One of every six humans is an alien hybrid. Fact.

Are they the flesh and blood equivalent of a Toyota Prius?

If the aliens only go after fat, uneducated, American rednecks - what were they doing when spotted above the BBC in London?

I think they have a way of indentifying their fellow travellers:

anal.bmp

When you consider how many thousands of satellites are in earths orbit it gives new meaning to launch window when they want to launch anything new.

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-many-satellites-are-orbiting-the-earth.htm

Aussies can't afford to be obese anymore - food is way too expensive these days!!!

So, just when I thought I'd found the old Bedlam fighting spirit of debate and logical discussion - here in Outside the Box - I read on and wonder about the parallels of freedom in speech and most forms of public media nowadays....

Alien spacecraft above the BBC in London is a perfect example - no one can even be bothered getting excited about that either... just too darn cynical or what?

What happens when they actually land?

Whatever!!!

Last year there was a report that the UAE surpassed the USA as the most obese nation.

According to this link three years ago it was the Aussies:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/australia-pips-us-as-worlds-fattest-nation/2008/06/19/1213770827371.html

June 20, 2008

AUSTRALIA has overtaken the United States as the world's most obese nation, a new report says.

The report, Australia's Future Fat Bomb, says 26 per cent of adult Australians - almost 4 million people - are now obese, 1 million more than the last calculation in 1999.

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As to why you only read about American being abducted, because no one really cares what happens to people in most other countries. When they disappear they figure they must either be in one of the mass graves their own leaders have prepared for them or they have gotten lost while trying to sneak into various Western countries. Why then do they abduct Americans then and not Europeans? Why have chicken when you can have steak?

I watched Paul earlier.

He wasn't very shy.

They will be in REAL trouble if they tap the phones. That will be the end of Aliens.

Nobody really knows how big the Universe is. So for us to believe that we are so special that nothing else could possibly be out there, is arrogant to say the least IMO.

Nobody really knows how big the Universe is. So for us to believe that we are so special that nothing else could possibly be out there, is arrogant to say the least IMO.

Very True Mr.B

It would be akin to picking up a single grain of sand on the beach & proclaiming it the only grain of sand on the beach.

I am of the, "we might be the only ones out there, but then again we might not", mindset.

I am of the, "we might be the only ones out there, but then again we might not", mindset.

Are you of the "hope there is or hope there aren't" mindset

I am of the, "we might be the only ones out there, but then again we might not", mindset.

Are you of the "hope there is or hope there aren't" mindset

I'd like to meet one first, then I'll tell you.

I am of the, "we might be the only ones out there, but then again we might not", mindset.

Are you of the "hope there is or hope there aren't" mindset

I'd like to meet one first, then I'll tell you.

Apparently they are all like Jennifer Alba

Are you of the "hope there is or hope there aren't" mindset

I'd like to meet one first, then I'll tell you.

Apparently they are all like Jennifer Alba

That would certainly make those probes they like to insert more enjoyable.

Are you of the "hope there is or hope there aren't" mindset

I'd like to meet one first, then I'll tell you.

Apparently they are all like Jennifer Alba

That would certainly make those probes they like to insert more enjoyable.

Even more enjoyable if they were like Jessica Alba.

Jennifer Aniston would be ok too.

I'd like to meet one first, then I'll tell you.

Apparently they are all like Jennifer Alba

That would certainly make those probes they like to insert more enjoyable.

Even more enjoyable if they were like Jessica Alba.

Jennifer Aniston would be ok too.

Yes, apparently they have best bits of Jennifer Aniston and the best bits of Jessica Alba and are therefore known as Jennifer Alba's

Good response.

OK, give MrB a break. It's hard to think clearly when thinking about Ms Alba. Pardon the pun.

Here are a couple of facts to wrap your minds around.

It may help when you ponder the likelihood of us being the only ones.....

Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles a second or 700 million miles an hour. For scale, the distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 239,000 miles. This seems pretty fast and indeed theory says that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

Ok now consider this..........The Milky Way which we all can see at night if you live in a decent dark site

is "our" galaxy. The galaxy Earth is part of. How big is it? Well it is 100,000 light years across.

Now that is "our" galaxy. Yet if you have even a small 4" refractor telescope & go outside at night...again a dark spot not a city like BKK....And you know where to look you will see many things.

One of my favorites is called M13 or Messier Object #13 as cataloged by French astronomer Charles Messier

It is a giant glob of stars in the constellation Hercules. Incredible to look at in a small scope.

Anyway it lies 25,000 light years away & has a diameter of 150 light years.

Check it out..........Guess how many stars in there? They estimate about 300,000

I also like to look at other galaxies...Like the Spiral Galaxy in Centaurus.....

Guess how far away it is? 13 MILLION light years away.

How about the Barred Spiral Galaxy in Volans? It had an encounter with another galaxy that distorted its arms into hook shapes. The two galaxies lie 150,000 light years apart & FIFTY MILLION light years from earth.

Yep 50 million

I was just looking at M-51 the other night. It is also called the Whirlpool galaxy. It is just 37 Million light years from earth. Pretty cool in a small scope too.

Now reconsider the speed of light & ponder the distance we are talking about. These are just a few things & there are many that are farther & in every direction. Speed of Light = 700 million miles an hour or say 300,000 Kilometers a second which would be seven times around the world every second!

Traveling at that speed .....if ever you could....It still could take millions of years to reach some of these spots.

While traveling to these spots you are passing billions of stars

What is the closest star to earth? Ok trick question as the closest star is our sun But look at what just that one star supports....Now consider the billions your passing while traveling at the speed of light.

Still think we could possibly be the only form of life out there?

That is a mighty big house for only one family

Side Note: You do not see colors in a scope. These photos are long exposures so they show color.

Here are a couple of facts to wrap your minds around.

It may help when you ponder the likelihood of us being the only ones.....

Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles a second or 700 million miles an hour. For scale, the distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 239,000 miles. This seems pretty fast and indeed theory says that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

Ok now consider this..........The Milky Way which we all can see at night if you live in a decent dark site

is "our" galaxy. The galaxy Earth is part of. How big is it? Well it is 100,000 light years across.

Now that is "our" galaxy. Yet if you have even a small 4" refractor telescope & go outside at night...again a dark spot not a city like BKK....And you know where to look you will see many things.

One of my favorites is called M13 or Messier Object #13 as cataloged by French astronomer Charles Messier

It is a giant glob of stars in the constellation Hercules. Incredible to look at in a small scope.

Anyway it lies 25,000 light years away & has a diameter of 150 light years.

Check it out..........Guess how many stars in there? They estimate about 300,000

I also like to look at other galaxies...Like the Spiral Galaxy in Centaurus.....

Guess how far away it is? 13 MILLION light years away.

How about the Barred Spiral Galaxy in Volans? It had an encounter with another galaxy that distorted its arms into hook shapes. The two galaxies lie 150,000 light years apart & FIFTY MILLION light years from earth.

Yep 50 million

I was just looking at M-51 the other night. It is also called the Whirlpool galaxy. It is just 37 Million light years from earth. Pretty cool in a small scope too.

Now reconsider the speed of light & ponder the distance we are talking about. These are just a few things & there are many that are farther & in every direction. Speed of Light = 700 million miles an hour or say 300,000 Kilometers a second which would be seven times around the world every second!

Traveling at that speed .....if ever you could....It still could take millions of years to reach some of these spots.

While traveling to these spots you are passing billions of stars

What is the closest star to earth? Ok trick question as the closest star is our sun But look at what just that one star supports....Now consider the billions your passing while traveling at the speed of light.

Still think we could possibly be the only form of life out there?

That is a mighty big house for only one family

Side Note: You do not see colors in a scope. These photos are long exposures so they show color.

All extremely cool. Three questions:

1) What is in between these galaxies?

2) In some of the photos the galaxies are surrounded by stars. Which galaxy do they belong to? Our own?

3) If we are located inside the Milky Way galaxy, how do they get the outside-looking-in photos of it? The camera must be a shitload of light years outside the galaxy to get such a wide shot.

When thinking about life on other parts of the universe, we need to keep in mind that phrase "life as we know it" because in all likelihood it won't like anything we know.

All extremely cool. Three questions:

1) What is in between these galaxies?

2) In some of the photos the galaxies are surrounded by stars. Which galaxy do they belong to? Our own?

3) If we are located inside the Milky Way galaxy, how do they get the outside-looking-in photos of it? The camera must be a shitload of light years outside the galaxy to get such a wide shot.

When thinking about life on other parts of the universe, we need to keep in mind that phrase "life as we know it" because in all likelihood it won't like anything we know.

1) intergalactic space

2) Think about when you view our own galaxy ( The Milky Way ) Most of us see it as a cloud of gasses stretching across the sky. The center at about Sagittarius where it looks its brightest. Also where you can see some really cool things like the Lagoon Nebula

But although the milky way looks like a big stripe to us. All the stars you see with your eyes in the night sky are part of the milky way galaxy.

EDIT: ooops I re-read your question #2 & yes the stars around the galaxies you see in a scope are ours not theirs. Would be cool to have that amount of detail to actually see stars within a distant galaxy though Truth is the galaxies I see through a scope are just like a small white cloud. They have shape & are cool but they are so very far. But still on great nights they can hold me for an hour easily just gazing at them. As you do you see more & more detail & shape/arms etc.

When I look at say the whirlpool galaxy it does not look like the picture I posted above...That is a long camera exposure type. Using your eye it looks more like this in my scope

3) We cannot get pictures from outside our galaxy looking in. Yet anyway...

because we are inside the galactic disk or galaxy. Any pictures you have seen are probably a talented

artists rendition or even another galaxy

Agreed that life may or may not be as we know it. but again the size of the house ( space) is really beyond our comprehension.

If our sun is the closest star & we see what it is capable of given the right circumstances. Then it is not too hard to imagine in the billions & billions of stars/suns we see is there not the chance of even one also supporting a similar form of life?....Or better?

But then too as we sit here & can only imagine anything traveling millions of light years so too perhaps others millions of light years away wonder the same.

It is kind of sad that we as humans wonder so little about this & do not invest more time & $$$ in things like this instead of trivial pursuits like conquering a tiny planet in a sea of planets. I was a little bummed that one of the first things to go recently was NASA's funding & the space shuttle. Not that the shuttle was an exploratory craft but it did launch things like the Hubble Telescope from its bays once in space not to mention the many satellites. At least the shuttle had a useful function & helped us see/ learn a bit.

Unlike the majority of things we waste $$$ on that has little or no good end result.

I even have often wondered why we have not even really explored our own ocean depths fully.

The one earthly thing that comes closest to the complexity of the cosmos is the complexity of a human brain. That's an interesting comparison to keep in mind when people start talking about any kind of artificial intelligence or a singularity. We are so far away from understanding even a small portion of the world around us that we could spend trillions of lifetimes and not even make a dent in our knowledge of what is out there, or even what is right here.

It inspires me when people try, because everyone knows at the start there is no way they are going to conquer that mountain, yet they all feel an imperative to die trying.

That is what true heroes are made of, no matter what field they are researching.

I would hope that any aliens who visit our meagre planet appreciate that capacity in us and share our sense of humility when faced with the universe, and are not simply coming to bring another load of us to the abattoir for their holiday feast.

Here are a couple of facts to wrap your minds around.

It may help when you ponder the likelihood of us being the only ones.....

All extremely cool. Three questions:

When thinking about life on other parts of the universe, we need to keep in mind that phrase "life as we know it" because in all likelihood it won't like anything we know.

Yes, very cool, thanks Flying.

And yes, "life as we know it", we do have to keep that phrase in mind......but then again, they have found GTCA type amino acids in meteorites, suggesting that our primordial soup may have been seeded by dna from afar. Our dna could very well be an offshoot of dna that has evolved prior, elsewhere.

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

My sources tell me that they watched the morning session and then turned to their version of the comedy channel and they watched the Republican's Vs Democrats debacle.

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

My sources tell me that they watched the morning session and then turned to their version of the comedy channel and they watched the Republican's Vs Democrats debacle.

Comedy? Every time I think about it I burst into tears.

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

My sources tell me that they watched the morning session and then turned to their version of the comedy channel and they watched the Republican's Vs Democrats debacle.

Are your sources Australiens like mine?

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

My sources tell me that they watched the morning session and then turned to their version of the comedy channel and they watched the Republican's Vs Democrats debacle.

Are your sources Australiens like mine?

Yes. And they got into fast Cars, Yachts, bikini clad young ladies and like the rest of us, didn't like paying taxes. So they moved to Moonaco.

I have it on impeccable authority that no aliens were watching the cricket at Trent Bridge yesterday. Clearly they are not as intelligent as they've been cracked up to be.

My sources tell me that they watched the morning session and then turned to their version of the comedy channel and they watched the Republican's Vs Democrats debacle.

Are your sources Australiens like mine?

Yes. And they got into fast Cars, Yachts, bikini clad young ladies and like the rest of us, didn't like paying taxes. So they moved to Moonaco.

Are you sure it wasn't Sun Marino?

Here are a couple of facts to wrap your minds around.

{...}

Still think we could possibly be the only form of life out there?

That is a mighty big house for only one family

Side Note: You do not see colors in a scope. These photos are long exposures so they show color.

Great pics! Did you take them yourself?

Great pics! Did you take them yourself?

Thanks

No I am a visual only observer.

I do not do astro photography as it is not only expensive but for me takes away from the reason

I observe these things.

Astro photography replaces your eye at the eye piece with a camera at the eye piece while you

look at a laptop or other monitor for long periods of time.

Many of those photos can take an hour/hours or longer to produce while it gathers light.

They are cool to look at though. But still I prefer visual observations.

I live at a very dark site. No city lights, no street lights etc.

When I look up even the milky way is bright like a moon.

When I observe with my scope I see the moons of Saturn orbit Saturn.

Or the moons of Jupiter & the great red spot/storm on Jupiter

Or things like that M13 globular cluster or whirlpool galaxy (M51) mesmerize me.

So many things out there are just awesome.