we will probably never make concact.

I dont agree that we would have seen any traces of them by now. If an advanced species have sent broadcasts or signals in any way, they would have deteriorated in space beyond detection before even reaching us, because of the vast distances.

If we would have found any solid prove of an alien civilization, it would have to be in the immediate neighborhood of space.

Our broadcasts havent reached that far into space yet. Take a look at this: http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/...roadcasts.html

I said yes because I have never seen anything such as alien civilization or any other civilizations, but who knows, there could be something out there we don't know about.

So, you're vote is actually yes [?]

I vote no. Others planets exists, it's known.

Now, for a contact, there may be many things explaining there's none at the moment :
-They are too far, even for radio signal
- They don't use the same kind of way to communicate, so we can't hear them
- They are far, and, as us, can't go faster than light, so it's to long to visit other planets
- They know how to go faster than light, and yet visited us, but they found us so insane and dangerous that they prefer to see us from their planet, far far away.

Hey, and why not, the last one : they are yet here, but so same as us, that we never detect them (and so, I must have a look at my neighbour, who's so weird [bigeyes] )

About them being here already, I find that highly unlikely, why spend so many resources to get here, and then just stay out of sight ?

If Einstein is right, and faster than speed of light is not possible, then the distances are far too great for us to ever meeting anyone else, maybe sometime in the far future we will detect an alien signal from 1000 lightyears away, the signal will be so old, and it will take 1000 years to receive a reply that it's useless for any meaningful contact.

Einstein himself thought that his theory would be ruined within less than 20 years.
Maybe we are less clever than him.

Being there without doing anything is hard to believe with our way of thinking. But who knows, if alien are philosophers, or if they come only to study our world, the first thing to do is to remain undetected.

I voted No. I have seen many strange things in the sky and I am sure they are not baloons, clouds, or whatever.

I prefer to think that we are visited by good beings.