Can the Earth be the only place in the Universe that harbors life? Most astronomers don’t believe this is true. Certain statistics in the Universe provide evidence that living beings may be common place through out the universe, on planets of other stars besides the sun. In this paper I plan to discuss the various viewpoints of those that believe that extraterrestrials exist and have even been visiting Earth, and the viewpoints of skpetics that believe that aliens don’t exist and have not been visiting Earth. To get into the topic we must first start at the base of the subject.
First the question must be ealt with of life being only indigenous to planet Earth. One of the most basic materials that are essential to form life are basic carbon compounds. These carbon compounds are very abundant throughout the Universe. Carbon compounds exist not only on planets but on comets and free floating asteroids and gas clouds in space. Although, even with the abundance of all these compunds in the Universe the chances of these compounds forming into living beings aren’t so great, however it is true that the odds of carbon forming into life sustaining compounds is greatly increased with an increase in time.
The Universe works on a basis backward to the human way of thinking. The Universe becomes more orderly with time while we would tend to think that time breaks down structures. This means to us that the chances of life evolving on any part of the Universe increases as time moves forward. Another factor that is necessary for life evolving is a Star’s size. Our Sun is a very ordinary star in terms of it size and temperature. Statistics show that there are billions of stars like the sun in our galaxy alone. ( Henbest & Couper, 1989, paragraph 5 ) Life evolving in one of these star ystems may have developed in the same way humans have.
Philosophers have argued for centures about how to define life. If we study living things on the Earth, we find that there are some very basic characteristics that will guide us when we consider life elsewhere in the 3 Universe. ( Henbest & Couper, 1989, paragraph 7 ) Life on Earth shows immense diversity. From organisms such as sea slugs to the human being. All life on Earth are made up of the same basic units, cells. Each cell is built up from chains of carbon, the most important element to our existance. Within our own solar system only 1 out of 9 planets defines as having life as we know it.
According to some scientists Mars our sister planet may have started to harbor life early in its evolution but some catastrophic event caused Mars to become the barren frozen wasteland it appears to be today. for our solar system alone 2 out of 9 planets that have or may have had life aren’t very bad odds for extraterrestrial life throughout the Universe. Most skeptics of extraterrestrial life or at least of intelligent extraterrestrial life existing are those that believe in Creation rather than evolution.
Creation, in Christianity states that in seven days the Sun, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by a superior spiritual being, or God. This paper was not written to argue whether any of this is true, or debate the existance of God but just states the opposing views of those who believe intelligent life is non-existant elsewhere in the Universe. I believe that the human race would very much like to feel that we are the only intelligent life forms in the Universe. To believe that we are the only intelligent life forms in the universe makes us feel special and gives our life a purpose that no other being can experience.
To have proof of other intelligent life existing would give humans such a cultural shock that some have said that our social, economic and political systems would be thrown off balance. ( Cornet, 1995, paragraph 10) Religious, and social chaos would become rampant. To wrap up the question outlined we must touch on the question of whether E. T’s have been visting Earth. As stated in the previous paragraph, for the human race to come face to face with 4 a more advanced alien race would be so much of a cultural shock that our governmental, economic, and social structures would be broken down.
Solely based on the new knowledge of all persons on Earth that we are not alone and have never really been. Religious teachings and basis of human uniqueness would have to be revised, leaving many many people of the world to breakdown. Imagine that you have just been told, rather have just come to the realization that everything you’ve ever known about life and creation has been a false teaching. That you have no special purpose, that you are one of perhaps thousands or millions of intelligent beings in the Universe. I can imagine that one would collapse based upon this knowledge.
This is the most mportant fact that actually is in favor of the existance of an advanced race visiting Earth. This is what leads many E. T. believers that intelligent life throughout the Universe is abundant and we have been visited by an advanced race of beings. The advanced race of beings would have the knowledge that solid proof of their existance would break us down socio-economically and therefore have managed only to slowly hint their existance rather than appearing to us and saying We do exist. Many people who are believers of E. T. ‘s have had experiences or profound symbols shown to them that lead them to believe that E.T’s are visiting Earth.
These who are believers believe strongly that these E. T. ‘s are here to help mankind. They are here to help man- kind spiritually advance themselves. An example often used to advocate these aliens helping mankind is our sudden boost of technology within the 19th and 20th centuries. Many believe that one day these E. T. ‘s existance will become obvious to us and they will show themselves for all to see. This will not happen anytime soon I would imagine because we are still maturing socially and spiritually, to have such an experience. The E. T’s are preparing us few by few to ventually let their presence become known.
It is not only those who believe in Creation that doubt the existance of E. T’s visiting Earth, 5 scientists are also among some of the most substantial skeptics. Scientists share the same views as Religious figures in one aspect, that no E. T’s are visiting Earth. Science and Religion are finding a common view for once in history. Although scientists are looking at the situation in a different aspect, Scientists believe that an alien race could never reach Earth because of the enormous amount of energy that would be required for traveling across disctances in space.
To set up a scenario The diameter of the entire Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years. Let’s assume that an intelligent species happens to reside on a planet 5,000 light-years from Earth, and that 1. 5 billion years ago their starships were capable of cruising at 10% of the speed of light. If they traveled only 1 light-year at a time, with each trip taking about ten years, and they rested or consolidated for a little less than 300,000 years before setting out on the next 1 light-year journey they still could have reached Earth by now!
The answer to the question is T i m e . . . table of contents ( ETIGrail FAQ’s, nodate) For your knowledge, a light year is the distance that light travels in a year equal to 9 X 4605 million million kilometres. In accordance with Albert Einstein’s relativity theories a speed of light traveling starship would require an infinite amount of energy. Even a ship travelling at 99. 99% the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, would require just as large an amount of energy, almost infinite.
Regardless of these scientific restrictions to space travel of enormous distances some evidence suggest the occurrence of out of this world experiences that cannot be explained. Alien abductions as well as U. F. O sightings are among the most known evidence of human contact with extraterrestrials. Although most abduction stories or UFO stories are proved hoaxes there are some to consider. Among most abduction stories there are signs of the E. T’s removing 6 reproductive cells, the ovum of a female human and the sperm of a male human.
Some believe that these surgical procedures are done because of this alien’s race becoming infertile due to a gamma ray burst of a near by star rendering all inhabitants of their home planet sterile. Scientists find this idea very common and is even possible on Earth. A gamma ray burst has left hese E. T’s in a desperate search to save their race. In an attempt to do so they create hybrid species, a mix of human and this alien race known as the Zeta Reticuli most widely known as the grays. Abuctees have many a time reported seeing human figures , much taller than the rest of the gray huge oval black eyed beings.
They at first glance thought these people to be humans but upon closer viewing realized they had many similar facial features to the grays, their eyes were sometimes black and huge. This theory is one of the most accepted by those who believe in the existance of E. T’s on Earth. Dr. Bruce Cornet is one such person claiming to have shared many experiences with one species of intelligent life visiting earth, he believes that there are more than one. His educational and professional experiences are as follows : He earned a B. A. in biology in 1970 and M. S. n paleobotany in 1973 at the University of Connecticut, and his Ph. D. in geology and palynology in 1977 at Penn.
State University. His professional status goes on and on as you can see this man isn’t one of the typical abductees. He seems to be a reliable source and a well educated man. This man has claimed that there are ample physical, geophysical, and hotographic data collected by himself during his two and a half years of research into the UFO phenomenon to support the hypothesis that Earth is currently inhabited by more than one sentient intelligent humanoid species.
Cornet, 1995 paragraph 16) In general he believes that his success in obtaining this data from his field investigations appears to have been deliberately planned by the non-humans as part of a long term agenda to gradually educate mankind without 7 causing harm or damage to our religious and socio-economic structures. He believes that they want us to become of their existance without fearing them. In addition to U. F. O sightings by ordinary people some believe that the governments of the world or the United States government already has the knowledge of an advanced race of alien beings.
The government to this day denies rumors of a cover up but evidence to the contrary is very persistent. To understand why the government would cover up such stories of Aliens working with them in cooperation with the armed forces and military may seem obvious. If word got out that an advanced civilization was aiding the United States military, and their existance has only been denied constantly by the government people would most definetely seek o find a unified government, for they would have lost trust in the current governmental institution. Another obvious reason for the governments denial of E.
T. is the disasterous effects it may have on the world. Culture shock and loss of cultural identity may be one of the worst effects of exposing the existance of E. T. ‘s. Another theory of the government’s cover up reasons include the Advised Theory. It may be that our visitors have advised our governments to cover-up the fact of their existence, or that there is an agreement between our governments and them to adopt such a policy. Hughes, 1998) Knowledge of alien visitors would throw the world into an economic depression for the following reason.
If people knew that advanced beings had the technology to grasp free energy which would explain how they have been able to conquer space travel of such large distances, we would make obsolete the use of oil and all other forms of human energy harvesting, the global economy would fail simply because it is based upon the oil industry. Regardless of all the speculation about aliens existance and their presence on Earth! , we continue to ponder at the stars an spend money on space searching radio telescopes such as S. E. T. I the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.
We have not yet heard any radio blips from the extra solar star systems and continue to search , wondering whether we are alone. I believe we may never get a radio message for that advanced civilization we are looking for if they are truly here on Earth. They may want to keep their presence unknown to us until we have evolved far enough mentally as well as technologically to handle knowledge of their existance. Philosophical speculation that there might be other worlds similar to ours dates back to the ancient Chinese and Greeks.
Even on the paintings of cave walls were strange figures of humanoid beings in space helmets and suits. To this day Historians are not sure for certain why the Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids or even how they were able to accomplish such a feat with the existant technology at that time. There is speculation that the ancient Egyptians were in contact with E. T’s as well. Technological advancements throughout the centuries may have been aided by those from the stars, we may have had help on our evolutionary path and path of advancement.
A believer in E. T. s existance such as myself believe that all of the discussed ssues are plausible by the existance of extraterrestrials. It remains a mystery to many though whether they exist on Earth or even at all. To say that extraterrestrials don’t exist throughout the Universe is not a valid belief. There are simply too many ways or forms of which to find life throughout the Universe, intelligent or not. The odds of life on an intelligent or non intelligent scale in our own Milky way are pretty good on their own. To my belief, the Universe is teaming with life, I cannot say for sure whether we have been visited by any but this is all plausible.
I emain captivated at the thought of an advanced civilization aiding mankind in advancement of our species. I hope one day we as a race will become one advanced enough morally socially and politically that war of any kind is non-existant and we will live in a world in which we get along 9 with one another regardless of petty differences. To an advanced civilization, we must all seem just the same to each other , they would probably have compassion to the human ways and this is why they may have taken on the responsibility of helping us advance as a civilization so that we may create a bond with beings of another origin.