The idea that alien spaceship routinely abduct humans and probe them seems highly unlikely, given the lack of anything resembling hard evidence. Though, I agree with Zel’s analogy that such probing is essentially precisely what we ourselves do to many other species, so I dismiss the argument “they would never be interested”. Monkeys in the deep jungle may be using the exact same argument to convince other monkeys that there is nothing to the reports of naked apes wrapped in cloth who lurks around and kidnap their friends, and they would be wrong.

But, nevertheless, just for fun, a lovely conspiracy theory to think about :) : the Roswell crash (which is one of the first more well documented possible UFO incidents) coincides very closely with the invention of the transistor. If there is one single invention that truly sparked the modern technological development, it is the transistor. <scary sound>

Id be highly suprised if there is not extra-terriastial life out there, I see nothing special enough about Earth to suggest that it is the only life bearing object in space. In fact I find it highly arragant to assume, that there is only life on Earth.

I do however have doubts if we will either meet or have been visited by them. Its possible. Exploring other planets is pretty much out of my grasp, so I will just get on with what I can do, and keep aliens, to sci-fi.

Pretty much what you said, but I still think it would be really depressing if we ourselves wouldn’t be interested in lesser civilizations when we reached point of interstellar exploration.
I think probably the best answer to the fermi paradox is that the faster than light travel is either impossible or way beyond the reach of type I or type II civilizations, making type III extremely rare or non-existent.
Or we just don’t know how to communicate.

Eric wrote:

Any attempt to predict the future falls into the region of faith and therefore religion.

Not true. It all depends your reasoning for believing what you do. If you drop an object, it will fall to the ground, accelerating at about 9.82 m/s². This is what science does, figuring out the mechanics of the world and to – yes – predict the future. This is fine as long as you’re aware that you’re not dealing with a prophecy, but a prediction, and properly assess the probability of the prediction. However, the vast majority of attempts at predicting have absolutely no support in any scientific method.

Any attempt to predict the future falls into the region of faith and therefore religion.

I guess the fascination with UFOs is summed up by Mulder’s iconic poster in X-Files, “I want to believe.”

Religion, UFOs, hell even Dyson Spheres are all things we want to believe. I’m just on the side of well maybe we can build a Dyson Sphere, but it’s unlikely we’ll find gods or aliens. We just aren’t that important.

I’m not going to say that every UFO sighting is completely fabricated, some sightings are from very credible and competent sources like air force and airliner pilots who report seeing the very definition of UFOs-Unidentified Flying Objects. Then there are things like the sighting in Mexico city seen by thousands of people at the same time. They can’t be fully explained, but I find the thought that they are extraterrestrials that spent unknown ages and resources to get to earth so they could mutilate cows and probe people to be kind of stupid. There is a show on the History channel called “Ancient Aliens” the people on this show document and research strange archaeological sites, some of them are huge, and they really don’t know how people managed to build them several thousand years ago, so these guy’s automatically assume that Aliens are the only explanation. Or maybe some paleo-indian decided to draw weird and fantastical things on a rock in the desert, well nothing that looked like that existed back then so according to these “experts” it has to be evidence of aliens. 5,000 years from now someone is going to find a well preserved copy of Independance Day buried in some ruins and start searching for evidence to support that it is a matter of historical fact. I think ufos, by definition of the term, are absolutly real, but are they extraterrestrial visitors? Extremely unlikely to the point of being ridiculous. Sorry for rambling on about it, but it is a fascinating cultural phenomenon.

@ Rob:

Magic of course. :)

@ Zel:

True, we are a tad bit interesting than bacteria. I don’t think we are that unpredictable though. We think we are, but like most animals we do behave in a fairly predictable way most of the time. I’m pretty sure our behavior would be very transparent to a Kardashev type III civilization.

It’s kinda like our pets. We can’t really communicate with them on an equal level but we can pretty much figure out all their wants and needs just by observing their behavior because their minds are much, much simpler.

Also, we exterminate animals we consider pests without thinking about it twice. Like when you move into a new place and realize it has a cockroach infestation. Granted, cockroaches can be fascinating critters from purely biological point of view, but you don’t really want them where you live. We have no qualms about killing them en-masse. That’s sort of how a higher civilization might view us – as pests.

I do consider believing in alien presence in our midst like a religion, and as with any religion I’ve come across, I really can’t prove or deny the basis of their faith. I don’t believe in it, but I won’t scorn anyone who does. It’s entirely in the belief domain and thus can’t really be decided until convincing proof has been found one way or the other, however unlikely that is.

As for the bacteria analogy, let me remind you that there are probably thousands of researchers looking and poking at them trying to unveil whatever secret they still have, every single day. And I think we’d be much more interesting to watch and prod than bacteria to a higher entity, given our relative unpredictability or a least very complex behavior.

Then how did Jeff Goldblum upload a virus to the alien mothership using only is Mac Book if UFOs don’t exist?