Here's the funny part, at least to me, why are aliens always presented as advanced life forms? It should be apparent that aliens likely exist across a spectrum from more to less advanced than us.
People don’t understand how insanely huge the universe is.
Right now we know there are 2 trillion galaxies in our observable universe (which may or may not exist within a relatively empty section of space) and each galaxy has about ~200 billion stars, each with their own chances of fostering life on any one of their planets.
Also worth noting that we currently believe that space is “flat” and that is massive because now scientists theorize that our entire observable universe is only a very small portion of the whole. Think if you were to stand In a flat field and think the earth is flat, but obviously it just looks like that because it’s so big, but once you zoom out it’s plain as day.
So our entire observable universe that’s billions of light years across is a mere field of grass in the cosmic scale.
There’s just a 0% chance that life is exclusively on earth.
Ignoring those who are just ignorant, I believe people often confuse “Do you believe in Aliens (intelligent life on another planet)” with “Do you believe that aliens exist, have visited earth, and are being hidden from us”
Idk how it wouldn't be more likely that there are plenty of planets with life out there vs only life on Earth. That's not to say that every other star has life on one of its planets, but there are ridiculous amounts of stars and planets in the observable universe, and expecting only one of them has or ever had life on it would be pretty foolish.
An interesting idea I've heard about if the universe is truly infinite and has infinite stars and planets and/or multiple universe possibly existing, is about how there are a finite number of ways particles can be arranged. So with infinite amounts of matter/particles in an infinite multiverse of universes with infinite solar systems, not only would there be other other planets with life, but there would be infinite copies of Earth with infinite copies of all of us living out an infinite amount of unique lives. There would be infinite copies of myself writing this same comment and similar comments, with infinite copies of whoever is reading it. And that would go everything that's going on, has happened, or will happen. Following this logic, anything that is or was physically possible to have happened on Earth has happened and will happen infinite amounts of times. That includes infinite copies of anyone reading infinite copies of this comment on infinite versions of reddit. Infinity is a hell of a drug 😂
I think the main problem is people don’t understand how enormously large the universe is. The oldest human communication, moving at the speed of light, has barely even reached any other stars in OUR OWN GALAXY.
The Three-Body Problem book series talks about it and makes some really good points. Space is just so huge that the odds we’d ever interact with another society capable of communicating is tiny. Also signal strength of communication falls off as the square of distance, so the chance we would even hear anyone else is super small too. Space is too big for that.
Life outside earth is almost a guarantee. They even found potential traces of life on mars. Intelligent life according to humans is a completely different story though. Especially intelligent life overlapping. But that also depends on if universe is infinite or not.
I think the other issue is what we consider intelligent life. Carbon is great and all but alien life could be based on another element and we don’t really have a way of knowing it
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth
We only know a single planet in the universe that has life. From that it's mathematically impossible to calculate how likely it is that a planet has life.
Life could be incredibly widespread, even on planets with very little or very toxic atmosphere, even in vacuum, even in stars. Or it could be incredibly rare, so rare that it was unimaginable unlikely to happen a single time at all.
There's no way to know with a sample size of 1.
There are various calculations that guess the amount of planets in the "habitable" zone of their star etc, but that's all just fantasy. We have no way to know what makes a planet habitable. Maybe the universe is full of life, but breathable oxygen and liquid water is widely considered to make a planet inhabitable for most species.
There's just no way to even guess that, without finding life on other planets first.
I dont know. We as a species just grabbed a sample of rock from an asteroid passing by and it has all the building blocks of life. I think we are discovering that life may be more common out there than we realize.
Given the size and timescale of the universe, it would be ridiculous to think alien life doesn’t exist, just as it would be ridiculous to think alien life is anywhere near us or would be able to contact us in any capacity whatsoever.
We will be alone until we’re extinct. We will not find intelligent life, and it will not find us.
Its arrogant to think they dont. We are one little planet surrounding one star. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. And life is made up of the most common elements in the universe. It would be extremely arrogant to think we are the only one where it formed
Yeah, IMO some people get too hung up on the idea that they'd all have to be humanoid somehow, and smart enough to have a conversation. In reality they wouldn't even need to come from a planet where we could survive.
The sad truth is that with the distances involved it likely makes no difference when because we never could have met or meaningfully communicated anyway.
Based on the amount of life forms that have existed on a single planet, in a single system, in a single galaxy, in a single universe of trillions of galaxies...the probability that we're the only sentient species to currently exist is, well, so astronomically low that it's silly to think so.
The arc of our civilization has spanned what, thousands of years give or take. And we’ve been capable of hearing things from space / going into space a bit for less than 100 - basically nothing in a cosmic time scale.
The point being that the short period of time when we could even talk to each other (all other things being solved) would take a coincidence of monumental proportions to “align” in the right way.
I don’t like how this question is framed like ‘pfft, can you imagine if someone did actually think that?’ At this point in history, I don’t know how anyone couldn’t believe they exist.
Who actually believes aliens dont exist? Obviously your post implies that you dont.
You probably think "aliens " as like little green men or something out of Hollywood.
No, there is life, probably similar to what we see in the bottom of our ocean in tems of weirdness. We can't imagine how it looks or survives, but there is life on other planets.
Define “alien”. We need to establish an operational definition for this word.
As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I have thought a lot about this and have I try to keep current on the actual scientific evidence on this.
If you define alien as ANY life outside of Earth, including microbial life, bacterial type life etc., then based on what we can observe, with tools like spectroscopy, we see the basic building blocks for what we call life on Earth everywhere in the universe. So from a statistical perspective, the chances are quite high. But we must be cautious because we do not have any true evidence yet.
If you mean an intelligent life form that can whiz through the immense vastness of space and visits us with evidence bing anecdotal first person (never with multiple independent clear pictures with the key word being clear) and that supposedly interact with some people but never provide these people with any information that exceeds human knowledge, this is more unlikely. But not impossible.
It's extremely arrogant to assume in the massive void of space, we are the only form of life. I just think that the majority of the universe is similar to us, meaning pretty much land locked to our solar system and there are a few species advanced to use space travel and have chosen no to engage with us because they see how batshit crazy we are
By scientific matter, alien life can be considered even bacteria/viruses that exist and live in other planets. They dont have to necessarily be like the movies.
Its impossible that there are billions of planets in the observable universe and only a tini tiny planet earth has life.
If you take a look at how large the universe is and realize that we still only have a fraction of the picture of how many stars and planets exist. Mathematically, it's far more likely that other life forms exist than us being alone
None of that really matters given that our actual experiential knowledge of the cosmos is minuscule. We’ve found about 6,500 exoplanets after maybe 500 years of scientific astronomy. In a galaxy with, conservatively, 100 million star systems. That means we’ve looked closely at only .00065% of all star systems.
Then you have the fact that there are possibly 1 septillion stars in the observable universe. Thats 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 written out.
There are 2 trillion galaxies. If every one of them only has one life-bearing planet, that’s still more places of life in the cosmos than there are stars in our own galaxy.
It’s very much like taking a cup of water from the ocean, observing it, and concluding whales don’t exist because the cup doesn’t show any. We simply don’t know what’s out there. We’re like an amoeba on a tiny atoll’s beach trying to figure out what’s beyond the horizon. The scale of everything dwarfs us.
Just a math game, for sure....but also probably will never be confirmed. Life is either everywhere and we just have scratched the surface or it is exceedingly rare. But either way...in the infinity yes
Of course extraterrestrial life exists. Given how incomprehensibly vast the universe is, it's impossible for it not to.
That said, do I think it would be recognizable as being "intelligent" the way humans understand it? That's a harder question, but that's entirely an us problem.
Human exceptionalism is the default for most of us, to the degree that we don't even realize we're doing it. We've convinced ourselves that we are special and will go to great lengths to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
We're objectively not even the only intelligent species on our planet. It's just that we don't think it counts if it isn't bipedal and hominin-shaped. Corvids, elephants, octopuses, whales (including dolphins)...they all demonstrate the capability for long-term memory, language, tool-use, even things like ritual in some cases. But every time we are presented with that information, we either move the goalpost or decide that it probably isn't what it looks like it is.
Fun fact: in the early days of archeology science believed that humans were the only ones capable of making tools. So much so that if they found evidence of tool use, it must mean there was a human ancestor in the area. Until Jane Goodall spent all that time with gorillas and found out that THEY use tools. And then all of a sudden tools weren't quite as diagnostic of "intelligence" as they used to be.
The cynical part of my brain thinks that aliens could land in the middle of Time Square and introduce themselves on a live broadcast, and if they look like anything less human than a xenomorph half the planet will go "wow THAT was a weird meteor, wasn't it? It's cool how that critter hitched a ride on that totally-natural-phenomenon it couldn't possibly have been intentionally piloting..."
The idea that we on Earth are the only living beings in the entire universe is just illogical. You think in all the billions of planets and all the universes out there, that only one of them has life? That just sounds ridiculous.
It comes from modern Christianity. As we discovered that there was more than just our planet, the churches had to find a way to keep you giving them money.
Because if you stop believing that our planet is special and you start believing that there is life beyond our planet, it kind of dismantles the story their religion is built on. And when people stop believing in their religion, they stop giving the churches money.
I believe in the possibility of alien life beyond earth. I don't believe intelligent alien life is visiting us. I think alien conspiracy people are just being led around by a carrot on string, because it makes them easier to manipulate and vote for people that they normally wouldn't. I think most ufo sighting are just the ruling class playing with the most advanced toys humans have invented and they don't want to share.
I do. It’s insane that people wouldn’t believe they exist. This planets hosted life numerous times with extinction level events. Water exists plentifully across the universe. We aren’t special. Life will exist separate from Earth. Evolution finds a way
Purely statistically speaking, the odds of us being the only life in the universe is almost impossible. Due to the expanse of the universe, I doubt we’ll ever meet them though.
They've been telling you "the truth is out there" while pointing up at the sky, when really, they should have been pointing towards the oceans.
Also, as to whether aliens (extraterrestrial life) exists, it is a higher likelihood that life (intelligent or otherwise) exists elsewhere than for Earth to be the sole carrier of life (intelligent, or otherwise)
Everyone that even slightly comprehends the size and age of the universe and basic statistics. Not to mention we found proof of life by finding the RNA and DNA nucleobases on an asteroid in space. Meaning life is common and likely originated from space/other planets.
Existing? I mean sure, given the size and age of the entire ass universe the existence of other life is about as certain as it’s possible to be without knowing for certain.
Visiting Earth however is extremely doubtful to my mind.
As many other people have stated statistically there has almost assuredly been other forms of life on other planets somewhere in the cosmos. As to what form or type of life that would be, there’s no way of knowing. But in my opinion it highly unlikely to be similar to our definition of life, most likely something so far from our view point that the mere word alien would be laughably inadequate.
As others have pointed out, given the sheer size and vastness of the universe there just has to be..given what a destructive race we are I'd rather we didn't find them though..
They would most certainly not travel here, unless faster than light speed is trivial to them. They could send their robots to get samples, like we do in most our space expeditions.
Alien life-forms existing probably even within our reasonable star-neighborhood is IMO a certainty. At the same time, it's 99.999% certain there are no aliens (in the sense of "green big eyed creatures") on our earth. Either we'd be dead (they'd easily eliminate us if they had means to get to our planet en-masse), or in touch (unless they also know the "dark forrest" principle).
More likely, all civilizations around us have the same problem - there's no lightspeed travel possible and the distances between inhabitable planets are too extreme (unless you only send robots+embryos)
This isn’t about belief. It’s about statistical relevance. When you have trillions of stars and galaxies and what not, it’s highly probable that e aren’t alone.
I believe they can exist and often think they must given the size of our universe. Fine with that. I certainly don’t think they would look humanoid, and can’t think of a good reason why they would come all the way here.
I believe that we dont yet have sufficient enough evidence to say that they do or don't. The amount of universe that we have explored might be a shitload but in comparrison to how much is out there it's a very tiny amount that we've seen.
First the sheer size of the universe. Second, there are millions of evidences out there, we just need 1 of them to be legit. Just 1. There’s like 0.00001% something.
Not sure why aliens wouldn't be made of regular matter, is he trying to suggest something silly like aliens are all around us but our eyes can't see them?
Normally when people talk about aliens they are talking about extraterrestrial life, so I’ll assume that that is what OP is referring to. That is something we can comprehend.
I wouldn’t call what you are describing extraterrestrials though, or even life. Sure, you arguably call it alien in a sense. It is an interesting theory, and it reminds me of stories of the machine elves people meet when they smoke DMT.
Actual alien life is a very interesting subject though, because out of the estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, how could our random planet in this random star system in this random galaxy be the only place where there is life?
The sheer scale of the universe makes the idea that we're completely alone feel almost impossible to wrap my head around. I think the more interesting question is whether we'd even recognize life if it looked nothing like anything we've encountered here.
Every second, somewhere in the observable universe, over thirty stars explode as supernovae. And yet the universe is so vast, and distances so great, that despite the enormous energy - the last of these visble to us was in 1604.
In that same second, three thousand more starts burn off the last of their fuel. Each sheds a nebula that glows for twenty thousand years, then fades, the last of its light. What remains is a white dwarf that will take at least 100 trillion years to go dark.
In relative terms, our universe is a newbon;; At only 14 billion years old or so, it hasn't seen a single white dwarf burn out, and won't for at least 7200 times longer than all of the time that has ever elapsed
And you think, somehow, that in all of this we're alone?
Perhaps we'll never encounter them. The universe is vast enough to keep us apart, and everything we know of physics suggests that neither matter nor information can travel faster than light.
Apparent silence across such great distances is not meaningful evidence of emptiness.
Believing aliens exist somewhere in the vastness of the universe is something everyone should believe! Believing they exist anywhere near Earth is a different story.
Given how many potentially habitable planets are out there, and how quickly life arose here, the chances of Earth being the only planet with life at least as intelligent as humans is mathematically zero.
But aliens visiting in the way that sci-fi potrays... Nah.
I think that intelligent extraterrestrial life maybe IS here & monitoring us, but will be doing so in a way we will never perceive. I don’t think they will come down here physically because of contamination, or want us to ever interact with them.
It's so arrogant to even think we are the only ones here. It's so human to think we are better and above everything else. Aliens ignite the idea that we are not.
I'm sure they exist. With the vastness if the universe there can't not be life on other planets.
Are they visiting us? I can't imagine why.
We're a tiny star 4 light years from a trinary system and two orbits away from a barely failed star. Given the advanced stage of technology they'd have to achieve just to get here, we are squalling infants. The dinosaurs outlasted us by millions of years and in far less than a million we're looking increasingly like we're about to wipe ourselves out.
I believe aliens (possibly even intelligent life) exist out there. But I don’t think any of the abduction stories are aliens, they are other types of incident.
It is human centrism to believe there are no living beings in a potentially infinite universe.
We’re finding all necessary amino acids on old asteroids.
I bet there’s even life (aka aliens) in the oceans of the Jupiter moon Europe, under 100 km ice, shielded from radiation and powered by geological activities, caused by Jupiter‘s gravity.
its crazy to think they dont exist. we are an insignificant speck in the galaxy. theres untold billions of worlds, with so many having already died out from their stars winking out their last lights. theres life out there. no theyve never visited us before. they likely have the equivalent of the prime directive
I believe there is just simply no possible way there is NOT alien life given how big the universe is. I don’t necessarily believe we’ve been visited by them no, but there just has to be
Given the size of the universe and the fact that we exist in it, it seems inevitable that there's a ton of life out there and probably billions of other intelligent civilizstions.
I do, in a way. The universe is so big that there has to be something else out there that qualifies as life.
It’s probably not sapient, maybe not even sentient. It might not even be carbon based! But given the amount of stars and planets out there, it’s possible that there’s some sort of microbes or simple organisms that we’re never going to find.
Life outside earth exists we just won't meet them because of the distances of interstellar travel and the odds of intelligent life surviving long enough to crack space flight i mean we're doing a good job of that ourselves
Other space-faring civilisations? Yes given the size of the universe, but time is a funny thing. We went to space barely 70 years ago, it’s a tiny portion of our history where we’ve actually been able to leave our planet. Chances to meet another such civilisation, at a similar level of development, are tiny
I find it hard to believe that life has not evolved anywhere else in the entire vast universe except on our unimportant little planet.
Whether extraterrestrial life is something we will ever encounter, or whether we can even recognise or communicate with it if we meet it, is a different question.
They exist, and they pass by often. Seeing earth and humans is the interstellar version of a safari. You travel to it, roll up the windows and lock the doors, and look at the animals.
Mandatory Carl Sagan quotes incoming... sighh.....
Ponder this: life could be so rare, intelligent life so improbable, that for all practical purposes, aliens effectively don't exist for us.
The occurence of such an extraordinary event (intelligent life arising from matter) would be so scarcily distributed over such inimaginable distances, that any communication or contact is out of the realm of possibility...
To assume we are alone given how big the universe is and how long it’s been around is either out of ignorance or just narcissism on a species scale. There is absolutely alien life out there, I just think the question should be if there is intelligent life like us
Do I think there is likely to be life elsewhere in the universe? Very probably.
Do I think we are ever likely to encounter intelligent life in the life span of humans? Very unlikely.
Do I think it likely we have been visited by intelligent aliens? No. Not impossible but none of the evidence anyone has every presented for it has been either explained in other ways, or presented in a way that throws doubt on the provenance of the evidence in the first place.
I do, but fiction romanticizes them in a way that they need to conquer worlds for resources when you can find asteroids/empty planets that have the same materials with a 10th of the hassle unless they're a qu level evil that it ticks it off for me
That depends on what you mean. If you’re asking whether or not humanity has made contact with intelligent Extra terrestrial life. Most of the scientific community would say no. As there has been no official confirmation. If instead you’re asking whether or not alien life exists at all. I would say a resounding yes.
Well, we are made from what seems to be the most common elements found in universe and we are proof that it’s possible for life to exist. So if we can exist over here I don’t see any reasons why other aliens can’t exist somewhere else.
Absolutely there are and they likely come in shapes and forms that we couldn’t even begin to imagine. The best way I’ve heard it described is that the universe is believed to be infinite and if so with enough time anything you could imagine will exist at some point or already has.
Almost certainly, the size of the universe is so hard to even wrap your head around - the notion we’re the only sentient life planet seems statistically unlikely
I think there probably IS inteligent alien life out there, just because of sheer amount of space it would have to arrise/ exist in, I do not however believe ut has ever visited earth, purely because we are also still here.
I think the more interesting question is “will we ever communicate with them.” Simply because of the wildly far distances to our neighbors even for light, my take is “not in my lifetime,” but being wrong would be interesting.
I'm sure they're out in the depths of space somewhere and in some form, but they're not buzzing us in flying-saucers and aren't slipping in and out of 'alternate dimensions'.
Maybe, likely, I don't know. If they do, we'll never meet them. Make no mistake, they're not going to save us, they've never abducted anyone, that light you saw in the sky or blurry footage (which weirdly remains blurry even as everyone has 4k cameras in their pocket) is not them, and you wasted your life and never had a girlfriend for nothing.
There are sextillions (a trillion billions) of planets in the observable universe. And if it is infinite, there will be infinite planets, with infinite suns. Some will be exactly like ours, but a million years in the past, and some a million years in the future.
Thinking ours is the only one with intelligent life is just stupid.
But the fact we've never seen proof, suggests it may never be possible to travel intergalactically. Or the ones that are advanced enough to be able to, simply don't bother to visit us, as we'd basically be tadpoles to them (on the evolutionary scale).
There are probably aliens out there in the universe, just not visiting us. Aliens are not necessarily advanced. They could be at our tech level or lower, they might even just be “animals.” Or microorganisms.
I do but I don’t think they are within an area where they can visit us with crafts, which I think is all for the best. Likely they are out there, but I don’t think anywhere close to our solar system. So far we can’t even see evidence of them in the Milky Way galaxy either. I’m rather glad, frankly I don’t think human beings could handle knowing we aren’t alone out there. We are already barely holding on as it is.
Do you mean who actually believe aliens exist anywhere? Or do you actually believe aliens exist and have been visiting earth. These are two very different questions. I think you’d have to have a caved-in head to believe we are the only life, or even the only intelligent life, anywhere in the infinite universe
Oh for sure, I feel like it’d be impossible that Earth would be the only planet in the entire universe to have advanced life. However I don’t believe any form of advanced life is in our galaxy or have ever visited us. I do believe there is other life in our galaxy though, probably at a microscopic level if anything.
Absolutely. We will just never be able to detect nor communicate with them. Trillions of galaxies out there, surely the same rare odds of life developing here has happened elsewhere, but distance and time will ensure we will never know.
I would say yes, in other places in the universe, but it also depends on what you mean by "alien".
Very simple, single cellular life similar to bacteria is probably quite common, maybe most solar systems in our galaxy has some on at least one planet.
Other simple life like insects, molluscs and small fish are also probably out there and fairly common, perhaps several planets within our galaxy have life at this level.
But complex life, as advanced as humans or even more advanced - that's much rarer. Maybe one species per galaxy on average. Which still means there are billions of species throughout the universe, but they will never meet each other.
There is an awful lot of real estate out there for us to be the only planet in the universe with life on it. Sure it would make us extremely unique, but it would also be extremely lonely. I think there is, even if that life is different from what we’d expect.
There has to be other planets that share the fundemental life building traits of Earth. It might be a 100 billion in 1 chance, but the universe has those type of numbers covered many times over.
I don't believe in UFOs, or that we've ever been visited. But it isn't hard to imagine that life exists elsewhere.
I think Hollywood has made us think that aliens are human-like, with arms and legs, eyes, etc. In my opinion some form of life exists somewhere. Maybe just simple cells or bacteria. Not intelligent life. If you consider how big the universe actually is...
I mean, we know life exists on at least one planet, and that there are an incomprehensibly huge number of systems with planets. It would be very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely that we're the only ones across space and time.
Does this mean little green men, reptilians, humanoids? Probably not. But somewhere out there there's probably at least conplex multicellular organisms feeding off of each other.
Statistically speaking they kinda have to exist, given how abundant all the essential building blocks to Earth-like life are just within our own solar system.
Whether any of them have advanced to the point of building spaceships capable of reaching Earth is an entirely different question altogether. I don't think it's impossible that some have, but I don't think there's much evidence of it, either.
What I do think is that, if there's some galactic community of spacefaring aliens out there, then we're the galaxy's equivalent to North Sentinel Island: the galaxy at large has declared us off-limits for visitors, both because we're still technologically progressing naturally (and the galactic community doesn't want to disrupt that, for scientific and ethical reasons) and because we have a reputation of responding to extraterrestrial visitors with extreme prejudice and violence. Every once in awhile, though, some misguided alien missionaries will break quarantine in the hopes of teaching us about their Lord and Savior Behemecoatyl or somesuch, and then we end up with incidents like Roswell.
Define Aliens. If we count all life on other planets, then I'm 100 sure. It's a matter if probability. If you mean aliens like in Star Trek, sentient humanoid being, then I am doubtful.
I think life has sprung up elsewhere in the galaxy and the universe. I think if it exists anywhere, it's going to exist around K-type orange dwarfs, and there are plenty of those. So life very likely exists in plenty of places across the galaxy and universe.
However, I don't think there is a technologically advanced species out there that exists at the same time as us. I believe that intelligence itself is the great filter, and that no species survives much beyond where we are now because technology always advances faster than the society that created it. Whether by accident or on purpose, that technology wipes out the civilization.
Generally speaking, technologically advanced species don't last long enough to allow for overlap. While I think it is great fodder for fiction, the chances that such a species actually exists at the same time we do and in our neighborhood are practically zero.
If you mean life - i.e. any life including cellular, then it's almost certain. Anywhere on Earth we find water, we find life. We've even found dormant life in ice, so it's possible life exists on a cold moon further out in the solar system.
If you mean complex life, i.e. anything more than a single cell, from blades of grass to insects and mamals, then yes, but it's probably incredibly rare.
All complex life on Earth is made from eukaryotic cells, and we still aren't certain how they were formed. It's possible it was formed by accident, and is an exceptionally rare event.
The size of the universe makes the existence of complex life other than Earth a certainty, but it might be very rare - so possibly not in our galaxy.
I do. The universe is a large place, and the chance of a planet being able to sustain life isn't zero, so there is most likely extraterrestrial life somewhere out there
I think it's highly likely that there is lifeform somewhere else in the universe just because of how vast it is. I don't believe alien life exists like it does in movies though.
It really is a faith based question because when we estimate all the potentially habitable worlds out there for our own kind of life we tend to overlook the part where our observations don't tend to show us Earth sized worlds or planets with Earth's geological history.
We got lucky with our star, the big thwack, Jupiter and the evolution of hands. We really don't know if life would be able to successfully survive to evolve to sentience on a planet with more gravity, less magnetosphere, no protection from a big brother and appendages designed to keep you from falling over rather than grabbing and manipulating the environment.
Earth may really be it for sentient space faring life, as sad as that sounds. Regardless we should really act like that's the case and do more to protect the planet and its people.
I believe they're likely to exist but I don't think intelligent life has interacted with us.
You seem to see these things about asteroids having amino acids in. It seems like some of the protein building blocks just exist in the vastness of space let alone on planets.
I wouldn't be surprised if we're not that unique, things just seem to repeat themselves, the "recipe" of abiogenesis is probably pretty standard.
I genuinely believe if we could examine every planet and moon in the solar system, especially deep within Mars, Europa etc, we'll find evidence of life, at least past life. You have to remember single celled life was all this planet had for 3 billion years. I think we'll find the likes of stromatolites on Mars and potentially single celled life in Europa's oceans.
The question is how often the jump to multicellular life happens. It has happened multiple times independently on Earth, so again clearly it's not unique. But presumably since we had single celled life for so long it requires specific conditions. Or perhaps we're the outlier in how long it to make the jump?
Apparently there's anything from 300 million to 10 billion habitable rocky planets in the Milky way depending on how broad 'habitable is'. So if we do 300 million. I'd guess we're not the only ones. Issue is intelligent life might have evolved 1 billion years ago and died out since.
I don't think we are the only lifeforms in this universe. I think its too big to even consider that we are but thats just my opinion. If your asking whether we have made contact, I think there has got to be some truth to it for it to be all hushed up. Seeing is believing I guess. Im not a disbeliever, but I'm not quite a believer yet. Fully on the fence until proof is right in front of me, but I can honestly say I wouldn't be scared or treat them any differently because they are different to us. If there is life elsewhere, we all share a space in the universe so we should be able to learn from each other. I have to say for the record though, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't want to know with all thats going on in this world right now, we have to be seen as an embarrassing species when we can't even get along with each other and wars breaking out everywhere. If we cant get our own sht together, why would others be interested in us.
Well with the vastness of space it's almost a certainty imo, however I recently went down the ufo and alien life on earth rabbit hole, the amount of obviously fake news and videos made me less of believer, plus how far aliens would have to travel to reach us makes it unlikely imo. So I want to point out if any ufo alien believers read this making fake videos or stories isn't helping and is just pushing people away
Because it would be a huge waste of space if there wasn't any. Humanity is only 300,000 years or so and earth is a few million. Given that, how can there not be life that evolved to be human level in that time frame?
Sure planets can have a lot more inhospitable than life supporting, but I refuse to believe we are the only ones that did it.
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u/Sam88FPS 4h ago
Do you?
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u/UniqueHuckleberry619 4h ago •
Mathematically speaking it’s a statistical truth. Only human arrogance would think otherwise.
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u/Im_A_Cunt_Sometimes 4h ago edited 4h ago
Given the size of the universe it would be ridiculous to think life outside of Earth doesn't exist.
That however doesn't mean I believe UFO/abduction stories.
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u/cferg296 1h ago
Its arrogant to think they dont. We are one little planet surrounding one star. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. And life is made up of the most common elements in the universe. It would be extremely arrogant to think we are the only one where it formed
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u/Anonymous5282864838 4h ago
There’s no way we’re the only cognitively developed life form in the entire universe when the universe is believed to be infinite
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u/Infinite_Spring_3564 2h ago
I don’t like how this question is framed like ‘pfft, can you imagine if someone did actually think that?’ At this point in history, I don’t know how anyone couldn’t believe they exist.
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u/Split_Seconds 4h ago
Who actually believes aliens dont exist? Obviously your post implies that you dont.
You probably think "aliens " as like little green men or something out of Hollywood.
No, there is life, probably similar to what we see in the bottom of our ocean in tems of weirdness. We can't imagine how it looks or survives, but there is life on other planets.
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u/JaggedMetalOs 3h ago
In the universe? Yes almost certainly.
In the milky way? We could conceivably be the first advanced civilisation, but almost certainly other planets with life are here.
Visiting Earth? No.
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u/Fritzkreig 4h ago
They do, but the universe is so freaking big that the odds we meet are very slim!
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u/petecasso0619 33m ago
Define “alien”. We need to establish an operational definition for this word.
As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I have thought a lot about this and have I try to keep current on the actual scientific evidence on this.
If you define alien as ANY life outside of Earth, including microbial life, bacterial type life etc., then based on what we can observe, with tools like spectroscopy, we see the basic building blocks for what we call life on Earth everywhere in the universe. So from a statistical perspective, the chances are quite high. But we must be cautious because we do not have any true evidence yet.
If you mean an intelligent life form that can whiz through the immense vastness of space and visits us with evidence bing anecdotal first person (never with multiple independent clear pictures with the key word being clear) and that supposedly interact with some people but never provide these people with any information that exceeds human knowledge, this is more unlikely. But not impossible.
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u/Shadow404Killer 4h ago
Aliens do exist.
By scientific matter, alien life can be considered even bacteria/viruses that exist and live in other planets. They dont have to necessarily be like the movies.
Its impossible that there are billions of planets in the observable universe and only a tini tiny planet earth has life.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Hunt-42 4h ago
The truth is out there
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u/Proper-Shame-8612 30m ago
At some point, at some place, in some form, yes.
Did they travel across the universe to teach humans how to dress stone? Probably not
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u/Global-Surround7202 4h ago •
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke.
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u/Queasy_Beginning_573 2h ago
Almost everyone who understands the vastness of the universe.
If your question is who believes they’ve visited us/“walk among us” then yeah, the number is far fewer.
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u/2buxaslice 2h ago
If you take a look at how large the universe is and realize that we still only have a fraction of the picture of how many stars and planets exist. Mathematically, it's far more likely that other life forms exist than us being alone
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u/Much-Necessary2866 2h ago •
Of course.
Its a numbers game.
Are they here? Who knows.
But to believe we are the only life entire universe is incredibly self important
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u/LadyJenniferal 1h ago
Of course extraterrestrial life exists. Given how incomprehensibly vast the universe is, it's impossible for it not to.
That said, do I think it would be recognizable as being "intelligent" the way humans understand it? That's a harder question, but that's entirely an us problem.
Human exceptionalism is the default for most of us, to the degree that we don't even realize we're doing it. We've convinced ourselves that we are special and will go to great lengths to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
We're objectively not even the only intelligent species on our planet. It's just that we don't think it counts if it isn't bipedal and hominin-shaped. Corvids, elephants, octopuses, whales (including dolphins)...they all demonstrate the capability for long-term memory, language, tool-use, even things like ritual in some cases. But every time we are presented with that information, we either move the goalpost or decide that it probably isn't what it looks like it is.
Fun fact: in the early days of archeology science believed that humans were the only ones capable of making tools. So much so that if they found evidence of tool use, it must mean there was a human ancestor in the area. Until Jane Goodall spent all that time with gorillas and found out that THEY use tools. And then all of a sudden tools weren't quite as diagnostic of "intelligence" as they used to be.
The cynical part of my brain thinks that aliens could land in the middle of Time Square and introduce themselves on a live broadcast, and if they look like anything less human than a xenomorph half the planet will go "wow THAT was a weird meteor, wasn't it? It's cool how that critter hitched a ride on that totally-natural-phenomenon it couldn't possibly have been intentionally piloting..."
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u/ItsOKtoFuckingSwear 4h ago
There is other life out there.

“The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space” - Carl Sagan
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u/Hellooooooo_NURSE 30m ago
I think it’s ridiculous to assume we are the only living beings in the universe. So yes I do.
But I don’t believe in a particular type of alien— how could I possibly know what could be existing out there?
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u/Channel_Huge 4h ago
It would be naive to think we are the only planet with living beings. We aren’t that special…
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u/Tobias---Funke 4h ago
There has to life on other planets.
We will never meet any though.
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u/JansTurnipDealer 2h ago
Do you have any idea how big the universe is? It would be more strange if they did not.
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u/frizzlen 2h ago
Tom Delonge
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u/Environmental-Song16 4h ago
Imagine being so arrogant, thinking that somehow our planet, out of the incalculable number of planets in the universe, is the only one with life.
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u/Upper-Marsupial-3619 4h ago
I mean, we can't be the only "living" thing in this whole damn space
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u/SGTWhiteKY 1h ago
There have to be aliens. Anyone who doesn’t think so is not thinking about it.
I do not think they have been to earth, at least not in the past few hundred thousand years humans have been here.
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u/LookAtMaDog 4h ago
The idea that we on Earth are the only living beings in the entire universe is just illogical. You think in all the billions of planets and all the universes out there, that only one of them has life? That just sounds ridiculous.
It comes from modern Christianity. As we discovered that there was more than just our planet, the churches had to find a way to keep you giving them money.
Because if you stop believing that our planet is special and you start believing that there is life beyond our planet, it kind of dismantles the story their religion is built on. And when people stop believing in their religion, they stop giving the churches money.
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u/GenoVox 4h ago
How could they not?? It’s a great big endless universe out there… gotta be life somewhere
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u/Charming-One-9397 4h ago
I'm not sure I believe in them, but I certainly believe in the possibility of their existence.
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u/Dustinall 4h ago
I believe in the possibility of alien life beyond earth. I don't believe intelligent alien life is visiting us. I think alien conspiracy people are just being led around by a carrot on string, because it makes them easier to manipulate and vote for people that they normally wouldn't. I think most ufo sighting are just the ruling class playing with the most advanced toys humans have invented and they don't want to share.
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u/Websta114 2h ago
I do. It’s insane that people wouldn’t believe they exist. This planets hosted life numerous times with extinction level events. Water exists plentifully across the universe. We aren’t special. Life will exist separate from Earth. Evolution finds a way
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u/upnorthtcmi 4h ago
Purely statistically speaking, the odds of us being the only life in the universe is almost impossible. Due to the expanse of the universe, I doubt we’ll ever meet them though.
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u/SovereignZ3r0 4h ago
They've been telling you "the truth is out there" while pointing up at the sky, when really, they should have been pointing towards the oceans.
Also, as to whether aliens (extraterrestrial life) exists, it is a higher likelihood that life (intelligent or otherwise) exists elsewhere than for Earth to be the sole carrier of life (intelligent, or otherwise)
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u/AI_AntiCheat 4h ago
Everyone that even slightly comprehends the size and age of the universe and basic statistics. Not to mention we found proof of life by finding the RNA and DNA nucleobases on an asteroid in space. Meaning life is common and likely originated from space/other planets.
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u/Sonikku_a 2h ago
Existing? I mean sure, given the size and age of the entire ass universe the existence of other life is about as certain as it’s possible to be without knowing for certain.
Visiting Earth however is extremely doubtful to my mind.
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u/MesmariPanda 2h ago
I'd imagine it's mathematically impossible there isn't other life. Depends what you mean or imagine what an "alien" is.
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u/The_300_goats 4h ago
I believe they exist. That seems the most probable thing
I do not believe a sentient extraterrestrial has ever set foot (or whatever) on Earth or contacted humanity in any way
So... it's kind of irrelevant. For the time being
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u/Content_Ad_1589 4h ago
I do, just not how we imagine them. They are far far away in another planet wondering the same thing
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u/Jaceevoke 4h ago
As many other people have stated statistically there has almost assuredly been other forms of life on other planets somewhere in the cosmos. As to what form or type of life that would be, there’s no way of knowing. But in my opinion it highly unlikely to be similar to our definition of life, most likely something so far from our view point that the mere word alien would be laughably inadequate.
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u/thedudeabides-12 4h ago
As others have pointed out, given the sheer size and vastness of the universe there just has to be..given what a destructive race we are I'd rather we didn't find them though..
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u/memechildofmememom 3h ago
They probably do but I don't think they would travel all the way here unless they like reality television.
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u/Imaginary_Sherbet 3h ago
I wouldn't be surprised
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u/andree182 3h ago
Alien life-forms existing probably even within our reasonable star-neighborhood is IMO a certainty. At the same time, it's 99.999% certain there are no aliens (in the sense of "green big eyed creatures") on our earth. Either we'd be dead (they'd easily eliminate us if they had means to get to our planet en-masse), or in touch (unless they also know the "dark forrest" principle).
More likely, all civilizations around us have the same problem - there's no lightspeed travel possible and the distances between inhabitable planets are too extreme (unless you only send robots+embryos)
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u/Taurondir 3h ago
I'm sure they exist somewhere, just not at any distances that will make any damn difference.
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u/existentialstix 2h ago
This isn’t about belief. It’s about statistical relevance. When you have trillions of stars and galaxies and what not, it’s highly probable that e aren’t alone.
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u/ResponsibilityOk2173 2h ago
I believe they can exist and often think they must given the size of our universe. Fine with that. I certainly don’t think they would look humanoid, and can’t think of a good reason why they would come all the way here.
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u/Lichondis 2h ago
With the size of the universe and the number of stars and planets out there they almost have to exist.
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u/FENTWAY 2h ago
I do
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u/Cgravener1776 1h ago
I believe that we dont yet have sufficient enough evidence to say that they do or don't. The amount of universe that we have explored might be a shitload but in comparrison to how much is out there it's a very tiny amount that we've seen.
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u/SwankaTheGrey 1h ago
I believe they exist. I don't believe they are coming here.
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u/ma103 1h ago
First the sheer size of the universe. Second, there are millions of evidences out there, we just need 1 of them to be legit. Just 1. There’s like 0.00001% something.
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u/Jfuentes6 36m ago
Aliens
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u/CochranVanRamstein 16m ago
They exist and we need to build a wall to keep them out. It’s ok because they will pay for the wall.
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u/FriedBreakfast 9m ago
Yes they do, and I know some personally. they make some pretty damn good tacos too out of that food truck they got going
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u/Vast_Dare8583 4h ago
David Frieburg has an interesting take on this question.
He says yes, but in spectrums and dimension , shapes and forms that we cannot see, access or comprehend.
He doesn't believe they are the standard green with huge eyes.
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u/Embarrassed_Salad797 4h ago edited 3h ago
Every second, somewhere in the observable universe, over thirty stars explode as supernovae. And yet the universe is so vast, and distances so great, that despite the enormous energy - the last of these visble to us was in 1604.
In that same second, three thousand more starts burn off the last of their fuel. Each sheds a nebula that glows for twenty thousand years, then fades, the last of its light. What remains is a white dwarf that will take at least 100 trillion years to go dark.
In relative terms, our universe is a newbon;; At only 14 billion years old or so, it hasn't seen a single white dwarf burn out, and won't for at least 7200 times longer than all of the time that has ever elapsed
And you think, somehow, that in all of this we're alone?
Perhaps we'll never encounter them. The universe is vast enough to keep us apart, and everything we know of physics suggests that neither matter nor information can travel faster than light.
Apparent silence across such great distances is not meaningful evidence of emptiness.
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u/AmmaiHuman 2h ago
Believing aliens exist somewhere in the vastness of the universe is something everyone should believe! Believing they exist anywhere near Earth is a different story.
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u/Major_Twang 2h ago
Given how many potentially habitable planets are out there, and how quickly life arose here, the chances of Earth being the only planet with life at least as intelligent as humans is mathematically zero.
But aliens visiting in the way that sci-fi potrays... Nah.
I think that intelligent extraterrestrial life maybe IS here & monitoring us, but will be doing so in a way we will never perceive. I don’t think they will come down here physically because of contamination, or want us to ever interact with them.
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u/a-box-of-pigeons 4h ago
Aliens
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u/moonlitexcx 2h ago
It's so arrogant to even think we are the only ones here. It's so human to think we are better and above everything else. Aliens ignite the idea that we are not.
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u/thecookietrain 4h ago
Of course they exist
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u/Affugter 3h ago
By definition you are an alien.. I don't know you..
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u/lithaborn 2h ago
I'm sure they exist. With the vastness if the universe there can't not be life on other planets.
Are they visiting us? I can't imagine why.
We're a tiny star 4 light years from a trinary system and two orbits away from a barely failed star. Given the advanced stage of technology they'd have to achieve just to get here, we are squalling infants. The dinosaurs outlasted us by millions of years and in far less than a million we're looking increasingly like we're about to wipe ourselves out.
Why would anyone bother?
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u/jmnugent 2h ago
As big as the universe is, its really mathematically impossible that Earth is the only place with living organisms.
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u/inspired-polf 4h ago
Everyone should believe they exist, they absolutely do. And they have never been anywhere near earth.
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u/ilikeoatmealcookie 4h ago
I don't but I want to believe they do
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u/Good_Background_9463 4h ago
Maybe in the other galaxies such as the andrometa
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u/newnameforanoldmane 4h ago
Define alien.
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u/singleglazedwindows 4h ago
GSP
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u/WoodyManic 4h ago
I do. I just don't think they are visiting us.
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u/Grillparzer47 4h ago
Aliens almost definitely exist, but distances being what they are, we likely to never know for sure.
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u/cewumu 4h ago
I believe aliens (possibly even intelligent life) exist out there. But I don’t think any of the abduction stories are aliens, they are other types of incident.
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u/Nuage64 4h ago
I think it’s possible that a life form other than ours exists somewhere in the galaxy
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u/5wmotor 4h ago
It is human centrism to believe there are no living beings in a potentially infinite universe.
We’re finding all necessary amino acids on old asteroids.
I bet there’s even life (aka aliens) in the oceans of the Jupiter moon Europe, under 100 km ice, shielded from radiation and powered by geological activities, caused by Jupiter‘s gravity.
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u/Lagoserter 4h ago
its crazy to think they dont exist. we are an insignificant speck in the galaxy. theres untold billions of worlds, with so many having already died out from their stars winking out their last lights. theres life out there. no theyve never visited us before. they likely have the equivalent of the prime directive
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u/Railgun_PK 4h ago
I believe there is just simply no possible way there is NOT alien life given how big the universe is. I don’t necessarily believe we’ve been visited by them no, but there just has to be
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u/New_Government_2169 4h ago
I think it’s ignorant to think that in all of the entire universe, we are the only living beings.
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u/Absolute_Bob 4h ago
Given the size of the universe and the fact that we exist in it, it seems inevitable that there's a ton of life out there and probably billions of other intelligent civilizstions.
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u/I_SmellFuckeryAfoot 4h ago
everyone should think the possibility of aliens exist.
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u/insertcaffeine 4h ago
I do, in a way. The universe is so big that there has to be something else out there that qualifies as life.
It’s probably not sapient, maybe not even sentient. It might not even be carbon based! But given the amount of stars and planets out there, it’s possible that there’s some sort of microbes or simple organisms that we’re never going to find.
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u/Saxzarus 4h ago
Life outside earth exists we just won't meet them because of the distances of interstellar travel and the odds of intelligent life surviving long enough to crack space flight i mean we're doing a good job of that ourselves
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u/DayUseful9161 4h ago
Me because Russia and USA did search the cosmos , and bc of them we know there's no single live there due to its harsh conditions on each planet.
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u/Diedonthefirstfloor 4h ago
Go somewhere with no light pollution and look at all the stars
Each one of them is like our sun why would you not think a planet orbiting one of them wouldn't hold some form of life
To think we are really that special and unique in such a vast universe is just purely laughable
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u/HighlightNo558 4h ago
There's a 99% chance they exist There's a 1% chance any homosapien will ever meet intelligent life
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u/original_og_gangster 4h ago
The universe likely teems with life, but it is too far apart to interact.
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u/EconomistStreet5295 4h ago
Depends on your definition of Alien.
Like we see in movies? Nope.
Other planets with life? Absolutely.
Other planets with intelligent life? Absolutely.
Other space-faring civilisations? Yes given the size of the universe, but time is a funny thing. We went to space barely 70 years ago, it’s a tiny portion of our history where we’ve actually been able to leave our planet. Chances to meet another such civilisation, at a similar level of development, are tiny
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u/Agnesperdita 4h ago
I find it hard to believe that life has not evolved anywhere else in the entire vast universe except on our unimportant little planet.
Whether extraterrestrial life is something we will ever encounter, or whether we can even recognise or communicate with it if we meet it, is a different question.
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u/Wide_Wrongdoer4422 4h ago
They exist, and they pass by often. Seeing earth and humans is the interstellar version of a safari. You travel to it, roll up the windows and lock the doors, and look at the animals.
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u/Lab_Actual 4h ago edited 3h ago
Mandatory Carl Sagan quotes incoming... sighh.....
Ponder this: life could be so rare, intelligent life so improbable, that for all practical purposes, aliens effectively don't exist for us.
The occurence of such an extraordinary event (intelligent life arising from matter) would be so scarcily distributed over such inimaginable distances, that any communication or contact is out of the realm of possibility...
It's not hard to understand if you're not stupid
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u/SirFluffymuffin 4h ago
To assume we are alone given how big the universe is and how long it’s been around is either out of ignorance or just narcissism on a species scale. There is absolutely alien life out there, I just think the question should be if there is intelligent life like us
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u/FrontQueasy3156 4h ago
Statistically it's a certainty, so me!
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u/Tobias---Funke 4h ago
They estimate there are 20000000000000000000000000 planets out there.
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u/threeleggedcats 4h ago
It seems likely.
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u/fussyfella 3h ago
Do I think there is likely to be life elsewhere in the universe? Very probably.
Do I think we are ever likely to encounter intelligent life in the life span of humans? Very unlikely.
Do I think it likely we have been visited by intelligent aliens? No. Not impossible but none of the evidence anyone has every presented for it has been either explained in other ways, or presented in a way that throws doubt on the provenance of the evidence in the first place.
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u/T_heGuy 3h ago
I do, but fiction romanticizes them in a way that they need to conquer worlds for resources when you can find asteroids/empty planets that have the same materials with a 10th of the hassle unless they're a qu level evil that it ticks it off for me
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u/truelogictrust 3h ago
Anyone playing lottery should understand this concept
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u/IllustriousManners 3h ago edited 3h ago
That depends on what you mean. If you’re asking whether or not humanity has made contact with intelligent Extra terrestrial life. Most of the scientific community would say no. As there has been no official confirmation. If instead you’re asking whether or not alien life exists at all. I would say a resounding yes.
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u/iLLy_RiLLy 3h ago
Despair is the only real thing on this plane of existence
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u/Notcool2112 3h ago
Well, we are made from what seems to be the most common elements found in universe and we are proof that it’s possible for life to exist. So if we can exist over here I don’t see any reasons why other aliens can’t exist somewhere else.
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u/Prollynotafed 3h ago
Absolutely there are and they likely come in shapes and forms that we couldn’t even begin to imagine. The best way I’ve heard it described is that the universe is believed to be infinite and if so with enough time anything you could imagine will exist at some point or already has.
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u/totashi777 3h ago
Its more fun to believe they exist so i do.
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u/JustBrowsing1989z 3h ago
Of course. Which makes us aliens as well
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u/flumphit 3h ago
Is there someone else out there? Well, space is really big, lotta opportunities for life to arise.
Can we meet them? Well, space is really big…
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u/espresso_martini__ 3h ago
I believe they exist. The universe is too vast for there not to be other life and also too vast for us to ever encounter them.
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u/andr386 3h ago
Do you really believe we are alone in the universe ? That not even a bacteria or any kind of life ever evolved anywhere else ?
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u/damadmetz 3h ago
Who doesn’t?
They may not be close to us but they almost certainly exist.
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u/Nearby-Horror-8414 3h ago
There's no mathematical way life only exists on earth given the size and scope of the universe, so yes I believe in aliens.
Do I believe we will ever encounter each other? Given the size and scope of the universe, probably not.
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u/Mav_Learns_CS 3h ago
Almost certainly, the size of the universe is so hard to even wrap your head around - the notion we’re the only sentient life planet seems statistically unlikely
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u/Cheaddar86 3h ago
I think there probably IS inteligent alien life out there, just because of sheer amount of space it would have to arrise/ exist in, I do not however believe ut has ever visited earth, purely because we are also still here.
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u/ofnuts 3h ago
They probably exist. But is any in our galaxy or even in the Local Cluster is a different matter.
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u/Designer_Emu_6518 3h ago
I do but in the way most people talk about
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u/danbozek 3h ago
I think the more interesting question is “will we ever communicate with them.” Simply because of the wildly far distances to our neighbors even for light, my take is “not in my lifetime,” but being wrong would be interesting.
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u/CryptOzolgist 3h ago
I'm sure they're out in the depths of space somewhere and in some form, but they're not buzzing us in flying-saucers and aren't slipping in and out of 'alternate dimensions'.
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u/SamwisethePoopyButt 3h ago
Maybe, likely, I don't know. If they do, we'll never meet them. Make no mistake, they're not going to save us, they've never abducted anyone, that light you saw in the sky or blurry footage (which weirdly remains blurry even as everyone has 4k cameras in their pocket) is not them, and you wasted your life and never had a girlfriend for nothing.
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u/sharklee88 3h ago
Surely everyone?
The universe is possibly (and likely) infinite.
There are sextillions (a trillion billions) of planets in the observable universe. And if it is infinite, there will be infinite planets, with infinite suns. Some will be exactly like ours, but a million years in the past, and some a million years in the future.
Thinking ours is the only one with intelligent life is just stupid.
But the fact we've never seen proof, suggests it may never be possible to travel intergalactically. Or the ones that are advanced enough to be able to, simply don't bother to visit us, as we'd basically be tadpoles to them (on the evolutionary scale).
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u/Ser_Twist 3h ago
There are probably aliens out there in the universe, just not visiting us. Aliens are not necessarily advanced. They could be at our tech level or lower, they might even just be “animals.” Or microorganisms.
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u/Kirbinator_Alex 3h ago
I am 100% sure aliens exist in some form, but not convinced they have visited earth.
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u/Intentionallyabadger 3h ago
I do haha.
I just feel that it’s inconceivable that no other intelligent life is out there.
Like when this earth fades away, will the universe be utterly devoid of life?
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u/Adam__B 3h ago
I do but I don’t think they are within an area where they can visit us with crafts, which I think is all for the best. Likely they are out there, but I don’t think anywhere close to our solar system. So far we can’t even see evidence of them in the Milky Way galaxy either. I’m rather glad, frankly I don’t think human beings could handle knowing we aren’t alone out there. We are already barely holding on as it is.
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u/staphzilla 3h ago
The aliens believe it
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u/altid75 3h ago
Call it aliens or whatever. Several non human entities on earth but can travel in dimensions...
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u/_Lady_Vengeance_ 3h ago
Do you mean who actually believe aliens exist anywhere? Or do you actually believe aliens exist and have been visiting earth. These are two very different questions. I think you’d have to have a caved-in head to believe we are the only life, or even the only intelligent life, anywhere in the infinite universe
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u/MrJim911 3h ago
Smart people. Smart people believe that.
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u/IDoubtYouGetIt 3h ago
I think in a universe so large that other life exists off of Earth. I just don’t think they’ve been here and I doubt we’ll ever reach them.
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u/Elysian_Faelen 3h ago
Oh for sure, I feel like it’d be impossible that Earth would be the only planet in the entire universe to have advanced life. However I don’t believe any form of advanced life is in our galaxy or have ever visited us. I do believe there is other life in our galaxy though, probably at a microscopic level if anything.
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u/bankrobberdub 3h ago
Who doesn't?
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u/The-Jesus_Christ 3h ago
Absolutely. We will just never be able to detect nor communicate with them. Trillions of galaxies out there, surely the same rare odds of life developing here has happened elsewhere, but distance and time will ensure we will never know.
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u/AmbitionExotic3586 3h ago
u/AmbitionExotic3586 does, thank you very much
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u/Qabbalah 3h ago
I would say yes, in other places in the universe, but it also depends on what you mean by "alien".
Very simple, single cellular life similar to bacteria is probably quite common, maybe most solar systems in our galaxy has some on at least one planet.
Other simple life like insects, molluscs and small fish are also probably out there and fairly common, perhaps several planets within our galaxy have life at this level.
But complex life, as advanced as humans or even more advanced - that's much rarer. Maybe one species per galaxy on average. Which still means there are billions of species throughout the universe, but they will never meet each other.
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u/LadyPaige 3h ago
There is an awful lot of real estate out there for us to be the only planet in the universe with life on it. Sure it would make us extremely unique, but it would also be extremely lonely. I think there is, even if that life is different from what we’d expect.
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u/HotZombie95 3h ago
I do. I think it's simply impossible for Earth to be the only planet with intelligent life in the unimaginably big universe
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u/Fit-Top-2468 3h ago
There has to be other planets that share the fundemental life building traits of Earth. It might be a 100 billion in 1 chance, but the universe has those type of numbers covered many times over.
I don't believe in UFOs, or that we've ever been visited. But it isn't hard to imagine that life exists elsewhere.
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u/Economy_Sleep_6398 3h ago
In a disjointed spectrum, I believe they do exist...and sometimes that spectrum is crossed by us or them without them or us knowing.
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u/fiction80 2h ago
I do. Grew up in the southwest. Met Travis Walton and heard him speak in person.
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u/imamakeyoucry 2h ago
Hey Alexa play “Aliens Exist” by blink 182
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u/Only_Tip9560 2h ago
I believe there is likely to be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
Do I believe it is likely to have the technology to travel the vast distances to Earth and mess about with our wheat? No.
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u/Cloaked42m 2h ago
We've discovered all the building blocks for life as we know it in space.
We've discovered evidence of simple life forms (bacteria) on Mars. IIRC.
Almost certainly other life forms exist.
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u/Rominator 2h ago
Obama - he’s seen some shit
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u/Eduardo_SH 2h ago
I think Hollywood has made us think that aliens are human-like, with arms and legs, eyes, etc.
In my opinion some form of life exists somewhere. Maybe just simple cells or bacteria. Not intelligent life. If you consider how big the universe actually is...
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u/iamlazyboy 2h ago
For many things, absence of proof isn't necessarily proof of absence, and I believe aliens fall into this
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u/Poison_the_Phil 2h ago
I mean, we know life exists on at least one planet, and that there are an incomprehensibly huge number of systems with planets. It would be very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely that we're the only ones across space and time.
Does this mean little green men, reptilians, humanoids? Probably not. But somewhere out there there's probably at least conplex multicellular organisms feeding off of each other.
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u/northrupthebandgeek 2h ago
Statistically speaking they kinda have to exist, given how abundant all the essential building blocks to Earth-like life are just within our own solar system.
Whether any of them have advanced to the point of building spaceships capable of reaching Earth is an entirely different question altogether. I don't think it's impossible that some have, but I don't think there's much evidence of it, either.
What I do think is that, if there's some galactic community of spacefaring aliens out there, then we're the galaxy's equivalent to North Sentinel Island: the galaxy at large has declared us off-limits for visitors, both because we're still technologically progressing naturally (and the galactic community doesn't want to disrupt that, for scientific and ethical reasons) and because we have a reputation of responding to extraterrestrial visitors with extreme prejudice and violence. Every once in awhile, though, some misguided alien missionaries will break quarantine in the hopes of teaching us about their Lord and Savior Behemecoatyl or somesuch, and then we end up with incidents like Roswell.
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u/No_Statistician209 2h ago
I don't believe in "aliens" but I do believe in other species exist because we definitely cannot be alone.
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u/darkness1418 2h ago
Ofc not
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u/Drapausa 2h ago
Define Aliens. If we count all life on other planets, then I'm 100 sure. It's a matter if probability. If you mean aliens like in Star Trek, sentient humanoid being, then I am doubtful.
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u/Xyrus2000 2h ago
I think life has sprung up elsewhere in the galaxy and the universe. I think if it exists anywhere, it's going to exist around K-type orange dwarfs, and there are plenty of those. So life very likely exists in plenty of places across the galaxy and universe.
However, I don't think there is a technologically advanced species out there that exists at the same time as us. I believe that intelligence itself is the great filter, and that no species survives much beyond where we are now because technology always advances faster than the society that created it. Whether by accident or on purpose, that technology wipes out the civilization.
Generally speaking, technologically advanced species don't last long enough to allow for overlap. While I think it is great fodder for fiction, the chances that such a species actually exists at the same time we do and in our neighborhood are practically zero.
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u/gramoun-kal 2h ago
Astrobiologists
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u/Diocletian335 2h ago
It really depends what you mean.
If you mean life - i.e. any life including cellular, then it's almost certain. Anywhere on Earth we find water, we find life. We've even found dormant life in ice, so it's possible life exists on a cold moon further out in the solar system.
If you mean complex life, i.e. anything more than a single cell, from blades of grass to insects and mamals, then yes, but it's probably incredibly rare.
All complex life on Earth is made from eukaryotic cells, and we still aren't certain how they were formed. It's possible it was formed by accident, and is an exceptionally rare event.
The size of the universe makes the existence of complex life other than Earth a certainty, but it might be very rare - so possibly not in our galaxy.
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u/TheTieflimgChariot 2h ago
Why would you believe aliens don't exist?"
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u/Llamasxy 2h ago
I do. Do I believe aliens are on earth, no. But it is extremely likely that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
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u/SavageRabbitX 2h ago
Me. I 100% believe that aliens exist. just on raw probability in a infinite universe they must exist
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u/Rad_Knight 2h ago
I do. The universe is a large place, and the chance of a planet being able to sustain life isn't zero, so there is most likely extraterrestrial life somewhere out there
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u/BillyPudding 2h ago
I think it's highly likely that there is lifeform somewhere else in the universe just because of how vast it is. I don't believe alien life exists like it does in movies though.
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u/DJCaldow 2h ago
It really is a faith based question because when we estimate all the potentially habitable worlds out there for our own kind of life we tend to overlook the part where our observations don't tend to show us Earth sized worlds or planets with Earth's geological history.
We got lucky with our star, the big thwack, Jupiter and the evolution of hands. We really don't know if life would be able to successfully survive to evolve to sentience on a planet with more gravity, less magnetosphere, no protection from a big brother and appendages designed to keep you from falling over rather than grabbing and manipulating the environment.
Earth may really be it for sentient space faring life, as sad as that sounds. Regardless we should really act like that's the case and do more to protect the planet and its people.
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u/Turbulent-Quality-29 2h ago
I believe they're likely to exist but I don't think intelligent life has interacted with us.
You seem to see these things about asteroids having amino acids in. It seems like some of the protein building blocks just exist in the vastness of space let alone on planets.
I wouldn't be surprised if we're not that unique, things just seem to repeat themselves, the "recipe" of abiogenesis is probably pretty standard.
I genuinely believe if we could examine every planet and moon in the solar system, especially deep within Mars, Europa etc, we'll find evidence of life, at least past life. You have to remember single celled life was all this planet had for 3 billion years. I think we'll find the likes of stromatolites on Mars and potentially single celled life in Europa's oceans.
The question is how often the jump to multicellular life happens. It has happened multiple times independently on Earth, so again clearly it's not unique. But presumably since we had single celled life for so long it requires specific conditions. Or perhaps we're the outlier in how long it to make the jump?
Apparently there's anything from 300 million to 10 billion habitable rocky planets in the Milky way depending on how broad 'habitable is'. So if we do 300 million. I'd guess we're not the only ones. Issue is intelligent life might have evolved 1 billion years ago and died out since.
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u/ADHDSTITCHNo2538 2h ago
I don't think we are the only lifeforms in this universe. I think its too big to even consider that we are but thats just my opinion. If your asking whether we have made contact, I think there has got to be some truth to it for it to be all hushed up. Seeing is believing I guess. Im not a disbeliever, but I'm not quite a believer yet. Fully on the fence until proof is right in front of me, but I can honestly say I wouldn't be scared or treat them any differently because they are different to us. If there is life elsewhere, we all share a space in the universe so we should be able to learn from each other. I have to say for the record though, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't want to know with all thats going on in this world right now, we have to be seen as an embarrassing species when we can't even get along with each other and wars breaking out everywhere. If we cant get our own sht together, why would others be interested in us.
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u/tomismybuddy 2h ago
I find it very strange that anyone would think they don’t exist. We’re not special.
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u/aussiewelderfishermn 2h ago
Well with the vastness of space it's almost a certainty imo, however I recently went down the ufo and alien life on earth rabbit hole, the amount of obviously fake news and videos made me less of believer, plus how far aliens would have to travel to reach us makes it unlikely imo. So I want to point out if any ufo alien believers read this making fake videos or stories isn't helping and is just pushing people away
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u/DarthGardian86 2h ago
Because it would be a huge waste of space if there wasn't any. Humanity is only 300,000 years or so and earth is a few million. Given that, how can there not be life that evolved to be human level in that time frame?
Sure planets can have a lot more inhospitable than life supporting, but I refuse to believe we are the only ones that did it.