"There are two kinds of encounters with aliens you can have," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute. "Either you pick up a signal, or you pick them up on the corner. But I think it's safe to say that in both instances they will be synthetic. They will be artificial constructions.""Within another 100 years we will presumably be making thinking machines ourselves," he said. And because we're almost certainly the new kids on the block when it comes to interstellar communication and travel, any civilization that makes contact with us would likely be much farther along.
Such a civilization could create swarms of robo-broadcasters to ping the surrounding habitable star systems, or "one giant machine that's sitting somewhere just belching out the local weather report," Shostak said. If the aliens felt the need to send out actual emissaries, an intelligent machine would be best suited for survival over the time scales required for interstellar flight.
Astronomer Jeffrey Bennett, author of the newly published book "Beyond UFOs," agreed with Shostak's assessment. In his book, Bennett speculates that there might be 100,000 Earthlike planets in our galaxy where intelligent life could have arisen over the past 5 billion years. If you average that out, that comes to one galactic civilization for every 50,000 years. His conclusion? The typical alien civilization will be at least 50,000 years older than ours.
"I find myself personally hesitant to imagine anything that far advanced," Bennett told me. "No one imagined the Internet 50 years ago, and we're trying to imagine what things would be like after 50,000 years of technological development? I just don't think we could make really good guesses, other than to say it will be incredible."
---Alan Boyle
Science editor
msnbc.com
Fri., April. 4, 2008
Alien Sex by Nigel Watson
Source: Fortean TimesMarch 23, 1999
Almost from the start, sex and UFOs were inseparable bedfellows. The adventure of 23-year-old Antonio Villas Boas on 16 October 1957 in Brazil is probably the most famous case of interstellar intercourse.
Antonio was ploughing a field on the family farm when the engine of his tractor cut out; at the same time, an object with purple lights descended from the sky. Humanoids in spacesuits emerged from the object and took him into their craft, subjecting him to what seemed like a medical examination. They stripped him, spread a strange liquid over him and took a sample of his blood. He was left alone in a room for what seemed a long time, until a beautiful, fair-haired woman arrived.
She was naked and Antonio was instantly attracted to her. Without speaking or kissing, they had sex, during which she growled like a dog. Despite his strange circumstances or perhaps because the alien liquid had Viagra-like properties Antonio was soon ready for a second helping. Interviewed later, he said: "Before leaving she turned to me, pointed to her belly, and smilingly pointed to the sky."
Before letting him go, his captors gave Antonio a guided tour of the spaceship. Antonio went on to become a successful lawyer and still stood by his story over 30 years later.
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