The Probability of Extraterrestrial Existence Essay

The U.S. government has a long standing reputation of hiding things from the citizens that they feel we don’t have the right to know. They have assassinated many innocent people and said it was for our protection. The U.S. has secret prisons located within the country hidden in remote locations. With these in mind who’s to say they wouldn’t hide aliens from us?

NASA has already discovered a planet resembling Earth and even though the conditions for life to exist are quite precise, with the existence Earth-like planets and the universe being larger than the human brain can comprehend, the odds keep growing higher for life to exist somewhere out there amid the yet-unknown celestial bodies.

Many people believe the United States military uses Area 51 as a repository for extraterrestrial beings and objects. The mystery of Area 51 and what takes place there intrigues people. Although the stories and articles that are reported have never been confirmed with physical evidence or facts the idea alone that aliens may be living on Earth simply makes people curious. If the US government did not keep the operations of Area 51 a secret to the public people would not speculate that other life forms are on Earth, however the reason Americans are so curious is because they are being left in the dark and do not have any answers. Furthermore, with how massive our galaxy has already been discovered to be nobody should rule out the possibility that extraterrestrial beings have or currently are being held at the Area 51 base.

"Aliens, if an when we find them, could be so alien, so different from humanity as to undermine the meaning of any exchange we might have, or even make such exchange impossible." --Henry Gee

With all our knowledge of everything around us, overwhelming as it may be, there are still a lot of aspects that are unknown to even the smartest scientists. Did you know that humans know only 5% of the entire universe? Yes, everything we know about the Earth, the Milky Way, and all the planets is barely even a fourth of what comprises the entirety of the universe. Knowing that, it would be illogical to say that the creatures on Earth are the only forms of life in the universe. Today I will tell you about unidentified object sightings, close

Even though the three big reasons why aliens do not exist has been explained for this argument, there are still smaller reasons that add to the fact that there are no other existing alien civilizations other than ours here on Earth. One of those reasons is that governments do not give very much evidence supporting the existence of alien civilization. In fact, European governments have completely disclosed everything they know about UFO’s. The only evidence most governments give out to the public is testimonial evidence. There has never been any real hard physical evidence. Another reason is that scientists, in a sense, know that aliens can not exist, but they use the ridicule excuse as a cover up to explain why they do not admit UFO’s are real. Scientists are supposedly afraid of the ridicule they would receive if they would happen to admit aliens do exist. On the other hand, scientists lie and cheat to gain fame and fortune for all kinds of research and investigations. The discovery of UFO’s would make them big and famous, but yet all

We live in a universe that is about 46 billion light years old. In a world, as massive as ours there must be some form of extraterrestrial life out in the galaxy. For thousands of years ancient peoples, such as the Greeks, have wondered the same question. Are we alone? As our technology advances, things such as videos and photographs are surfacing of people claiming to see such alien life. Whether it is an unidentified flying object, or if it’s from someone claiming to see an actual alien, there are thousands of people that believe they have seen proof. Some also claim that the government is hiding things behind our backs, like the Roswell UFO incident for example. Though many people refuse to believe in the existence of alien life forms until they see evidence, the fact that multitudes of people have eye-witness accounts, the improbability that we are alone, and the idea that we have thought of aliens so long, bring forth the evidence that proves something is out there.

Aliens and life beyond earth has been a mystery for a long time. Many people and scientist have been looking for life outside of Earth, or just floating in the sky trying to get video of it. For all of human history we have been looking for extraterrestrial life, and these are the major events of finding, debunking, and moving forward to life on earth

So, what are aliens? Aliens are exterrestrial beings that allegedly live in outer space and did not originate from Earth. Outer space is incomprehensibly massive. The galaxy in which human beings live is referred to as the Milky Way, and there are an estimated 100 billion planets in that one galaxy alone(SPACE.com Staff). Seth Shostak, an American astronomer and a Senior Astronomer for the SETI Institute, argues, "If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, or for that matter in the universe, then we are truly a miracle." According to SETI.org, The SETI Institute is a research organization whose mission is to

Unimaginable numbers of earth-like planets, beacons on the outer edge of our solar system, a constant presence in space; these ideas seem as if they have been taken straight

Most astronomers and scientists seem firmly convinced of this fact. Although there is not any direct (or even indirect) evidence to support these claims that other sentient life is sharing the universe with us. However, this lack of evidence showing that extraterrestrial life forms exist is not proof that they do not exist. It just does not seem logical that our planet is the only place where life and intelligence could have developed. The odds are billions against life of some form being unique to the Earth only. The Earth is unimportant in the grand scale of things in the galaxy. By this I am referring to its' size and position in the universe. In fact, the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggests that the true question that we should be

Is there life in the vast universe? Can they communicate with us? These questions have been around for decades. But, lately numerous articles have been appeared in the media at an explosive rate. As it can be expected, not all the articles are credible, moreover a portion of them uses fallacies to attract the reader’s attention and to create inadequate controversy. As an example, Joel Achenbach in his article of February, 28, 2015, published on the Washington Post with the title of “Do we really want to know if we’re not alone in the universe?” exposed logic fallacies as his writing denotes that aliens are aware of us because of the radio transmission that the humanity have been broadcasting since TV and radio existed (Par. 6), interstellar

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence(SETI) has been searching for life for more than fifty years and have yet to find anything (Waldrop 442). SETI has ran on $2.5 million annual costs from powerful telescopes to hundreds of dishes worldwide and have managed to find no signs of other life forms (Waldrop 444). The search of life outside of Earth remains to be unanswered and now many ask, where are they? Through SETI’s large budget and expensive equipment the possibility of life on other planets becomes very slim. However, the lack of evidence for any possible forms of life does not justify the possibility of life forming in other unobservable places. The possibilities of life formation in other solar systems can be countless. In “Where Are They?,” Nick Bostrom states that there are over 100 billion galaxies in what we can observe of the universe and our galaxy alone has 100 billion stars (Bostrom 2). This alone provides the reason to believe that somewhere in our observable universe there are many planets with similar conditions and probability of life forming. It took Earth approximately 3.5 billion years to allow life to form that started with single celled prokaryotes to humans (Bostrom 3). The prokaryotes only formed after earth provided an ideal state in which life could be formed. It is also known that many of the galaxies contain stars and planets much older than ours (Bostrom 2). This gives endless amounts of time frames in which life of began in galaxies far way or nearby. The points of evolution become countless within each galaxy, yet the visibility of technological life civilizations like ours is nowhere to be seen. This means there is something preventing these civilizations from passing our current level of civilization. This known as the Great Filter, a theory, in which specific steps are prevented in the timeline of the evolution of

Understanding the heavens has been a continual mystery to humans. Throughout human history, individuals have been curious about life other than on planet Earth. The question that remains is if humanity is alone in the universe. This question is very important because after all, the universe is still expanding. In addition to the expansion of the universe, astronomers have discovered at least six potential habitable worlds in our own solar system (CITE). It is natural to wonder if other worlds might also have intelligent life and civilizations. Many claims have been made that we have already been visited by aliens in UFOs, however, while plenty of evidence has been offered for scientific examination so far none of it has been enough to convince us that the claims of visitations are real (Bennett, 260). However, this doesn’t mean that there is no intelligent life beyond our home planet. Due to this, taxpayers should fund programs to begin the search for extra-terrestrial life in the universe. The reason why there should be programs that fund the search for extra-terrestrial life in the universe is because extra-terrestrial life can help enhance our understanding of the universe.

In reality, many scientists were skeptical of both UFOs and of alien life in general; they contended that interstellar travel would be easy for advanced civilizations, so the lack of overt contact disproved alien existence. Yet most UFO opponents do believe alien life exists out in the universe, just not here. So they defend the near impossibility of interstellar travel, which contradicts a considerable portion of the scientific community (Thompson, 1990).