I absolutely love all this stuff & really want to believe but I fear the biggest conspiracy here is a Democrat (Harry Reid) funnelling cash to his friends company to the tune of $20,000,000.

Project Serpo remains my favourite story.

The mountains are calling & I must go.

I posted on here a few months back about a newly released film on this topic called "Unacknowledged".

Well worth an hour of your time..if you're interested.

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

As lay people reading articles from others with doubtful motives or accuracy we should maintain an agnostic position.

The universe has been here for nearly 14 billion years by our current estimates. The sheer size and number of galaxies means that life would have likely occurred uncountable times even given the number of conditions that have to be met for its protection.

The number of civilizations that survive, mature and progress to an extent that they can transverse the.....quite frankly almost unbelievable distances between stars must be at a premium....if indeed it's even possible to find a means in physics......However, given the time available I'm of the mind that if it's possible then it's been done.

Regardless.....there is the problem that when we look for evidence out there in the star systems we don't readily see it......However, it must be noted that we can't really see that much outside of the local galactic area that would make us certain about sophisticated life.....frankly it's looking for the obvious.

We are also constrained by our knowledge of what to look for.....it's likely that very advanced civilizations are using different systems of nature and technology and that we can't spot them using what we currently know and look for.

Or perhaps all these UFO events are us traveling back in time and sight seeing.....or perhaps it's all a load of old bollocks and either fakes or development tech.

Agnostic.

Edited by Stirlingsays (20 Dec 2017 12.51pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

[Link]

"Original estimates[edit]
There is considerable disagreement on the values of these parameters, but the 'educated guesses' used by Drake and his colleagues in 1961 were:[24][25]

R∗ = 1 yr−1 (1 star formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy; this was regarded as conservative)
fp = 0.2 to 0.5 (one fifth to one half of all stars formed will have planets)
ne = 1 to 5 (stars with planets will have between 1 and 5 planets capable of developing life)
fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
fi = 1 (100% of which will develop intelligent life)
fc = 0.1 to 0.2 (10–20% of which will be able to communicate)
L = 1000 to 100,000,000 years (which will last somewhere between 1000 and 100,000,000 years)
Inserting the above minimum numbers into the equation gives a minimum N of 20 (see: Range of results). Inserting the maximum numbers gives a maximum of 50,000,000.

Drake states that given the uncertainties, the original meeting concluded that N ≈ L, and there were probably between 1000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy."

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

In my humble view, the Drake equation is pseudoscience.
You can't load a formula with so may guesses and expect to get anything like an accurate result.

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (20 Dec 2017 2.12pm)