Because if any hypothetical extraterrestrials had the inclination to translate our languages they would know that this area was of significance for large portion of the planet's population (i.e. in 2008, the lastest figures I'm sure of off-hand, there were approximately 2 billion Christians, and 1.5 billion Muslims, and 14 million adherents of Judaism) for a long time (i.e. over 1,500 years for all three Abrahamic faiths). 

However, as other posters have mentioned, that's only if these hypothetical extraterrestrials have more regard for us than we do for insects.

We are not alone...

Whether it is ET or God, the same can be said.

What is the meaning of this light show? Who knows.

But I will never subscribe to a religion that punishes an innocent girl to death after she is raped, and leaves the raper free.

I don't think that that's Judaism, and it certainly isn't Christianity of any kind that I'm aware of.

The flaw in your argument isn't the possibility of any extraterrestrials having more regard for us than we do for insects, it's the idea that an ET civilization would want to know what humans are chattering about. That's even assuming that there are any ETs in decipherable transmission range; which, IMO, is unlikely at best.

That's really the thing. Any alien civilization of comparable or greater tech level than the human race isn't going to bother us, because they don't want to risk getting noticed, or exterminated. There's also the slight problem of them translating our languages; translating the Egyptian hieroglyphs wasn't feasible (and probably not possible) until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone; ETs won't have that luxury, and neither would we if we tried to translate an alien language.

However, there is an even bigger flaw in your argument, by the 18th and 19th century hieroglyphs hadn't been used for thousands of years while the aliens would have the benefit of observing living languages in use by humans for however long they want.  While it is true that if some alien race came upon human writtings and recording after all human life was extinct, it would probably be impossible for them to translate them, that's not the case if they are studying us now or have in the past.  If what you are saying were true, it would have been impossible for early European explorers to learn the Native American languages because at some point there were not any Europeans that knew the Native American languages, and vice-versa!  Any species capabable of developing interstellar travel would be able to observe living people using any modern language and the context associated with that use of language.  They could even watch pre-school educational programs (the ones that teach letters, numbers, and basic vocabulary) via TV and the Internet!

Of course, that's assuming the hypothetical aliens exist and want to bother learning about the mostly hairless apes native to the planet they call Earth.   

I guess in our future, space faring age, we also would not be able to translate another's language. We would not be smart enough, even though we had conquered the feats of space travel, genetic engineering etc.

As for being interested in a less advanced, but none the less intelligent otherworldly creatures... What are the odds of us not wanting to investigate? Or the odds in us not regarding them as more than mere insects, or wanting to know what and how they think?

Oh I don't find it unlikely that a space-faring species would be at least somewhat curious about less advanced, but still sapient species.  It's the rather hubris-ladden notion that if an alien species made it untold light-years across the vast reaches of space our antics, or continued existence, would be some sort of extreme priority that I find laughable.  Consider how most in the developed world think of the still extant stone age tribes.  I'm sure that, at best, we would have the same level of importance to a space-faring culture of one or more different species.

The problem is that tech level isn't an easy thing to determine from interstellar distance. You can get rough approximations, but you won't get a 'they have interstellar travel, and have had it for x# years'. Not without what would be considered 'magitech' sensors.

The fallacy of an alien species wanting to investigate other sapients, is that they are not like us, they are scared sh*tless, and they do not know what we are.

They may know that we are sapient, but other than that, the degradation of a transmission as it crosses interstellar space is simply to great. Alien life is not going to go looking for other life, because it's a case of 'I've been spotted, and now am dead'. I'll use the Central Park analogy once again; you don't go looking for anyone, because you might find someone who's a lot stronger than you and doesn't want to share or doesn't like you. So you get shot in the face.

Translating that to a more accurate analogy to the discussion at hand, the aliens aren't going to go looking around for other sapients, because they don't want to run across something that's of similar or greater tech-level, and is super-violently-defensive. Effectively, only the wimps go looking for help, and they tend to get wiped out in short order.

Must be a sad thing, living in fear.

Well, I don't think we on Earth will cower too much in fear of potential conflict with alien life.  We'll probably welcome it as it means we will have people to kill who aren't other humans.

For those of you who do not know what MooseTek13 is referring to, here's the link to the story...

Whose to say these beings have not watched us for a long time, records have shown while the pyramids were being built in Egypt, they were building them in South America and Mexico... The huge drawings in Peru where you can only see from high above..

In the classic TNG episode, "Who Watches the Watchers", A Federation scientific outpost is discovered by a group of proto-vulcans, the vulcans watch as an away team rescues the scientist by beaming up and overhear them speaking to Picard and the vulcans refer to him as a god. Picard risks his life be being hit by an arrow to prove he was not a god but a man who has advance technology. 

But as Whiskey has said,"why would the come here?" That's probably what the Indians said when scientist come to the jungles of South America to study them, who are very afraid of our technology such as cameras and cigarette lighters... 

Anyway this is the other vid that is much closer and the flash is very prominet....Let's keep this discussion going...

...Bison.... 

The 'living in fear', is a racial thing. The average citizen probably doesn't have any fears whatsoever of the sort I describe. As a civilization, that kind of thing will be very high on the list.

I'm doubtful of that. If only because we might well anger some civilization that recognizes us as sapients of a similar level, but said civilization is of greater technological advancement (possibly an order of magnitude or more) than humanity.

Which would mean that mankind is screwed.

Well, the scientists know that the Amerindians are human. The Indians probably know that the scientists are 'like them', in the sense that they're mostly similar.

But the biggest thing is that an alien civilization is just that. Alien. We have no reason to believe that they would have any remote resemblance to us, in any way. They would obviously have to have discovered most, if not all, of the technologies we have acquired at present.

But beyond that, the way that an alien would think is almost certain to be vastly different from anything a human would consider. Put it this way:

Biologically, there's stuff on Earth that looks so far removed from anything else that it might as well be alien. I'm thinking of the stuff that lives at the bottom of the oceans. So, it's likely that an alien species would biologically be just as different from us (probably more so actually) as we are from the octopi and anglerfish that live at (or near) the bottom of the ocean.

Mentally, it'd be even worse. There is simply no reason to think that an alien species will have a thought process resembling anything like a human. Certainly there would probably be some common ideas, like 'reproduce', 'survive', and 'innovate', but the complex thoughts and ideas that human civilization has formed, like the various philosophies and cultural forms of mankind, will be vastly different from something that a comparable alien civilization would have produced.

It's the case of 'aliens will think like us', which probably stems from the fact that many pop-culture scifi settings feature aliens with bumpy foreheads, leading to the supposition among many people that 'aliens will kinda look like us, so they'll kinda think like us too'.

IMO, it's rather obvious that that's not the case.

To me, this looked like a remote controlled helicopter or something similar, with a lightbulb hanging under it.  I do believe there are aliens out there, but who is to say they have spaceships?  We don't really have anything capable of leaving the solar system yet.  maybe they are equal, or even inferior, in terms of technology.  Just sayin, nobody ever thinks of this in these conversations...

-Twilight Storm | The Truth is Out there...  /X-Files Music

Thats intresting. 

In order for one to say that, the thread needs to be dead in the first place.

Of course, it certainly is intresting that you thought it inactive enough to think that such a thought needed mentioning.

To me, this makes me think that this thread has about run its course and DESERVES to die.

(imo, the thread needed to die anyway...)

So: How about we all do the right thing and let it.

Maybe you're right and this thread time has come to an end. Nevertheless, since the start of this year strange things have happened across the planet. And now the UFO over Jerusalem which represent the three largest religions across the globe. Must of you are aware of the Mayan calender which something may or may not happen at the end of next year.

IMO we have been visited time and time before, just about every major past civilization from Egyptians to the Mayans and the Aztecs have shown some type flying craft that was beyond anything man could do at the time. Even the bible has references to UFO's in the book of Genesis Ezekiel. Just last week NASA has revealed that the Kuiper? orbital obseratory has discovered over 1000 planets within 900 light years of Earth.

I find it hard to believe that out of several billion stars which make up the Milky Way Galaxy. They could be planets into the hundreds of billions and out of all that, it's just us. Here's a quote....

"To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet,only one grain will grow."- Metrodorus of Chios

....Bison..... 

Just one more thing 

Everyone is saying Why would they bother with problems of making such a journey. Well perhaps for them crossing galaxies its like for us going to the shop next door. 

Also I do disagree that they would have to develop all technologies we invented so far. If you follow all modern breakthrough technologies they all have something in common they try to mimic nature. That is something new to us. Before it was use and abuse nature till the end now slowly we are turning around and we are trying to preserve and learn from nature. 

Another thing

There are some maps of Antarctica dated BC that are incredibly accurate. How can that be. It suggests civilization that was quite developed and was destroyed or some alien influence like perhaps with pyramids. They were build 10000BC all around the world at the same time. There are some granite (well they are from rock) "vases" that with all the modern technology we aren't capable of duplicating today. It might be that ET is actually originating on Earth went to space and it's now returning only to find that their civilization is destroyed and new violent race is ruling their home

Burden of proof. Please provide actual, incontrovertible evidence that indicates highly detailed and accurate maps of Antarctica that are dated 'BC'. Furthermore, provide the actual date of said maps (as in, xyz BC where 'xyz' is the year).

Also, there's probably quite a few examples of things we have in history that we can't duplicate today. The reason? We simply don't know how it was made. Modern technology isn't a panacea to every attempt to figure something out. It has its limits. After all, perhaps the reason we can't duplicate something with modern tech is because, *shock* it wasn't built/made with modern technology!

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm 

here is the quick google search link about maps of antarctica

Will post link about "vase" later

EDIT On the same page you can find hundreds of cases that modern science cannot explain. Like batteries in ancient Egypt etc.

There is vase somewhere inside as well (cannot find it at the moment as my source is scientific magazine from a few years back) but what we cannot replicate is basically that stone granite vase wall is uniform thickness along whole wall. With modern technology we can only drill in sort of overturned V shape if you are looking from the opening. What they did is that the inside drilling or cavity follows shape from the outside. 

BTW, here's some more evidence that the videos were hoaxes.  Read it all and watch the videos -- they explain how it is known that they were digitally edited.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1207-is-dome-of-the-rock-ufo-video-a-hoax-.html

As I said, there are people who do this kind of thing as a hobby -- I mean make fake photos and videos.  People have been doing it for years.  That this is fake, the evidence should remove all doubt.

As far as intelligent alien life is concerned. it's one thing to believe that it exists, and quite another to believe that they are here.  That alien life exists, is fairly likely.  But if you take into account the amount of time that it would take to get here from even one of the closest stars, the amount of energy that it would take, and the time just build such a ship, that they would know that Earth exists, and is inhabited, and so on -- I'd estimate that the odds of us being visited ever, would be extremely remote.  Not impossible, but so remote that it may as well be impossible.

One  other thing -- the history of UFOs and alien sightings has kept pace very well with the depiction of the same in movies.  I don't recall the author, but he was able to show that in every case that he looked at, changes in the descriptions would follow movie depictions very closely.  Saucers weren't 'seen' in the real world until after they had appeared in movies.  Same with little green men, then grey men, and so on.  And before the technological age, people were not seeing flying disks or cigars, but angels, and demons and so on.

That people see things all the time that are not there, is a well established psychological phenomenon.   The power of suggestion is a lot greater thatn most people are willing to accept.  I even will admit to seeing things that were not there (sometimes it was because I was overtired, or feverish, but other times, it was just my brain filling in false details of something that was only half glimpsed (brains do that, you know).  We are all prone to this, no matter how sane you are.  The exact same thing happens to our memories of events (brains do not contain videotape).  And there have been lots of fascinationg experiments done in the past that demonstrate just how easily we can be convinced of things that are just not true.

And the Incan Empire as well (they did not subjugate the Mayans as they had already disappeared - the empire, not the people).

I'm more convinced it is a supernatural power manifested, not aliens....

But that's just me.

Awesome.

Why is the U in UFO always alien? Angel? Man made? Time traveler? Bah, never! Always alien.

The 'U' stands for 'unidentified'.

It does not mean 'alien'.

I guess something is lost in the translation.

Present a story as fiction, and it will be accepted as fiction.

Present a story as truth, and it will be accepted as truth.

What if we are the AI we are desperately trying to create?

What if we were put on this planet by those that look remarkably like us?  And what if this has occurred many many times before?

The problem is, when we rely on deference and consensus for knowledge and wisdom, we willfully submit ourselves to limit our intellectual growth since it is done so within the [thought barriers] that have been prescribed for us.  Society's culture is one such formatting tool.  Any deviation from what is considered "culturally acceptable" will be labeled abnormal and said individuals risk being isolated and often become functionally compromised [within that culture].  Hence, one must not deviate from what is accepted by the whole.  For this reason, government regulates all forms of communication and has within it the 'power' to determine what gets taught as, for example, "human history."

If we are to believe that aliens are not like us in anyway, then we have been conditioned to think so.

-.-

Or maybe we believe that aliens are not like us in any way because that's the logical thing.

Think about it this way: by application of Occam's Razor, we take the simplest, workable solution.

This automatically discounts something like 'we are transplanted people'. And it's really not unreasonable to think that aliens would be nothing like us. After all, an octopus is almost utterly different from a human, and it came from the same planet.