Edgar Mitchell, respected Astronaut who walked on the moon, admits aliens exist.

[lpxxfaintxx]

Kerrang! Radio

This isn't the first time that he's claimed this, but is he telling the truth or is he lying? Personally, I don't have any reasons to doubt him... what does he gain out of lying? He mentions that he believes disclosure is very near, and there is enough evidence out as we speak. That brings several questions...

1. How will the public react? Will we all accept the fact, and get on with our lives? Will we panic, will we be mad at the government?

2. How will this affect religion (specifically Christianity)? Many Christians firmly believe we are the only life form on Earth, but the truth is, the existence of Aliens do not contradict with the Bible.

3. Can you imagine aliens 'immigrating' to Earth? Kinda freaky, huh? Reminds me of that South Park episode with the Goobacks.

[exzapel]

Depends on the threat they pose, if we KNOW they're violent beings, worth WILL plunge into chaos, if we know they're benevolent, there will be civil unrest coupled with some public chaos, but I doubt it'll get too bad. If we don't know anything about them, who knows how everyone will react, I won't be too shocked however it plays out though.

Hopefully they won't have to immigrate and help us into space, and maybe even on to their planets.

[lpxxfaintxx]

Well he does mention, if relationships with the aliens were hostile, we would have been gone long time ago.

[DuckDuckGoose]

Thats not entirely true. Have you ever heard about the studies the military has done? Where the more advanced you get it becomes easier for a less advanced opponent to destroy you.
I was reading about it when the military botched one of their war games, basically they pitted high tech equipment against a rebel force that was using much less advanced stuff, they expected a landslide victory from the high tech devices only what they got was utter defeat and humiliation when their precious technology failed them.

Anyway point is we're pretty well defended, yes a alien race that is advanced enough to visit our planet could be packing some mean weapons, but that doesn't mean that they could take this planet down easily. We have nuclear weapons capable of space flight (I'd like to see something try to shrug off a nuclear blast in 0 gravity, even if by some miracle they had armor that could protect their ship from being destroyed theres still the radiation and the massive shockwave that would rattle everything inside their ship around like a pinball machine), and our ground troop weapons would kill a organic creature from another planet just as easily as they kill humans.

Edit: I just wanted to expand a bit on some things, the magical armor I was talking about that could block a nuclear blast does not exist, the universe is made up of the same material and there is no known material that is strong enough and heat resistant enough to actually hold up under a nuclear blast, the heat from the blast alone would flash melt anything in its range.
Another reason why we wouldn't be in to great of danger is because of our nature, we would not have a single problem with using nuclear weapons, thousands upon thousands to save our planet. We are by nature a hate filled and vengeful race we will use any weapon to protect ourselves and destroy our enemy, if some alien race was to suddenly appear and attack us and we started losing we would most likely nuke ourselves into obliteration just so they couldn't have the planet, kinda like a final **** you to them because thats just the way humans are.

[Otaku]

what does he gain out of lying?

Attention?

edit:

Mitchell's interests include consciousness and paranormal phenomena. During the Apollo 14 flight he conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth. [3] In early 1973, he founded the nonprofit Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) to conduct and sponsor research into areas that mainstream science has ignored, including consciousness research and psychic events.

As well as academic papers,[4], Mitchell has written two books: Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science (ISBN 0-399-11342-8) and The Way of the Explorer (ISBN 1-57270-019-X). In The Way of the Explorer, Mitchell proposed a dyadic model of reality.[5]

He is currently the Advisory Board Chairman of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, co-founded by Dr. Carol Rosin.[6]

Mitchell has publicly expressed his opinions that he is "90 per cent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets"[7] and that UFOs have been the "subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and to create confusion so the truth doesn't come out."[8] In 2004 he told the St. Petersburg Times that a "cabal of insiders" inside the US Government were studying recovered alien bodies, and that this group had stopped briefing US Presidents after John F. Kennedy.[9] He has said, that "We all know that UFOs are real, now the question is, where they come from." [10] In 2008, he further expressed his belief in UFO conspiracy theories during an interview with the Kerrang! radio station.[11]

Mitchell says that a teenage remote healer who lives in Vancouver and uses the pseudonym Adam Dreamhealer, helped heal him of kidney cancer at a distance. Mitchell said that while he never had a biopsy (the definitive test for cancer), "I had a sonogram and MRI that was consistent with renal carcinoma." Adam worked (distantly) on Mitchell from December of 2003 until June of 2004, when the "irregularity was gone and we haven't seen it since."[12]

[Dyndrilliac]

The universe is a vast thing, and to assume that intelligent life as we know it doesn't exisit anywhere but on our planet is as stupid as it is arrogant.

And to comment on DDG's post, hostile aliens could simply elect to vaporize our planet from space and avoid real combat. We lose.

[DuckDuckGoose]

They would have to get within range to do that, and there would be no point in doing that at all.
If a alien race was war like it would be a conquering civilization, they would try to take our planet from us for its natural resources and make us slaves, to do that they would have to get within range of our planet and our nuclear weapons could strike their ships. If they managed to land ground troops we would have a fighting chance against those as well, we know the terrain, were used to the planets weather patterns and its gravity. We have huge standing armies and our weapons would kill any organic creature just as well as they kill humans.

It also isn't exactly feesable to vaporize a planet, raze it with planetary bombardment yes. But to actually vaporize it? That would be extremely difficult indeed, and take unthinkable amounts of energy to do it.

[gevorgkhc]

They nuke us before we have a chance to prepare our weapons -> we lose.
But there'd be no ****ing point killing off and poisoning the planet... unless they thrive on radioactive radiation.

[Indefinite]

Now there's a magical question: how is it that most people, when speaking about aliens, immediately jump onto the thought of them being hostile?

Even if they wouldn't be hostile, some powerful, paranoid, greedy faggot would simply create an image of them as our enemies, just so we would 'unite' and be more susceptible to manipulation. It's basically our instinctive nature to have enemies/rivalry and if we don't have them, we create them.

So I guess those aliens already know a lot about us. Being smart as we suspect, that's why they avoid direct contact. They know that we even can't take care of ourselves.

So my question is: why make them a threat, if they won't be one?

As to Faint's questions, I'll give my suspicions on those:
1. There will be a wide range of reactions. Just as there always is when a new topic pops up.
2. Don't worry, Christians will make some additions regarding aliens. I personally think that religion and belief shouldn't stay in the way of reason, facts or even possible partnership with aliens. Something many people still have to learn - keeping beliefs to themselves.
3. I don't see a problem with that, as long as they won't pose a threat.

[Shin666]

What makes you think that aliens havn't already integrated themselves into our society? perhaps they've been integrated in human society for thousands of years, since the beginning. Theoretically (and i don't mean to go into anything racial with this) humans were spawned from africa. and last time i checked, native born africans tend to have a darker shade of skin. Whose to say that aliens didn't come to us in those days and lets say "intermingle" with the human race and thats how we came to have so many different varities of races and skin colors... maybe aliens look and in all purposes are human?

[exzapel]

I was going to say something else, but I thought about it, and you're right. Why should we just assume it's even possible for them to be hostile, we'll be able to judge their character when/if we meet them, for better or worse.

[ProtomanMt]

I doubt they exist. Without evidence, its all bull****.

Example: I saw a flying pig.

would you believe me if I didn't take pictures or provide any evidence? Taking my word wouldn't be enough in today's society, you would like some proof to futher support my discovery.

[exzapel]

I doubt they exist. Without evidence, its all bull****.

Example: I saw a flying pig.

would you believe me if I didn't take pictures or provide any evidence? Taking my word wouldn't be enough in today's society, you would like some proof to futher support my discovery.

Yeah, but 1000's of people haven't claimed to see flying pigs in the same locations at once. Aside from that, even if you don't believe in technologically advanced life forms, you can't possibly deny that there's other life out there, it's statistically and logically improbable.

[Dyndrilliac]

Now there's a magical question: how is it that most people, when speaking about aliens, immediately jump onto the thought of them being hostile?

Even if they wouldn't be hostile, some powerful, paranoid, greedy faggot would simply create an image of them as our enemies, just so we would 'unite' and be more susceptible to manipulation. It's basically our instinctive nature to have enemies/rivalry and if we don't have them, we create them.

So I guess those aliens already know a lot about us. Being smart as we suspect, that's why they avoid direct contact. They know that we even can't take care of ourselves.

So my question is: why make them a threat, if they won't be one?

As to Faint's questions, I'll give my suspicions on those:
1. There will be a wide range of reactions. Just as there always is when a new topic pops up.
2. Don't worry, Christians will make some additions regarding aliens. I personally think that religion and belief shouldn't stay in the way of reason, facts or even possible partnership with aliens. Something many people still have to learn - keeping beliefs to themselves.
3. I don't see a problem with that, as long as they won't pose a threat.

Since the dawn of human life on this planet there has never been a ten year period without conflict (not necessarily war, people weren't capable of organizing in large numbers until about thirty thousand years ago, but conflict in general), and as a matter of fact war predates even agriculture, history, and civilization as we know it. Therefore one could infer that any intelligent life that would make contact with us knowing this, does so not to be peaceful but to be hostile. If they were peaceful in nature, I would hope they would have the good sense to realize that until our society is more developed and open to such contact, that to do so would only cause panic and conflict. In addition, this completely explains why any other intelligent life would be hesitant in making first contact.

[Indefinite]

So I'm supposed to pull the conclusion that they're studying us so they can hit us precisely?

What I'm trying to say that until they prove to be hostile, it's dumb to pose them as a threat.
Then again, if they do prove to be hostile, it may be too late.

Anyway, that's something I have to sign under.
Also, that's basically what I'm trying to express.

[Dyndrilliac]

Of course it's dumb to assume their hostile, but people are dumb, and any intelligent life that would risk exposing themselves to ignorant, war-loving, primitive beasts must do so in the knowledge that we won't be around long enough to cause them harm (either because they plan to wait until we've destroyed ourselves, or they are hostile and plan to make a pre-emptive strike). Odds are, any peaceful alien life will not make contact until we aren't such a threat to them.

[Indefinite]

So peaceful and wise civilizations will be just passing by and all we can count on are savage races that just might want to crush us into the ground. A very 'optimistic' scenario.

I'm being Captain Obvious right now.

[exzapel]

Maybe mushrooms are alien lifeforms, some say that spores can survive space travel, that and mushrooms are so ****in' weird.

[hypn]

... teenage remote healer ... Adam Dreamhealer ... healed him of kidney cancer...

Would be this guy: Adam – DreamHealer (IntentionHeals) - "Special Note; Adam is currently full time in university and therefore will not be doing any individual treatments" - too busy to heal the sick, real nice.

See also: Skeptico: Adam the Healer and an hour long ABC News Primetime report thing on him: ABC News Primetime Special: Adam the Healer?. His real/full name is supposedly Adam McLeod.

Sorry for getting a bit off topic ;) As for aliens being hostile, it's what... a 50/50 chance - either they are, or they aren't.

[disco]

Pretty intense.