Do you think Humanity will make contact with an alien species in your lifetime?

Yes, but then I’m a Scientologist.

Contact? No.
Discovery of some kind of life? 50%

@worriedguy
You have a good point.
I will DVR Discovery channels new show tonight.
It is about the risk of connect.

To be honest, I think it will definitely happen in my lifetime (in the next 70ish years)….It wouldn’t surprise me if something has been found already and its just not in the general populations best interest to know about it at this point in time.

If the collision of ETs and humanity pan out like Stephan Hawking suggests, I for one think that it will be Karma biting human kind in the ass for all the pain we have brought upon our own planet and fellow earthly inhabitants. And if they treat us with respect, and help us into a new era of technological advancements beyond our wildest dreams, I think we should all thank our lucky stars that a species much greater and fairer than human beings found us.

I think it will eventually happen, and it will result in either the evolution or extinction of human beings….either scenario is exciting in my opinion.

Or maybe we are not even interesting enough to poke a stick at…thats always a possibility.

Well, who says we haven’t already? I mean, not as a whole species, but there are dozens of accounts of supposed contact with alien species. If we believe that there is life out there, who’s to say those few people didn’t actually have some kind of experience with them? If that is the case, it seems to me that they would’ve made themselves more widely known if they were interested… enough so that you couldn’t deny their existence at least.

I think its unlikely. Even though aliens species/intelligence might exist (some would argue they almost certainly do) we’re such an insignificant part of the universe I don’t see any advanced alien species caring about us. Especially since their motives would be so different (even, one might argue, alien) from ours that there would likely be little reason for contact.

I’m sure we will discover some sort of life in my lifetime.

In my opinion we already have. Alien abductions, recovered bodies and shrapnel from crash sites and maybe even extraterrestrial influence in ancient times.

@ragingloli
I have heard astronauts saw UFOs.
The governments do not want people to panic.
We don’t really know everything; we have no proof.
It could be very frightening.

Nope. I’m far from convinced that we even have aliens to make contact with.

We may find life, but it will be little microbes and so not vary talkative.

Aren’t you fascinated by the possibilities?
I see Hawking’s point and take it seriously but humans are by nature explorers.

The Arecibo Observatory sent a while back some scientific coded message into the beyond to prove the existence of intelligent beings outside our galaxy. If there’s life out there, they’re hoping to get a response by 2025.
I still doubt the existence of aliens, though.

@helloLee
They sent the signal once to a star cluster that is 23 thousand light years from earth. By the time it arrives at its destination in 23 thousand years, the signal will most likely be indistinguishable from background noise and assuming it is received and an answer is sent, another 23000 years will have passed when the answer arrives at earth, assuming that the extraterrestrials will use primitive radio technology.
In my opinion, it is next to impossible that we will ever hear a response to that signal. It is like winning the lottery jackpot millions of times in a row.

No. According to the Fermi Paradox, if there was an intelligent alien civilization elsewhere in our galaxy, they would have spread out and populated the whole galaxy by now, and we’d know about them. Therefore, none exist in our galaxy. That’s not to say they don’t exist anywhere in the universe, they probably do. But if interstellar travel is so difficult, intergalactic travel probably is impossble, which is why they haven’t occupied our galaxy.

I absolutely believe there is life out there. We just won’t be able to communicate with them.
There’s that pesky speed of light thing going.

@worriedguy
Watch Discovery Channel at 9 PM tonight.
I will DVR it.
Maybe we shouldn’t try. I am not sure.

@HungryGuy
We have colonised most of the world. How often do we make official contact with the other intelligent species on earth (dolphins, certain squid, elephants, primates). Next is that we can only accurately observe a small fraction of our galaxy, our backyard, so to speak, so even if they have colonised large portions of the galaxy, their worlds maybe still out of range. Then they might very well use communication technologies that is so far ahead of our primitive and inefficient radio that we might we are unable to intercept them, like extremely focused laser pulses precisely aimed at the target destination, completely bypassing our planet. Or some sort of artificial microwormholes through which they send their signals. Think of a tribe of natives watching a large city and concluding that it is empty because there are no smoke signals.

@HungryGuy Despite the genius Fermi was, I’d suggest there maybe something he didn’t take into account. The aliens might be very far away, perhaps even on other planets.

In any event, we’ve seen almost nothing of the universe and understand even less of it, we really can’t draw conclusions about aliens based on how insignificant understanding.

On the other hand, who can dispute this undeniable evidence.

The likelihood is less than 0.1%

This is interesting. See link.http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/03/the-mystery-of-the-silent-aliens.php

@mattbrowne – <0.1% You’re being optimistic! LOL

Gadzooks, knowingly aliens or extraterrestrials will never make themselves known. As we observe animals in the wild before he go plodding around in the jungle I am sure they have observed us and found us too violent and barbaric to make 1st contact. When we encounter others we can’t understand we view them as a threat or with deep suspicion. If they did not understand any human language we would attack them 1st, and if they have the technology to get here from way out there we would be the catalyst to our own demise, they would squash us like bugs.