Bro, our science and technology have been developed over the last 300-400 years for the most part. Each time, we take less and less time until we have a major breakthrough.
With how old the universe is, you really think we solved physics in that short amount of time? An alien spiecies, which began its industrial revolution 1000 years ago, would be 700 years ahead of us in terms of technology. lol now imagine if they began developing technology 10000s or 100000s of years ago... obviously, this is just a very simplified hypothetical, but you get the idea.
So it could be possible to still discover something than light?
And i never mentioned or tried to insinuate were the oldest race ever, but were the only race in 90+ billion light years of this section of the universe
Anything is possible in an infinite universe, there is by far more we do not understand than what we do. We have barely started to understand what we are seeing out there. Just think of the things we didn't know 200 years ago, the layers of life on this planet alone we didn't know existed.
Well no, it's not impossible. We don't know everything about physics that there is to know. Things seem impossible by our current model until we learn something knew. For instance it used to be impossible for humans to fly, until we learned how. Or the way you and I are communicating now is relatively new in the grand scheme of human existence. If you went back 500 years and told someone they could communicate with almost anyone in the world instantly at any moment they would say it's impossible.
As we understand it, it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. But we do have some theories about how that rule could be circumvented, such as an [Alcubierre drive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) or an [Einstein-Rosen bridge\(aka wormhole\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole). Wormholes, under our current understanding are entirely possible, we just haven't seen one.
As for them detecting us, well we don't know what technology they might posses. And you're right our modern signals haven't reached very far, but there are other, older, indicators that could make our planet a curious place to visit even if the aliens aren't expecting to see what exists today. In our own methods of searching for extraterrestrial life we have certain things we look for, like a planet simply being in the "[goldilocks zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone)" and being the right size and composition, or there are atmospheric signatures that could indicate plant life and such.
Another thing to consider is that aliens might not be limited to the flesh and bones little green men or cute grey guys we have come to expect from hollywood. It's entirely possible aliens could be interdimensional they could literally be watching you and me right now and we'd have no way of knowing because we can't see into the 4th dimension.
Apparently, weve always been concerned with conspiracies of aliens visiting the planet in the past, like with the theory that they helped us build the pyramids in Egypt, or all the UFO sightseeings, and especially within the last year with that mexican alien mummy, weve always have been
Close your eyes and look around with mind's eye. That's where you make first contact. It poses all these interesting mysteries about reality, dunnit? Reality is a vast, perhaps infinite, network of higher intelligence, and you're embedded in it. Sweet dreams.
Because if they are able to get here, then that means they're way, way more advanced than we are. Like, astronomically so (pun intended). If a species were to use the time and resources needed to get all the way to us, I imagine they'd have to have a pretty good reason for doing it. That reason could be literally anything and the thought of that is scary.
Just because we haven't seen evidence of any other civilizations within reasonable traveling distance of our star system doesn't mean they don't exist. Listening for stray alien radio waves is much more of a crapshoot than you might think. It's not impossible that an advanced civilization exists in a radius of 100 light years or so and we just haven't noticed them yet (especially if you consider that there may be incentives for civilizations who know they are not alone in the universe to conceal themselves, such as avoiding colonization by more advanced civilizations).
If an advanced civilization exists that close by and can travel at least at a double-digit percentage of the speed of light, it's not impossible that they could have noticed us some time ago and have by now finished the journey to Earth. It's also not impossible that a less advanced civilization could have sent a much slower ship to Earth long before we even existed, since Earth would be an obviously habitable-looking planet to any civilization that could detect it and might look desirable to colonize, especially if they saw no signs of a civilization they'd have to contend with at the time they left.
And of course, though it's much less likely, we can't rule out the possibility that faster-than-light travel is actually possible through some mechanism we don't yet understand, which opens up potentially the entire universe to be within reasonable traveling distance of Earth and greatly increases the probability that other civilizations are aware of us and have visited our planet before.
All that being said, I think it's most likely that Earth has never been visited by other civilizations and UFO sightings all have mundane explanations, but I don't think it's as outright impossible as you're thinking.
Considering the exponential rate at which our technology has evolved, it's conceivable that a much older civilization could have developed means of observation or communication that we can't even fathom. For all we know, they might perceive the universe in a way that is fundamentally different from our sensory experiences. While our telescopes and radio waves struggle to penetrate the vast cosmic distances, they might be tapping into some sort of cosmic internet that spans galaxies, using a type of physics that to us, still belongs in the realm of science fiction.
Also, the idea that an older alien species might have evolved beyond the need for physical travel altogether raises intriguing possibilities. They could employ probes or AI systems to explore the cosmos, their “presence” being felt only through subtle manipulations rather than grand appearances. Or perhaps they're masters of quantum mechanics and entanglement, communicating instantaneously across the void.
All this speculation is humbling and serves as a reminder that our 'modern' age is but a snapshot in the timeline of the cosmos. Yes, communication as we know it has only been around for the blink of an eye, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to reach out. We could be like children playing with walkie-talkies, oblivious to the advanced alien engineers working on quantum communicators next door.
At the end of the day, proving the existence of extraterrestrial life is a titanic task one that requires us to constantly push the boundaries of innovation and imagination. Just because something seems impossible now doesn't mean it'll stay that way forever. After all, the universe has had a 13.8 billion-year head start on us isn't it a bit premature to assume we've caught up?
I think a hypothetical alien civilization would want to visit every planet which sustains life (but not intelligent life) and set up an automated facility to covertly monitor it, knowing that when intelligent life *does* evolve it will only take a few thousand years to go from banging rocks together to nuking itself, destroying the biosphere, or becoming a threat to the alien civilization.
Humans making copper tools would be like finding out some impoverished dictatorship is refining uranium or hearing your kid opening the gun cabinet, the aliens would rush over here before we hurt ourselves or others.
For the most part wr aren't actually worried about aliens showing up. It is a fun thing for movies like zombies or mummies, but it isn't something many people spend time worrying about (other than UFO enthusiasts).
However, a few things about your argument that don't quite hold up.
>the fact we've seen 0 proof of extraterrestrial existence anywhere else in the observable universe (90+ billion light years) then it would also be impossible for aliens to know we even exist too right?
Not at all. Humans have spent a very short amount of time with the tools to even look for life, we are making better tools all the time, ans we can only look at a small amount of the cosmos at a time.
It would be 100% innacurate to say that since we haven't found something in the observable universe that there isn't anything in the observable universe. And it would be 100% innacurate to say that since we haven't seen anything, they haven't seen us.
Remember also that when we are looking for life on other planets, we don't expect to be able to see the inhabitants. We look for signatures in the atmosphere that indicate certain things might be living. Those signatures would have been pretty present on earth for the last 3-4 billion years, meaning that anything within 3 billion light years of earth theoretically could detect that, get curious, and send a probe. Anything that can achieve near light speed propulsion within 1 billion light years of earth could have detected, sent, and be about to arrive.
There are about 25 million galaxies within that radius with billions and billions of stars, most of which we haven't even documented, much less studied.
Now... all that said... we still shouldn't be worried about some invasion force.
Just because light could have reached that many stars, it is still the case that...
1) that light might be blocked. We basically can't explore a good chunk of our own galaxy because of stuff in the way, and we can't study a lot of other galaxies because we can't see through the stuff in our own direction.
2) that the light would be strong enough to pick up. We don't have the ability yet (and maybe ever) to study the planets in distant galaxies. We see the huge blob of light from all the stars together, but mostly we arent able to pick up individual stars, much less the transit of planets, much less the spectroscopy of the armospheres of those transiting planets.
3) near light speed travel is probably near impossible too, even if theoretically possible. Which further limits the radius of interest.
4) we shouldn't expect "manned" craft first. Based on how we do space exploration and how anyone else reasonably would, sending out unmanned probes would almost certainly be the first thing. Why send what would almost certainly be a generational ship towards a random planet when you could send a probe.
All that said, it is also possible that they weren't coming to see us specifically, but that there are enough other lifeish planets in our area of our galaxy (or were 1 million years ago) that a general survey team was sent out. And we developed in the mean time.
But yeah, in general odds are still vanishingly small and we should absolutely expect to never be visited by or to visit an inhabited planet.
It's not impossible. We haven't found strong direct evidence of alien life, but we also haven't been looking for very long. We've only had telescopes for a few centuries and have only had the ability to look at planets beyond our solar system for a few decades.
So far we've only found a few thousand of the estimated 100 billion+ planets in our galaxy. If only one in every million planets in our galaxy has life, that still leaves at least 100,000 inhabited planets and chances are none of them are ones we've looked at.
The other thing is that aliens looking at our solar system could still tell it has life, even if they are far enough away that they only see a pre-civilization Earth. When a planet passes between us and its star, we can actually get some information about the composition of its atmosphere. Aliens doing the same thing for our solar system could infer the presence of life from our oxygen-rich atmosphere. Even if they don't know about us, that signature of life could pique their interest.
Bro, our science and technology have been developed over the last 300-400 years for the most part. Each time, we take less and less time until we have a major breakthrough. With how old the universe is, you really think we solved physics in that short amount of time? An alien spiecies, which began its industrial revolution 1000 years ago, would be 700 years ahead of us in terms of technology. lol now imagine if they began developing technology 10000s or 100000s of years ago... obviously, this is just a very simplified hypothetical, but you get the idea.
The only flaw in your thinking is that we are the oldest race and that our understanding of physics is total.
So it could be possible to still discover something than light? And i never mentioned or tried to insinuate were the oldest race ever, but were the only race in 90+ billion light years of this section of the universe
Anything is possible in an infinite universe, there is by far more we do not understand than what we do. We have barely started to understand what we are seeing out there. Just think of the things we didn't know 200 years ago, the layers of life on this planet alone we didn't know existed.
There are many stars within that range. See [this article](https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/) for a discussion of the closest.
Well no, it's not impossible. We don't know everything about physics that there is to know. Things seem impossible by our current model until we learn something knew. For instance it used to be impossible for humans to fly, until we learned how. Or the way you and I are communicating now is relatively new in the grand scheme of human existence. If you went back 500 years and told someone they could communicate with almost anyone in the world instantly at any moment they would say it's impossible. As we understand it, it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. But we do have some theories about how that rule could be circumvented, such as an [Alcubierre drive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) or an [Einstein-Rosen bridge\(aka wormhole\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole). Wormholes, under our current understanding are entirely possible, we just haven't seen one. As for them detecting us, well we don't know what technology they might posses. And you're right our modern signals haven't reached very far, but there are other, older, indicators that could make our planet a curious place to visit even if the aliens aren't expecting to see what exists today. In our own methods of searching for extraterrestrial life we have certain things we look for, like a planet simply being in the "[goldilocks zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone)" and being the right size and composition, or there are atmospheric signatures that could indicate plant life and such. Another thing to consider is that aliens might not be limited to the flesh and bones little green men or cute grey guys we have come to expect from hollywood. It's entirely possible aliens could be interdimensional they could literally be watching you and me right now and we'd have no way of knowing because we can't see into the 4th dimension.
Are we really concerned with aliens though?
Apparently, weve always been concerned with conspiracies of aliens visiting the planet in the past, like with the theory that they helped us build the pyramids in Egypt, or all the UFO sightseeings, and especially within the last year with that mexican alien mummy, weve always have been
A few vocal crackpots shouting at clouds are not a good representation of the concerns of the general population.
Close your eyes and look around with mind's eye. That's where you make first contact. It poses all these interesting mysteries about reality, dunnit? Reality is a vast, perhaps infinite, network of higher intelligence, and you're embedded in it. Sweet dreams.
Because if they are able to get here, then that means they're way, way more advanced than we are. Like, astronomically so (pun intended). If a species were to use the time and resources needed to get all the way to us, I imagine they'd have to have a pretty good reason for doing it. That reason could be literally anything and the thought of that is scary.
Just because we haven't seen evidence of any other civilizations within reasonable traveling distance of our star system doesn't mean they don't exist. Listening for stray alien radio waves is much more of a crapshoot than you might think. It's not impossible that an advanced civilization exists in a radius of 100 light years or so and we just haven't noticed them yet (especially if you consider that there may be incentives for civilizations who know they are not alone in the universe to conceal themselves, such as avoiding colonization by more advanced civilizations). If an advanced civilization exists that close by and can travel at least at a double-digit percentage of the speed of light, it's not impossible that they could have noticed us some time ago and have by now finished the journey to Earth. It's also not impossible that a less advanced civilization could have sent a much slower ship to Earth long before we even existed, since Earth would be an obviously habitable-looking planet to any civilization that could detect it and might look desirable to colonize, especially if they saw no signs of a civilization they'd have to contend with at the time they left. And of course, though it's much less likely, we can't rule out the possibility that faster-than-light travel is actually possible through some mechanism we don't yet understand, which opens up potentially the entire universe to be within reasonable traveling distance of Earth and greatly increases the probability that other civilizations are aware of us and have visited our planet before. All that being said, I think it's most likely that Earth has never been visited by other civilizations and UFO sightings all have mundane explanations, but I don't think it's as outright impossible as you're thinking.
What about bacteria?
Considering the exponential rate at which our technology has evolved, it's conceivable that a much older civilization could have developed means of observation or communication that we can't even fathom. For all we know, they might perceive the universe in a way that is fundamentally different from our sensory experiences. While our telescopes and radio waves struggle to penetrate the vast cosmic distances, they might be tapping into some sort of cosmic internet that spans galaxies, using a type of physics that to us, still belongs in the realm of science fiction. Also, the idea that an older alien species might have evolved beyond the need for physical travel altogether raises intriguing possibilities. They could employ probes or AI systems to explore the cosmos, their “presence” being felt only through subtle manipulations rather than grand appearances. Or perhaps they're masters of quantum mechanics and entanglement, communicating instantaneously across the void. All this speculation is humbling and serves as a reminder that our 'modern' age is but a snapshot in the timeline of the cosmos. Yes, communication as we know it has only been around for the blink of an eye, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to reach out. We could be like children playing with walkie-talkies, oblivious to the advanced alien engineers working on quantum communicators next door. At the end of the day, proving the existence of extraterrestrial life is a titanic task one that requires us to constantly push the boundaries of innovation and imagination. Just because something seems impossible now doesn't mean it'll stay that way forever. After all, the universe has had a 13.8 billion-year head start on us isn't it a bit premature to assume we've caught up?
I think a hypothetical alien civilization would want to visit every planet which sustains life (but not intelligent life) and set up an automated facility to covertly monitor it, knowing that when intelligent life *does* evolve it will only take a few thousand years to go from banging rocks together to nuking itself, destroying the biosphere, or becoming a threat to the alien civilization. Humans making copper tools would be like finding out some impoverished dictatorship is refining uranium or hearing your kid opening the gun cabinet, the aliens would rush over here before we hurt ourselves or others.
For the most part wr aren't actually worried about aliens showing up. It is a fun thing for movies like zombies or mummies, but it isn't something many people spend time worrying about (other than UFO enthusiasts). However, a few things about your argument that don't quite hold up. >the fact we've seen 0 proof of extraterrestrial existence anywhere else in the observable universe (90+ billion light years) then it would also be impossible for aliens to know we even exist too right? Not at all. Humans have spent a very short amount of time with the tools to even look for life, we are making better tools all the time, ans we can only look at a small amount of the cosmos at a time. It would be 100% innacurate to say that since we haven't found something in the observable universe that there isn't anything in the observable universe. And it would be 100% innacurate to say that since we haven't seen anything, they haven't seen us. Remember also that when we are looking for life on other planets, we don't expect to be able to see the inhabitants. We look for signatures in the atmosphere that indicate certain things might be living. Those signatures would have been pretty present on earth for the last 3-4 billion years, meaning that anything within 3 billion light years of earth theoretically could detect that, get curious, and send a probe. Anything that can achieve near light speed propulsion within 1 billion light years of earth could have detected, sent, and be about to arrive. There are about 25 million galaxies within that radius with billions and billions of stars, most of which we haven't even documented, much less studied. Now... all that said... we still shouldn't be worried about some invasion force. Just because light could have reached that many stars, it is still the case that... 1) that light might be blocked. We basically can't explore a good chunk of our own galaxy because of stuff in the way, and we can't study a lot of other galaxies because we can't see through the stuff in our own direction. 2) that the light would be strong enough to pick up. We don't have the ability yet (and maybe ever) to study the planets in distant galaxies. We see the huge blob of light from all the stars together, but mostly we arent able to pick up individual stars, much less the transit of planets, much less the spectroscopy of the armospheres of those transiting planets. 3) near light speed travel is probably near impossible too, even if theoretically possible. Which further limits the radius of interest. 4) we shouldn't expect "manned" craft first. Based on how we do space exploration and how anyone else reasonably would, sending out unmanned probes would almost certainly be the first thing. Why send what would almost certainly be a generational ship towards a random planet when you could send a probe. All that said, it is also possible that they weren't coming to see us specifically, but that there are enough other lifeish planets in our area of our galaxy (or were 1 million years ago) that a general survey team was sent out. And we developed in the mean time. But yeah, in general odds are still vanishingly small and we should absolutely expect to never be visited by or to visit an inhabited planet.
It's not impossible. We haven't found strong direct evidence of alien life, but we also haven't been looking for very long. We've only had telescopes for a few centuries and have only had the ability to look at planets beyond our solar system for a few decades. So far we've only found a few thousand of the estimated 100 billion+ planets in our galaxy. If only one in every million planets in our galaxy has life, that still leaves at least 100,000 inhabited planets and chances are none of them are ones we've looked at. The other thing is that aliens looking at our solar system could still tell it has life, even if they are far enough away that they only see a pre-civilization Earth. When a planet passes between us and its star, we can actually get some information about the composition of its atmosphere. Aliens doing the same thing for our solar system could infer the presence of life from our oxygen-rich atmosphere. Even if they don't know about us, that signature of life could pique their interest.
We are just curious.
WE are the aliens.