Here is something strange, not so much for the sighting but for what happened afterwards. It was a sighting known as the "Phoenix Lights". A lot of people witnessed what they thought at the time were crafts of unknown origin..not from this world. This happened in 1997.
Not long after the sighting the governor of Arizona called a press conference announcing they had caught those responsible. Then at the press conference they had a dude dressed in an alien suit come out and basically they all just laughed. Kind of dickish to ridicule some of the people in your state, but okay to each their own. Then the government comes out with the explanation that what people saw were flares from aircrafts.
It all seems to apparently check out, but then several years later the former governor of Arizona says he thinks the UFO sighting was genuine and that it wasn't the first time he'd seen something like it. He was in the airforce and as a pilot said what he saw wasn't like any craft from this planet. He said he did the press conference in an attempt to dismiss the situation so people would not panic.
Originally posted by Bentley
I think it only makes sense, it might sound conflicting to our current biological paradigma, but times and civilizations change I bet it engineering will come naturally when it happens.I also don't think it's such a "slippery slope" doomed future as other people make it to be.
Originally posted by Stoic
What if there were no planets other than Earth capable of sustaining life? The Earth is in the exact correct spot. Not too far from the Sun, and not too close. Space is sooo frigging vast that all it would take is a slight distance difference than our own from or to a star, and poof no life can exist. Fluke? Oh yeah and I don't believe in aliens unless they come from Earth.
I don't believe aliens exist, but not based on the reasons you listed. If I believed in aliens, my rebuttal would be why can't life develop anywhere in the universe? Who is to say that the habitable zone we thrive in is absolutely necessary for any alien race to thrive in? For all we know, some distant frozen planet, 50 AU from its parent star may provide the necessary conditions for life to develop. You can't assume the conditions that allowed abiogenesis to occur on Earth must be the uniform law for all life throughout the cosmos.
If I believed in aliens, I'd argue that way. However, I believe God only made angels and humans as the intelligent beings of the universe. Mock me if you must.