Cryptids

[ignoramus]

I would be very interesting if aliens existed. If the claim extraterrestrial beings were to be proven true in the near future, my life goal would be to schedule a coffee with the aliens and chit chat about our civilizations, perhaps I could introduce them so a weird institution we humans created named religion.

As for aliens who have visited earth, I doubt it, it doesn't mean it's impossible, at least it is more likely than god existing.

Hey Blackers, if you're gonna have a latte with them, please don't get into any heated religious discussions with them. They might be "looking" for him themselves!
I wouldn't want them to put a whole in your head with a ray gun or something.
It's not worth it.

I'd keep it casual like:

How they hangin' cobber!
You getting good fuel economy? That kind of thing.......

[Minimalist]

The Jersey Devil- 0%

I think we can put this one to rest:

Hey! It's Uncle Daddy!

Bigfoot/Yeti – <1%
Aliens- ? *
Aliens that have visited Earth- <001%
The Loch Ness Monster- 0%
Chupacabra- 0%
The Jersey Devil- 0%
Mokele-mbembe- 0%

Extraterrestrial life forms 100%

[vorlon13]

Freeman Dyson (and others) noted in the 1960s the proposed Orion nuclear impulse technology could be stretched sufficiently to someday enable interstellar flight. And not just a sightseeing trip to a nearby star, a colonizing effort carrying 50,000 people, no less.

And once 'we' have a viable colony on a world orbiting a nearby star, realize earth can still send other colonizing ships towards other stars, and the colony will be able to also.

And then you have colonies sending out colonizing ships, etc, etc.

It turns out, that is an exponentiating system, and in less than 10 million years, you have a galaxy colonized from ene to end (so to speak).

So for those positing 'thousands' or 'tens of thousands' of advanced civilizations in our galaxy, it must be realized it only takes a SINGLE instance of a civilization to develop and refine technology humans had in the 1960s to colonize our entire galaxy in less than 1/10 of 1% of the age of the galaxy.

That there is not an outpost, colony, or an entire planet full of 'aliens' in our solar system is very significant.

[Napoléon]

Bigfoot/Yeti - 2%
Aliens- 99%
Intelligent Aliens (ones that at the very least have our level of comprehension) - 20%
Aliens that have visited Earth - <1% Never say never right?
The Loch Ness Monster - 0%
Chupacabra - 10%
The Jersey Devil - 0%
Mokele-mbembe - Eh?

[The Valkyrie]

Bigfoot/Yeti – 5%
Aliens- life forms, 100%; more advanced than us in our galaxy 80%
Aliens that have visited Earth- less than 1%
The Loch Ness Monster- 5%
Chupacabra- 5%
The Jersey Devil- 5%
Mokele-mbembe- 1%

[ignoramus]

Freeman Dyson (and others) noted in the 1960s the proposed Orion nuclear impulse technology could be stretched sufficiently to someday enable interstellar flight. And not just a sightseeing trip to a nearby star, a colonizing effort carrying 50,000 people, no less.

And once 'we' have a viable colony on a world orbiting a nearby star, realize earth can still send other colonizing ships towards other stars, and the colony will be able to also.

And then you have colonies sending out colonizing ships, etc, etc.

It turns out, that is an exponentiating system, and in less than 10 million years, you have a galaxy colonized from ene to end (so to speak).

So for those positing 'thousands' or 'tens of thousands' of advanced civilizations in our galaxy, it must be realized it only takes a SINGLE instance of a civilization to develop and refine technology humans had in the 1960s to colonize our entire galaxy in less than 1/10 of 1% of the age of the galaxy.

That there is not an outpost, colony, or an entire planet full of 'aliens' in our solar system is very significant.

I like that!
How do we know we are not part of this intentional population of the galaxy!
That's why we all look roughly the same...
Couple of arms, couple of legs, pair of eyes, etc

[vorlon13]

Picture our galaxy as a petri dish.

The first 'germ' to learn how to spread itself, even slightly, eventually occupies the entire petri dish.

If the dish is seeded with one life form, and it never develops the ability to spread, the dish remains empty. Then what if there are 2 different germs? 10? 10,000?

See, if there is only one or a very few, it's an empty dish for a very long time. Give life 10,000 bites at the apple, the first one to develop the spreading ability wins the prize. And the time it takes to fill the dish (galaxy) is almost insignificant to the amount of time it has been around.

[Napoléon]

Picture our galaxy as a petri dish.

A nice analogy but I'm not sure just how relevant it is.

The galaxy is much more like a giant room filled with millions of petri dishes all spaced miles away from each other. Spreading on one petri dish isn't all that inconceivable, spreading to every other petri dish would take something extraordinary, in fact, we have no real way of knowing how likely or unlikely it is, because as far as we know, it hasn't happened yet, and it isn't even necessarily possible.

Consider these points:
1. We are the only petri dish in the room that has formed life, every other dish we know of doesn't have such life.
2. Life has existed on the petri dish we call Earth for 4.6 billion years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old.
4. In such a significant portion of the age of the universe it has taken our example (the only example) of life quite a while to show any indication of moving away from its starting point.
5. The furthest life on this petri dish has ever got is the moon, which isn't even a babystep considering the size of the galaxy.

Now, it's highly plausible that once one civilisation gains this spreading ability it could go on and spread to every other petri dish. But, we have no way of knowing whether this spreading ability you talk about, is even remotely likely in the first place. Considering the time it has taken life on this petri dish to form, let alone evolve and then even get close to venturing away, I'd say it takes a lot longer for life to spread than you suggest.

Saying something like "give life 10,000 bites at the apple, the first one to develop the spreading ability wins the prize" is just trivial, because it says nothing about the possibility or plausibility of said spreading ability.

[vorlon13]

Um, yeah.

That's the gist of the Fermi Paradox.

They ain't here, they probably ain't anywhere.

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks for the response! I always find it interesting that so many atheists believe in the existence of alien life even though there’s no tangible evidence any such life exists.
I do not see why cryptozoology would not be a science; it fits the definition of a methodological study of the natural world. Nobody thinks that there are no undiscovered animals that exist today (or animals previously thought to have gone extinct who still exist). It certainly has a purpose and sometimes hits scientific gold (i.e. the coelacanth). The word science has a particular meaning, it’s not some magic trophy given to only those whom you agree with or respect. When thousands claim to have seen a large bipedal primate in the forests of North America I think it’s perfectly scientific to methodologically investigate its existence.

You can tell cryptozoology isn't a real science because it focuses on the fabulous. It's regular zoologists that actually discover new animal species.

At some point, it's reasonable, after making a thorough investigation that consistently turns up no hard evidence, to conclude it isn't worth further investigation barring new information.

An 'ology' is the study of something. Until you know that something actually exists, what you're really studying is unsubstantiated claims about something. You can't know enough about the subject to call it a legitimate science, except as a sub-category of the systematic study of folklore.