[Skybird]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

So sky are you saying that intelligent life doesn't exist in the universe and their isn't the possibility that maybe they are way in advance of us and could possibly come to visit?

No. what I say is that this scenario is one of the weakest to describe certain characteristics and the complexity of the phenomenon. Vallee would point out that certain aspects of the phenomenon even contradict this scenario.

As Jodie Foster said in "Contact" so very nicely to a schoolboy near the end of the movie: the universe is a very big place, and if we were the only ones in it, it would be an awful waste of space. but we should stay away from being so arrogant to believe we could define the ways in which other forms of intelligence must be structured and must be designed, or to assume that cosmos is made like our models of scinece seem to indicate. I would even say that we are completely unable to recognize other forms of intelligence if they are sufficently superior to ours, and maybe are even unable to realise most other forms of life, that are different from the way we are designed ourselves. I think we could stand right in front of alien intelligence - and maybe simply would overlook it, would not realise it as such as long as it does not wish to reveal itself to us. and then this superior intelligence maybe fails to make us aware of itself like we are unable to establish diplomatic relations with a state of ants. what we do with all our science and research, is simply this: projecting our own image of what man and earht and life and intelligence is, into space, and when space reflects it back to us we consider it to be "alien". But by defintion, the truly alien intelliegnce would be so very difrerent and ALIEN to us that we have no scales and standads to which we could compare it. I see the UFO-phenomenology much like this, like Vallee also does: it is a brief glance behind the door that separates our models of what the cosmos is from what it really is. the first is our own creation, and we are fascinated by wonder and insight that we have articifically imagined and created all by ourselves. But the second is what our mind and soul probably is completely unable to embrace, realise and make sense of: this is what really "alien" means. Tell a fish about flying high in the air and look at the mountains, or tell a sandworm about planet Mars, or a mole about colour and light - it does not work. The term alien used in reference to the extraterrestrial context must mean a level of "alieniness" where we have been stripped of all what we believe to know, and have been stripped of all standards to which we can compare. Our science forms images and models of the universe becasue we are like we are, have two eyes, two hands, etc. If we were intelligent, but would live on a plnaet full of darkness, where no light and colour exists, and that is completely flat, without an opporntuity to realsie the meaning of term slike "high" and "low", above and "below", ouzr understanbding if the unioverse would be as different from our actual one as is the world we realise is different from thr world as a bat exopereinces it when always living inside a cave and using its sound-specialised perception exclusively.

We still have not left behind our belief that the earth, or better: it's dominant species: man - is the centre of the universe and all stars and all cosmos is revolving around man. But it makes no sense to fantasize about alien life by imagine it to have a form and shape like what we can imagine it to be from our experiences on earth. however, a superior intelligence wishing - for whatever a reason - to make us aware for itself, probably cannot do any better and more helpful triock than to dress itself into forms and cloathings that we can understand from the contexts we know from life on earth, and use our cultural smybols and history for a purpose of mimikry.

This is one part of Stanislav Lem'S classic novel "Solaris", one of the key passages of the book (my own translation from German).

„We start out into cosmos, we are prepared for everything, that is the loneliness, the struggle, the martyrdom, death. For modesty’s reason we do not speak it out, but sometimes we believe that we are wonderful. However, that is not all, and our readiness turns out to be just play-acting. Actually we do not want to conquer all space, we just want to expand Earth up to its’ boundaries! Some planets have to be like a desert like the Sahara, others have to be as icy as the poles, or tropical like the Brazilian jungle. We are humanitarian, and we are noble, we do not want to subjugate other races, we just want to bring them our values, and adopting their inheritance. We think we are the knights of the holy contact. That is the second lie. Humans we do seek, no one else! We do not need other worlds, we need mirrors! We don’t know what to do with other worlds. We want to find our own, idealized image; these globes, these civilizations have to be more perfect than ours, while in those others we hope to find the image of our own primitive past. However, there is something on the other side that we do not accept, against which we fight, and after all it is not only the pure distillate of human virtues that we have brought with us from Earth, the heroic monument of mankind! We have come here like we really are, and if the other side is showing us this truth, this part of it that we hide – then we are unable to accept that!”

If you do not know the novel, or the movie by andrej tarkowski: go and watch it! It is more complex (and better) than the remake by Soderbergh, with george clooney.