or maybe as in Independence Day or War Of The Worlds they don’t.
But the big question, as posed by physicist Enrico Fermi back in 1975, is where is everybody? Why haven’t we seen alien spaceships zooming through our skies?
This is a nice little video that gives some context to that question.
On my phone, so no time to watch the video at the moment I’m afraid, but I can recommend a good book on this very subject – The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies. He is involved with SETI and knows what he’s talking about. If I remember right
…the alien civilisations either don’t exist, are too far away, haven’t risen to interstellar technology levels yet, or did rise to them millenia ago and then destroyed themselves while we were still banging rocks together.
Arthur C Clarke once said something along the lines of “Either we are alone in the universe or we’re not . Both possibilities are equally terrifying “
If Fermi posited that question in 1975, he would have been mischievously answering it, visiting as he would have been from the nethersphere of wherever we go after we die. The great man -and he really was – died in ’54
OK, you got me there.
But he still asked the question.
I see plenty of aliens every day in my street. Some call them “Brits on holiday” – and they make plenty of noise.
Klaatu barada niktu.
Aakk… akk… aak
Leave Popeye out of this…
They’re too far away, they can’t breathe our atmosphere, and they’ve just started getting Duty Free.
“Keith Barron? Dudes, it ain’t worth it! We’re stayin’ put!”
They’re too far away. We will very likely never be able to get much further than the limits of our own solar system before our species dies out, or we destroy ourselves or we shag up the planet.
They’ve seen what we’re like and they’re staying away till we get more civilized.
That’s what I said. Duty Free! I asks yer!
I have a friend who is convinced that a technologically advanced alien civilization can be arsed to cross vast interstellar distances to visit the N. Wales coast.
I on the other hand live within spitting distance of it and know better than to bother.
They may be technologically advanced but in matters of taste and plain common sense they appear to be somewhat lacking.
Until this year SETI only trawled the heavens for an alien signal. Soon, they will be broadcasting the music of Limp Bizkit into the firmament.
They will come.
(As to how p*ssed off they will be, that’s another question entirely..)
They will come.
For the nookie.
Wouldn’t that be just amazing?
“We have come from very far: from across the galaxy, and beyond the edge of time and space. We have voyaged in our mighty vessels, to your Earth, so long ignored and overlooked, to seek an audience with the tin man, and the one you call “Fred”, and to hear them play once again their sweet and divine music, that we may commune more closely with the gods.
Also: we are here for the nookie, whatever that may be, and pledge to eschew that cookie, which we will invite you, the human race, to shove up your – hey – in time honoured earthling tradition.”