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My cousin once told me to imagine as bizarre of a creature as I could. I complied, naturally. Then he proceeded to say that the creature I just imagined, in theory, could exist anywhere in the universe because the universe is infinite. Also, my father often states that it's impossible for the universe to be infinite and life to be finite.

Supposedly, they've taken telescopes and zoomed in as far as they could on "starless" parts of the sky, only to find clusters of stars that the naked eye cannot see. If this is the case, then how many stars are there truly in the "star-filled" parts of the sky? Infinite, I'd guess since supposedly the universe has no definitive end.

If every star is a sun, then it could possibly have orbiting planets. Therefore, it could possibly have life. Our galaxy has roughly 10 billion stars. "It is estimated that there are as many as 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe." So, if every galaxy has the amount of stars ours does... and there are possibly galaxies we can't see from our location within the universe. We can't even begin to count them, but every star is a chance at life existing.

So, I guess my question is what are your beliefs on the matter? Do you accept the possibility of life besides ours? Or no? We have this discussion all of the time at my house, as you might've guessed from my first few sentences.

You sound just like my cousin, and this is one of my favorite points to make when arguing for sentient life outside of our planet. But, anyways, I'll rein in my crazy and give other people a chance to post before I go off on a huge tangent >.<

Yes, and yes.

If anything, I would think that religion, especially Christianity, would prove life outside our universe since God is said to be a love-filled being. Why stop with one planet? More importantly, why create so much space for one race? But that's just me, I guess.

Religion and aliens... it cracks me up thinking about it. I think every major religion would blow a gasket. They even have a television series all about trying to say that aliens are frequently mentioned in the bible. It sounds far-fetched at first, but not impossible.

...I'm trying to stay on topic here, but it's so hard for me. Aliens are my thing, if you know what I mean xD

I don't think I can rein in my crazy any longer~! gonk

Well, this series was called Ancient Aliens (and it gave my horrible nightmares. Go figure the thing that fascinates me the most also scares me the most...) and it was entirely about trying to say that aliens actually have been observing humans since we were first created/starting to evolve. Wiki page.

It references a few bible verses, like the common one about Moses leaving Israel where he followed a black cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night (something to that effect). Then it proceeded to say that a flying vehicle would block out the sun, much like a black cloud, and at night it could light up like a pillar of fire. It even went to so far as to argue that Gomorrah (the evil town set ablaze by God? I think that's its name) was destroyed by advanced weaponry, such as a laser. You know, that sort of stuff. And the general idea of how ancient civilizations showed depictions of winged beings giving them knowledge of math and science.

I definitely don't doubt extraterrestrial life. I sometimes wonder if we're being spied on (essentially), but then I wonder why someone would slowly watch us destroy ourselves and our planet? Though, I don't see this as impossible either...

But, in my opinion, if aliens have truly contacted us such as incidents with Roswell, UFO sightings and the like... then wouldn't they have tried to destroy us when we were weaker? I don't think what crashed at Roswell was a weather balloon, quite frankly, and many reported UFO sightings have similar characteristics (like the vehicle being silent), which gives the idea more plausibility, if you ask me...

Anyways, Roswell was in 1947. So if Roswell really was a UFO crashing to Earth, then that would be well over fifty years since other sentient life has known of our existence. What I'm getting it is if sentient beings have found Earth, they would've destroyed us already if that was their intent (because now we could possibly defend ourselves with our technology). Since we're not, you know, destroyed, then my best guess is that they're a benevolent race... if they exist and have contacted us, of course.

You're right that people would go nuts. I sure would. If any alien space-craft landed, I'd turn tail and run before it turned into a scene from War of the Worlds.

As for our government knowing, I'm sure they do. Supposedly the CIA had files that they wouldn't let Jimmy Carter access when he was President. Naturally, that's a red flag. Whether they have knowledge of aliens or not, they definitely are hiding something.

Well, true. It doesn't sit well with me, though. The C.I.A. is a government agency, and the president is the head of the government so any president not having access just seems so odd. It just all seems shady, whether they're hiding sentient life or not. But if it wasn't extraterrestrial life, what could it be? Other supernatural entities? A half-thawed stegosaurus? Run-of-the-mill files on communist countries (but why would those be so classified?) Beats me.