Why havent we heard from extraterrestrial life yet.?

Question

Do you think there could be creatures on another planet lightyears away trying to contact us.It might be because they are insular or those E Ts could have destroyed there existence before they had technology to search. What do you think//?

Answer 1

Extraterrestrial Life...

Well. I guess that to answer a question concerning something that we know nothing about we can only use the things we do know about as possible basis for formulating a guess... Right?

In that case, let me suggest to you that the Earth is 4 Billion years old. And, in that 4 Billion years human beings have only made remarkable advances in the study of space, space trave,l and space exploration within the last 200 years or so.
If that is a true statement, then 200 years divided by 4 Billion years = a very small slice of time that we have been active as a possible space communicator... like an eye blink in time.

Further, let me suggest to you that our evolution all the way up to this point in our development could have been hindered or helped by a wide variety of occurrances - asteroid hits on Earth, Droughts, Disease, Widespread Floods, Earthquakes, etc.

Similar situations must likely exist on the equivalent planet where our extraterrestrial partners in communication live.
And, they could have been helped or hindered by similar things on their planet. So, the eyeblink in time that we are seeking might be thousands and thousands of years in the future, or might have already come and gone with that intelligent species wiped off the face of that planet by some collision with another space object, etc.

You suggest, possibly incorrectly, that our extraterrestrial neighbors are at the same, equivalent stage in intelligence development. They might be some variety of fish or reptiles just moving onto solid land. They might be in a medevial stage of human equivalent development, or even more primitive than that. So actual two way communication with them requires a lot of things that just might not be that way.

Final thoughts...The nearest star (other than our Sun) is about 4 Light Years distant. On average I would guess that the majority of the stars in our Galaxy are within 750 - 900 Light Years from us. That means that a two way communication would require say 900 years to get there and 900 years to come back if they answered it right away, and spoke our language/understood what we said, and had equipment already that could place signals into a beam pointed right at us. Do you suppose that they have that gear and can do all that right now? Are you willing to wait 1800 years to hear what they have to say?

Answer 2

This Solar system in 2/3 of the way through it solar cycle. In another 2 Billion years the sun will consume the earth. Man has existed so far as we can tell for about 500,000 years.. (Rounded down) Since the last Ice Age anyway.
We can hardly stop fighting and consuming in this modern day for us to focus on really reaching out to the next star. Even if we did, we would find that we live in quite the little aquarium here and that to traverse to the next star and live would be impossible. If you could imagine creating some generational ship with a human populace surviving long enough without killing each other to make it even 4 years to the closest star.... And we know for a fact that it has no inhabitable planets. How far must they go before they find one? How fast do radio signals travel? At the speed of light? Well light can traverse to the nearest star in 4 years. Now we haven't even been here long enough for our weak radio signals to reach the distance of some big radio ear. No, if they do exist - we are well out of reach for communication and discovery. The universe is not like Star Wars...sorry.

Answer 3

So far we've seen no verifiable evidence of other sentient species. That said, I believe with some certainty that somewhere in our galaxy at some past, present, or future time, a sentient species did/does/will exist.

Why haven't we heard from them?

Perhaps they are not technologically advanced enough to be heard. They may be mastering stone knives right now, or experiencing their own Rennaisance.

Perhaps they are here right now. Any species sufficiently advanced to travel interstellar distances would be able to hide or masquerade with ease. That Boeing 737 that just flew by may be a surveillance craft.

Perhaps they are so far away they will never notice us and vice versa.

Perhaps they existed a million years ago and died out.

Perhaps they will exist a million years from now.

It is really impossible to know for sure.

The Drake Equation suggests that there is sentient life out there. The Fermi Paradox casts doubt. Play around with the calculation form at the second link and see what you think.

Answer 4

It is very unlikely that we humans here on earth will "hear" from creatures on some other world. There are many reasons for this. Consider, for example, reversing the roles. How would you propose to communicate (2-way exchange of information) with such creatures? What information would you transmit? In what language? Point your transmitter in what direction? Next consider who or what beings would receive your transmission. Life takes many forms here on earth and spans a billion years or more. But most of this planet's existence has been without human beings with technological ability to communicate with extraterrestrial worlds. Some other world might have life forms, but the chance that they would bear any significant resemblance to us is infinitesimal. In order to have another world with beings like us, that world would have had to undergo a geologic and evolutionary history identical to ours.

Answer 5

I think many people are predisposed to believe that if there's life out there, it must be more intelligent than us . The fact is, this universe is immensely vast, perhaps even infinite, and distance and time serve as a barrier between us, and even the edge of our galaxy, let alone the whole universe. I feel confident there is other advanced life out there , but I doubt if they are in any way similar to us in appearance, technology, and so forth.

Answer 6

Hi. I think they communicate by talking. Or fiber optics! Only we seem predisposed to fill up the electromagnetic spectrum. Or maybe you're right and Nature abhors intelligence. Or technology.

Answer 7

It's possible. Though I'm a kid, I watch UFO files too much and I research about them. I always wonder how they could actually be born.... maybe some kind of mutated human. An animal. I have no idea, heres an interesting site about UFO's and alien's from google..

http://www.wanttoknow.info/ufoinformation

Answer 8

Maybe there are too many satellites, cable modems, cell phones, ipods, and televisions going off all at once that we can't hear them!???

Answer 9

for more than 50 years they have been listening to tv and radio broadcasts of soaps and news ..... why do you think they should want to contact us?

Answer 10

I reckon its a strong possiblity