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OP - Believers do not need verifiable facts to believe. "The Truth is Out There"
In this case the facts are dependent on human knowledge which is very limited as far as the Universe goes. It's not what we know that matters, it's what we don't know that is important.
Any developed civilization is going to communicate with something that travels at the speed of light like radio waves. That's assuming they haven't developed something faster than light and/or are able to hide their communications in some manner. While you may not be able to understand what they are communicating they should be detectable.
The trouble is the distance, for a radio signal traveling at the speed of light it could take as much as 200K years to cross just our galaxy. Suppose there is a planet 100K light years from here situated similarly to us on the other side of the galaxy with intelligent life that is developing along the same lines as us. If both civilizations were to last 99K years there would be no one present to detect the other when those signals reached either planet. .
You assume that radio signals do not degrade. Everyone thinks that an original broadcast of "I Love Lucy" could be picked up and viewed perfectly some 70 light years away or so.. Unlikely. Not only would you have to have perfect line of sight back to Earth, but signal degredation, interference.. Makes it unlikely.
Now, some of the things that might be picked up.. If intelligent life were experimenting with antimatter or Nuclear physics.. We might pick up some gamma rays, if everything were perfect.
The absence of evidence is not necessarily telling.
You look at the sheer number of stars.. Life exists out there.. I have no question of that.. Has it evolved to an intelligent level? Or did it evolve to that level? That's more questionable. If you think of the astounding odds that YOU sit here today reading this message..
Other things that come into play.. We've found, so far as I know.. ONE possibly habitable planet orbiting a G-Type star.. Most that we have found that are in the Goldilocks zone are around Red Dwarfs. Water worlds.. There is close to no chance that we would communicate with any intelligent life there. Not that it couldn't exist.. But, it's pretty hard to build electronics underwater.
Interesting if rather ....different....subject.. Proof of alien visitation? Well,, there are theories that these "visit" are not across the void of space, but inter dimensional. That actually seems more plausible than space travel, in that I agree. Space travel would require FASTER than light travel. Actually breaking the time barrier in the same manner we broke the sound barrier. Then, there's the navigational issues. Courses of travel would have to be adjusted by microns or less to stay on course to a particular destination, the distances being so incredibly vast. An energy source that could power such a craft? The power demands wouldbe incredible.
Living beings require food, as we know living bbeings. Supplying a vessel that is just out to explore space, sustenance is a VERY limiting factor. food would need to be syntheised, like they do on Star Trek. Matter of fact, Star Trek theorizes solving these issues, but actually building such things? I think it might take us more than a couple centuries. Could take longer than that just to solve travel within our own solar system.
Now, inter dimensional travel. Such things as dimensional barriers , theoretically, could be crossed in seconds. Still, as its been said, proof is the problem. oh, its ...fun...to postulate. But that's all it is. Postulation.
Interesting if rather ....different....subject.. Proof of alien visitation? Well,, there are theories that these "visit" are not across the void of space, but inter dimensional. That actually seems more plausible than space travel, in that I agree. Space travel would require FASTER than light travel. Actually breaking the time barrier in the same manner we broke the sound barrier. Then, there's the navigational issues. Courses of travel would have to be adjusted by microns or less to stay on course to a particular destination, the distances being so incredibly vast. An energy source that could power such a craft? The power demands wouldbe incredible.
There is wild and baseless conjecture of alien visits, period. And 'inter-dimensional' imaginings? Those are most certainly not 'theories', which in science is a word with a substantive meaning.
There is nothing in space travel that requires superluminal velocities. Did you miss the fact that humans and robotics routinely travel in space at velocities far below lightspeed? And the Voyagers and Pioneers are subluminal interstellar craft -they're just making the journey rather slowlyt. Even a probe travelling at 1% of lightspeed would arrive at Alpha Centauri inside of 500 years. You can make the case that that is problematic (it does entail some problems, but hardly prohibiting ones) but then violating the luminal speed limit is - ahem - rather problematic.
Oh, and navigation? Just make a mid-course correction. That's the least of the problems of interstellar travel.
Seems to me those "guarantees" should be 99.95% or some such figure, not 100%.
Of course, an unprovable guarantee is not worth the paper it is not printed on.
While it may well be true that no alien life form has ever visited Earth, and it can not be proven to have ever happened, it is also true that it can not be proven that it did not happen in the past, and is not happening now. Wondering why such a life form would hide from humanity, and ascribing human-like attributes to them is really quite foolish. It is very likely that their thought processes are very different than ours.
While it is highly unlikely that we have been visited, I certainly am not willing to state that it has never happened, or never will happen, or that it is "impossible". The "impossible" is being done every day by our scientists and technicians, and has been being done for decades! think about it.
It hasn't been all that many years since:
Powered heavier than air flight was considered impossible.
A submarine was considered impossible, and if one could be built it would be useless.
Traveling in excess of 60 MPH was considered impossible, the human body couldn't stand the stress.
Traveling faster than sound was considered impossible.
Goddards rocket experiments were impossible in space, a rocket could not move in a vacuum.
I won't even mention all the social/political impossibilities of the last century that have fallen by the wayside.
One should be VERY careful using "never" or "impossible". There ARE people out there working diligently all day every day to prove you WRONG!
There is wild and baseless conjecture of alien visits, period. And 'inter-dimensional' imaginings? Those are most certainly not 'theories', which in science is a word with a substantive meaning.
There is nothing in space travel that requires superluminal velocities. Did you miss the fact that humans and robotics routinely travel in space at velocities far below lightspeed? And the Voyagers and Pioneers are subluminal interstellar craft -they're just making the journey rather slowlyt. Even a probe travelling at 1% of lightspeed would arrive at Alpha Centauri inside of 500 years. You can make the case that that is problematic (it does entail some problems, but hardly prohibiting ones) but then violating the luminal speed limit is - ahem - rather problematic.
Oh, and navigation? Just make a mid-course correction. That's the least of the problems of interstellar travel.
OK..."theory" is out of context for true linguistic correctness. But it was not my intention to add any credibility to the subject matter. As to travel time and speed across space, sure, I suppose when true suspended animation becomes a reality, speed becomes less of an issue. But, it we're talking about true exploration of space, there and back again would seem to be desireable. I suppose that the distance involved is the big issue. For now, technology sufficient enough to explore our own solar system would be a good place to start.
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