Briterican writes:
Now... why is it that laymen seem to think this means that I believe in UFOs?
because UFO's exist. A UFO is an Unidentified Flying Object - that's something flying that we don't recognize immediately. The truth is it's usually the moon, venus, swamp-gas, airplanes and other mundane things. Sometimes it's some new aircraft the army doesn't want you to know about just yet. Sometimes it's weather balloons, and sometimes it's tricks by kids on the credulous public.
But they "exist".
What it probably ISN'T is an alien spacecraft.
Having said that, the universe is a big place. I mean really big. (Insert superfluous superlatives here) big. Given the possibility that life can exist is 100%, I find it likely that life DOES exist elsewhere. Some of that life may be intelligent. Some of that intelligent life may have found it's way around the universal speed limit...
Why would they come here? Well I find it logical they'd come here to laugh, gawp and investigate. Wouldn't we do the same? Don't we do exactly the same? Granted, we do it at the bottom of the ocean or high in the mountains or in the jungle, not the other end of the third spiral arm of the milky way, but we would if we could.
I'm tentatively hopeful - I won't say it's impossible because our best mathematicians say it's not, just really, non-trivially difficult at this point in time.
If you want to call that the atheist's version of believing in fairy-tales go ahead, but it keeps me warm at night.
I just hope they don't really do the anal probing thing.
That's a bit much.
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