Spiders on Jupiter? Scientists uncover secret origins of arachnid-like 'demon' lurking on gas giant's moon.

 

NASA's Galileo spacecraft first photographed a bizarre spider-like structure lurking within a large crater on Europa during a close flyby of the moon on March 29, 1998. Image courtesy of ASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Joel Kontinen

A new study reveals the likely origin of a mysterious spider-like pattern first spotted on Jupiter's moon Europa in 1998. The finding could have implications for a NASA spacecraft en route to the frozen world.

In March 1998, NASA's Galileo spacecraft — which studied Jupiter and its major moons between 1995 and 2003 — made a close flyby of Europa, a frozen ocean moon often considered one of the most likely places for extraterrestrial life to exist in the solar system. During this flyby, the probe mapped out a roughly 13.7-mile-wide (22 kilometers) impact structure, dubbed Manannán Crater, on the moon's icsy surface, and found something strange lurking within it.

Some other experts say that it was created by eruptions from hydrothermal vents on the floor of Europa's subsurface ocean.

According to new study, in The Planetary Science Journal, researchers proposed an alternative explanation: that the Jovian spider formed in a similar way to how dark dendritic patterns on Earth, known as "lake stars," typically do.

With this in mind, the researchers used a similar technique to partially recreate the Manannán Crater's mysterious shape in the lab.

"Lake stars are really beautiful, and they are pretty common on snow or slush-covered frozen lakes and ponds," study lead-author Laura Mc Keown, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, said in a statement. "It is wonderful to think that they may give us a glimpse into processes occurring on Europa and maybe even other icy ocean worlds in our solar system."

However, rather than water rising through tiny holes, as happens when lake stars form on Earth, Damhán Alla was likely birthed by an asteroid impact — which created a small crack in Europa's icy shell that enabled salty water to seep upward and paint the spider-like pattern on the surface. (This asteroid impact likely happened after the Manannán Crater was already formed.)

The researchers also noted similarities between Damhán Alla and the infamous "spiders on Mars," which are dusty deposits on the Martian surface that look like swarming spiders when viewed from above. These fake arachnids, known as araneiform terrain, form when submerged carbon dioxide ice sublimates, or turns directly into a gas. Mc Keown's team has previously recreated these features on Earth too.

The similarities in shape between Damhán Alla and the spiders on Mars are due to how "fluid flows through porous surfaces," Mc Keown said. In theory, similar spider features could also form on other frozen ocean worlds, such as Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's other moon Ganymede and the dwarf planet Ceres, which resides in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.

So, this means that some extraterrestrial life may abound on the moon, but life only comes when a creator give life to them.

Source: 

Harry Baker 2025 Spiders on Jupiter? Scientists uncover secret origins of arachnid-like 'demon' lurking on gas giant's moon. | Live Science 17 December

Planets More Hospitable To Life Than Earth May Already Have Been Discovered

 

Image: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech.

Joel Kontinen

 

  

Astronomers have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, so far. even the planet that most resembled the Earth, is not habitable,

For example, planet KELT-9b is so hot that its atmosphere is constantly melting. The darkest known planet, TrES-2b, has an atmospheric temperature of 980 degrees Celsius or1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other end of the inhospitable spectrum is GJ 433 d, whose discoverers described it as the coldest Neptune-like planet ever discovered. 

However, according to evolutionists, at least two dozen planets outside the solar system might be better for life than  Earth,

These planets are just a little older, a little wetter, a little warmer and a little larger than Earth is, researchers wrote Sept. 18 in the journal Astrobiology. All of these factors could mean that some of these planets are the best places to search for extraterrestrial life. 

"We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours," University of Washington astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch said .

 A better version of Earth might also have a slightly larger moon, or a moon slightly closer to the planet, which would help stabilize its orbit and prevent life-disrupting wobbles, the researchers wrote. 

 The researchers came up with a set of parameters to use to meet all these criteria. According to them,  the perfect superhabitable planet would be in orbit around a K dwarf star, which is a relatively small star star that’s slightly cooler than our sun (which is considered a yellow dwarf); about 5 billion to 8 billion years old; about 10% larger than Earth; about 9 F (5 C) warmer than Earth, on average; moist with an atmosphere that is 25% to 30% oxygen, with scattered land and water. The perfect planet would also have plate tectonics or a similar geological process in order to recycle minerals and nutrients through the crust and to create diverse habitats and topography, and would have a moon between 1% and 10% of its size orbiting it at a moderate distance.

It's not possible to evaluate distant exoplanets on all these criteria. There is no way to calculate an exoplanet's landmass area, for example, much less how it's distributed. 

So, this research did not come up with “more hospitable than Earth” criteria. Even if a super Earth was found, life has to be planted there – by God.

Source:

Pappas, Stephanie, 2020. Planets more hospitable to life than Earth may already have been discovered. Live Science  10 0ctober.

New Story About 'Oumuamua interstellar Visitor does not involve aliens

Image courtesy of YU Jingchuan from Beijing Planetarium. Fair use dialogue.



Joel Kontinen


‘Oumuamua is not from our solar system. What is it? Where does it come from?

Last fall, there were no easy answers to this.

Astronomers believe this rogue increased Its speed slightly as it passed the sun and acted like a comet. It comes from either the red dwarf star HIP 3757, the sun-like HD 292249, or a couple of other stars that are missing a name.

Now a Sino-American study says it was probably a part of the larger
body of planets.

Source:

Wall, Mike, 2020. new origin story of 'Oumuamua interstellar visitor does not involve aliens Space. Com. 13 April.

First Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Probably Isn't an Alien Spacecraft, Scientists Conclude

,

Image courtesy of ESO/M Kornmesser, nagualdesign, CC BY-SA 4.0.




Joel Kontinen

In 2o18, Harvard's Avi Loeb suggested that 'Oumuamua was an alien spacecraft.

It was first thought to be a comet. However, 'Oumuamua “is cigar-shaped, measuring about 200 metres in length (650 feet) and 34 metres wide (114 feet), and rotates once every seven hours. It was also found to be accelerating instead of slowing down—a discovery that was difficult to explain.”

Now, “a study published in Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers has concluded 'Oumuamua has a ‘purely natural origin,’ and that a host of natural phenomena can explain it.”

Sometimes, scientists view of the universe might be wrong. More and more space signals have turn to be false.

Almost all signals caused by interstellar signals have been false.


Source:

Osborne, Hannah. 2019. First Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Probably Isn't an Alien Spacecraft, Scientists Conclude. Newsweek (1 July).

Fast Radio Bursts: Where Do They Come From?

Image courtesy of CSIRO, CC BY 3.0.



Joel Kontinen

We have observed the skies for so long, but now at least some astronomers have come up with a system by recording events.

The previous suggestion were all too wind:

”Suggestions ranged from colliding neutron stars to black holes turning themselves inside out to lasers from alien spacecraft. Until a few months ago, we had more ideas than detections.”

Astronomers aren't sure what could be giving off these signals, said another newsletter, from an Australian source.

Now, however, the astronomers are off on an adventure, to discover what these fast radio bursts entail.

All attempts to listen to alien sounds have turned out to be false. For instance, an interstellar cloud destroys belief in aliens and all subsequent attempts have been futile.

New Scientist has said that aliens are more likely than God.

But only if we a priori rule out the God who in the beginning created everything.

Life cannot create itself.


Source:

Cossins, Daniel, 2019, Fast radio bursts: We're finally decoding messages from deep space . New Scientist (8 May).

We’ve found 4000 exoplanets but (almost) zero are right for life

Kepler-452b is almost the only exoplanet that might to harbour life – and that is a maybe. Image courtesy of NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle.




Joel Kontinen

“We have found more than 4000 planets orbiting distant stars, but it turns out that probably none of them have the right conditions for life to evolve, making Earth even more special than we thought.”

“We normally consider a planet capable of hosting life if its surface is the right temperature for liquid water. This depends on how close it orbits its star – too far and any water will freeze, but too close and it will boil.”

But there are other ways of looking at exoplanets. for instance, complex life might require a very narrow habitable zone.

And then hot exoplanets challenge planet-formation theories, and our nearest exoplanet might be too hot.

Some planets are impossible they break secular planet forming theories.

The majority of exoplanetes don’t harbour life, for instance red dwarfs don’t do it. And the Sun and our big moon make our planet a welcome home.

And, then, the goldilocks zone is getting smaller.

One think that most near Earth investors do not find, is a lack of phoshorus (P), that is one of our planet’s general chemical elements. Without it we would not have RNA, DNA and even even not ATP, and thus we would not have life.

It is also a problem of seekers of extraterrestrial life.

Source:

Crane, Leah, 2019. We’ve found 4000 exoplanets but almost zero are right for life. New Scientist (22 March).

'Oumuamua could be an Extraterrestrial Solar Sail

Kuva: ESO/M Kornmesser, nagualdesign, CC BY-SA 4.0.



Joel Kontinen


'Oumuamua could be an interstellar spacecrafts, some scientists are saying. Now, another team of them of is saying that it could be an extraterrestrial solar sail.

The study, done by Shmuel Bialy and Prof. Abraham Loeb, throws caution to the winds:

"Loeb told Universe Today, 'Oumuamua could be an active piece of alien technology that came to explore our solar system, the same way we hope to explore Alpha Centauri using Starshot and similar technologies’ ".

All indications of space life have been failures. This one could always be phantasy, not fact.

Source:

Williams, Matt. 2018. Could 'Oumuamua be an extraterrestrial solar sail? phys.org. (1 November)

Physicist Alexander Berezin Believes in Aliens and Fears We Might Kill Them Off

Image courtesy of Pikawil, CC BY-SA 2.0.




Joel Kontinen

Looking at the night sky can inspire a variety of ideas. 3,000 years ago, King David saw the glory of God displayed in the starry sky:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1, NIV).

In contrast, physicist Enrico Fermi had a very different idea in mind. Roughly 70 years ago he came up with the question "Where is everybody?"

Known as the Fermi paradox, his puzzle has remained unsolved.

Some ET enthusiasts believe that there are billions of extraterrestrial worlds that might be home to intelligent life.

“Now, Alexander Berezin, a theoretical physicist at the National Research University of Electronic Technology in Russia, has proposed a new answer to Fermi's paradox — but he doesn't think you're going to like it. Because, if Berezin's hypothesis is correct, it could mean a future for humanity that's ‘even worse than extinction’,” Live Science writes.

Quoting a paper Berezin wrote in the preprint journal arxiv.org, "What if the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion?"

Berezin thinks that in our aspiration to reach other worlds, we might unwittingly do a lot of damage, perhaps even annihilating all extraterrestrial worlds.

However, there is a big but in this scenario. We have no evidence that extraterrestrials even exist. They might well be a figment of Darwinian imagination combined with a big dose of science fiction.

All signals thought to hail from intelligent aliens have been false ones, including the famous wow signal and the sounds coming from the assumed megastructure near Tabby’s star that raised hopes in the SETI community.

What is more, aliens have never bothered to answer our messages, but this has not put an end to the hope that one fine day they might do so.

Source:

Specktor, Brandon. 2018. Aliens Are Real, But Humans Will Probably Kill Them All, New Paper Says Live Science (1 June).

Disbelief in God Leads to Bizarre Beliefs

G. K. Chesterton, by Ernest Herbert Mills, 1909. Public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Why are bizarre beliefs, such as the multiverse and a universe teeming with alien civilisations, rampant in our day?

British author G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) might have the answer:

“When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”

This quote is widely attributed to Chesterton, although it obviously does not appear verbatim in his works; it was first recorded as 'The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything' in Emile Cammaerts’ book The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G.K. Chesterton (London: Methuen & Co., 1937].

Chesterton was especially critical of atheism and Darwinian evolution.

Bizarre beliefs tend to either ignore or try to explain away cosmic fine tuning that is evident everywhere, from the micro to the macro.

Source:

Knowles, Elizabeth. (ed). 2004. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

50-Year Old UFO Parts Turn Up in the London Science Museum

Image courtesy of Phylyp, CC BY-SA 4.0.



Joel Kontinen

A small (45-cm or 18-inch) metal saucer made headlines in the U.K. press in 1957 after it was found in Silpho Moor near Scarborough in Yorkshire.

It was cut into pieces and examined – and then lost for 50 years. It recently turned up in the London Science Museum.

This saucer-like object has a bizarre new age connection. The Yorkshire Post reported on 8 February 1957 that its copper bottom was covered in hieroglyphics.

According to Live Science,

“The Silpho Moor saucer also contained a small book, the Post reported, covered in more hieroglyphics, which a Scarborough café owner claimed to decipher as a warning from an alien named Ullo about atomic war: ‘You will improve or disappear.’

Metallurgists and other experts who studied the Silpho Moor object determined that it had no special properties and had never been to outer space, the Post reported, a journey that leaves telltale signatures in metal.”

UFOs and aliens tend to make headlines every now and then.

UFOs seem to have an evolution connection as well.

If life evolved here, it should also have evolved elsewhere, they seem to believe.

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell believes in UFOs, and the SETI folks are searching for alien life everywhere.

Some evolutionists speculate what aliens might look like , others are concerned with how to communicate with them, and some, like professor Stephen Hawking, are afraid of them.

Unfortunately (for them, that is), all alleged signals have been false alarms.

In other words, there is no proof of extraterrestrial life or evolution anywhere.


Source:

Letzter, Rafi. 2018. Bits of Famous, Lost (and Fake) 'Flying Saucer' Turn Up in British Science Museum. Live Science (16 February).

Scientific American’s Unscientific Musings on Alien Life

Alien spaceship? Image courtesy of the Ministry of Communications of the USSR. Design: Andrey Sokolov. Scanned by Dmitry Ivanov.





Joel Kontinen

October 30, 1938 brought panic to the streets of New York. Orson Welles had adapted H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel The War of the Worlds for radio, and many listeners thought they were hearing a live broadcast on a Martian invasion.

At the time, people believed that Mars was inhabited by intelligent beings who had constructed a massive canal network that kept the red planet habitable.

Many people, including Stephen Hawking, are still fearful of big bad aliens.

Scientific American speculates on how we might react to the discovery of alien life. In an article awash with evolutionary assumptions, author Yasemin Saplakoglu quotes some true believers, including SETI’s Seth Shostak:

“Perhaps it might make sense for our brains—tuned by millions of years of evolution to be wary of predators—to freak out over immensely powerful alien beings arriving on our cosmic doorstep from parts unknown.”

Saplakoglu also discusses the views of neuroscientist Cornelius Gross:

“Gross thinks we would probably first try to understand it, a reaction that can be interpreted as yet another ancient, evolutionarily sculpted defense system aimed at gaining control of a novel situation.”

There seems to be a connection between believing in UFOs and in evolution. Darwinians detest the possibility that Earth could be a unique place, a privileged planet.

There is no evidence of any kind of alien life, despite the headlines suggesting otherwise. All reports have been false alarms. (See, for instance here, here and here.)

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2018. Is Humanity Ready for the Discovery of Alien Life? Scientific American (16 February).

More Trappist-1 Speculations, But Water and a Source of Heat Can’t Create Life

An artist’s impression of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. Image courtesy of ESO/N. Bartmann/ spaceengine.org, CC BY 4.0.



Joel Kontinen

Discovered last year, Trappist-1 is a cool dwarf star some 39 light years from us. Its seven planets are most probably bombarded with intense solar radiation and they are very likely tidally locked like Mercury in our solar system, with the same side always facing its sun.

This has not put an end to naturalistic speculations on whether at least some of the planets might be habitable.

The Guardian reports that Dr Amy Barr of the Planetary Science Institute and colleagues “built mathematical models of the seven planets and their interiors, and found that six of the seven worlds probably have water, as liquid or ice, with a global ocean possible on one. The team then modeled the planets’ orbits to determine a likely surface temperature on the worlds.”

They believe that the planets’ eccentric orbits stretch and squeeze them, creating heat and a climate that could (in theory) sustain life.

However, dwarf stars tend to be unstable and bombard their planets with intense solar flares, making them unsuitable for life.

Source:

Yuhas, Alan. 2018. Two planets in unusual star system are very likely habitable, scientists say.The Guardian (23 January).

Former Pentagon UFO Investigator Does Not Rule Out Alien Life

Image courtesy of Phylyp, CC BY-SA 4.0.




Joel Kontinen

"My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone," said Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, in a recent interview with CNN.

He went on to say that some unidentified flying objects might not necessarily hail from outer space, but some might.

Ufos seem to have an evolution connection.

If life evolved here, it should have also evolved elsewhere, they seem to believe.

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell believes in ufos, and the SETI folks are searching for alien life everywhere.

Some evolutionists speculate what aliens might look like, others are concerned with how to communicate with them, and some, like professor Stephen Hawking, are afraid of them.

Unfortunately (for them, that is), all alleged signals have been false alarms.

In other words, there is no proof of extraterrestrial life or evolution anywhere.

Source:

Howell, Elizabeth. 2017. We May Not Be Alone, Former Pentagon UFO Investigator Says. Space.com (20 December).

Setback for Alien Life Hopefuls: No Signs of Water on Mars

Where’s the water? Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona




Joel Kontinen

Just over a century ago, it was customary to see signs of an alien civilisation on the red planet. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) thought he saw canals on Mars.

Many others, including Percival Lowell (1855–1916), adopted this view.

Some people still think that there’s at least an inkling of truth in this.

Furthermore, Many people think that the red planet was once blue, sloshing with water.

Time magazine, for instance, has claimed that the Sun helped murder Mars.

And researchers have continued to speculate that liquid water might still be sloshing down the slopes of the red planet.

Now, however, Colin Dundas of the US Geological Survey and colleagues analysed satellite images.

Their research suggests that the assumed signs of running water on Mars dunes are probably just dry sand, as an article in New Scientist put it.

Source:

McKinnon, Mika. 2017. Signs of running water on Mars dunes are probably just dry sand. New Scientist (22 November).

New Exoplanet Kepler-186f Is Life Friendly?

Kepler-186f, Images courtesy of NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech.






Joel Kontinen

Kepler-186f, a star orbiting a red dwarf star some 500 light years from us is the latest exoplanet that might just about have liquid water. And, in a Darwinian scenario, water almost always means that there might be life.

The planet is comfortably within the star’s habitable zone.

What is often overlooked is that Venus and Mars also orbit the Sun in the habitable zone, so any declaration of the certainty of alien life might be a bit premature, especially as red dwarfs – unlike our sun – are known to be somewhat unstable.

Writing in Answers magazine, astronomer Danny Faulkner states:

“Red and orange stars produce dangerous magnetic activity. Since these stars are cooler than the sun, habitable planets must orbit more closely – and face greater harm. Another potential problem is insufficient radiation to support photosynthesis.”

New Scientist likewise acknowledges some of the difficulties:

“Red dwarf stars are highly active, producing frequent flares and strong winds of radiation. And as Kepler-186f is slightly larger than Earth, if it has a similar internal structure, it would support a stronger magnetic field. That would spark interactions between any potential atmosphere and stellar radiation that could create frequent and spectacular auroras visible from large regions of the planet.”

However, spectacular auroras are not what life would first and foremost need. Many astronomers know that in contrast to Earth, exoplanets tend to be more or less weird, and some will admit that contrary to evolutionary expectations, alien life might not even exist.

Among the trillions of stars, there’s no place like home.

Sources:

Faulkner, Danny. 2014. Not just another star. Answers 9 (1): 66–67.

Grossman, Lisa. 2014, Smallest life-friendly exoplanet may be lit by auroras. New Scientist (17 April).

Harvard Astrophysicist: Alien Life Might Not Exist

Many exoplanets are hot Jupiters. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle.


Joel Kontinen

For a long time many astronomers have assumed that the universe is teeming with Earth-like planets that must harbour life.

Not all experts share this view, however. Recently, Howard Smith, a senior astrophysicist at Harvard University, said that we might be alone in the cosmos. Although 500 exoplanets have already been discovered, none of them resemble Earth. Smith suggests that Earth is unique.

Exoplanets differ from Earth in many ways. Most are hot super-earths that orbit very close to their star.

Dr. Smith says that many astronomers were thrilled by the discovery of the planet HD10180 as they assumed that it was very much like the Earth. But the more they examined it, the more obvious it became that there are enormous differences. HD10180 orbits its sun at a distance of under two million kilometres and is scorching hot (like many other exoplanets).

No wonder Dr. Smith is sceptical of finding life in outer space.

The Bible does not say anything about extraterrestrial life. In contrast, those who believe in Darwinian evolution assume that the universe is teeming with life.

Source:

Blake, Heidi. 2011. Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets. The Telegraph (23 January).

NASA did not find little green men – but it found a bacterium that likes arsenic

Lake Mono, California. Image courtesy of Henry Lydecker, Creative Commons.





Joel Kontinen

Recently, NASA announced that it would disclose an important discovery that had to do with extraterrestrial life. Some already dreamt of little green men but none were found.

Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA geomicrobiologist, and her colleagues found a bizarre microbe in a lake in California. It thrives on arsenic instead of phosphorus.

Although NASA recommends updating biology textbooks and some even speculate that we might discover different forms of life on Saturn’s moon Titan, the significance of the find might perhaps be seen in proper perspective if we remember that phosphorus and arsenic both belong to the same main group, i.e. the nitrogen group, in the periodic table.

The discovery nonetheless shows that life on earth takes on surprising forms. It does not say anything about the origin of life.

One can always speculate. Paul Davies, who was a member of the research group reporting on the find in Science, has previously suggested that there might be weird forms of life on our planet.

Naturalistic theories of the origin of life still cannot explain how and why living beings came about from non-life. Life can only come from life. In other words, genetic information always requires a sender and intelligent life requires an intelligent Sender.

Sources:

Gronstal, Aaron. 2010. Get Your Biology Textbook...and an Eraser! Astrobiology (2 December).

Wolfe-Simon, Felisa & al. 2010. A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus. Science 330: 6009.

Big Green Men in Great Britain?

Recently, the British press reported on UFOs and crop circles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

We often assume that green men are little but a British police sergeant who was driving past a field near Silbury Hill in Wiltshire said he saw aliens who were at least 6 ft or 183 cm tall and had blond hair. He thinks they were looking at a fresh crop circle.

He stopped his car to have a closer look. As he approached the aliens, they hurried away. The sergeant said that humans could not possibly have run so fast.

He also reported having seen a UFO. The local police do not want to comment on the incident.

The incident occurred at the beginning of July but it took the press several months to learn about it. The name of the sergeant was not disclosed.

This was not the first time crop circles were associated with UFOs and aliens. Often, however, there is little or no evidence for this kind of connection.

In addition to discussing UFOs, Gary Bates also takes up the issue of crop circles in his book Alien Intrusion. He says that they are hoaxes. In 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, two British gentlemen in their sixties, acknowledged that they had drawn crop circles for fifteen years. They said that they had made 250 circles, some of which were sophisticated geometric patterns.

Bower and Chorley made advertisements for Weetabix and Mitsubishi, for instance, and they soon got imitators. Some innovators wrote the text We are not alone in a field.

According to Bates, this gave the game away. Little green men would have written, “You are not alone”.

Many people have read about strange encounters with supposed aliens. Is it any wonder, then, that they might interpret crop circles and strangers in the night who are looking at them as evidence for extraterrestrial life?

It seems that for many individuals who are more familiar with the Star Trek series and the Planet of the Apes than the writings of Moses, UFOs have become a surrogate religion.

UFOs also have a significant evolution connection. If we believe that life on Earth is the result of random naturalistic processes, what will keep us from believing that the universe is teeming with little green men who are eager to contact us?

However, if we believe that our planet is unique and that God has especially created life here, we will take a more skeptical approach to UFOs, crop circles and aliens.

Sources:

Bates, Gary. 2004. Alien Intrusion. Green Forest: Master Books.

Jamieson, Alastair. 2009. UFO alert: police officer sees aliens at crop circle. Daily Telegraph. (20 October) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/6394256/UFO-alert-police-officer-sees-aliens-at-crop-circle.html

New Scientist: Let Us Tell Our Worries to ET, perhaps he will listen

According to New Scientist, the messages sent on Pioneer 10 were too boring. Image courtesy of NASA.




Joel Kontinen

New Scientist suggests that ETs have not replied to our messages because they have been too humdrum. For instance, the messages on board NASA’s Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft have lacked features that could have made extraterrestrials give us a call.

Proponents of evolution have searched for etxraterrestrial life for many decades. They have invested millions of dollars into the SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project in the hope of getting evidence for the existence of little green men.

Friends of SETI believe that since life has evolved on Earth randomly it must also have evolved on many other planets.

For supporters of SETI, creation is a dirty word.

Now Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute in Mountain View California writes in New Scientist that we have sent messages that have been too brief and too boring. ETs, who obviously enjoy the fruits of a civilisation that is vastly superior to ours, would want more realistic descriptions of the denizens of our planet, for instance news about our weaknesses and problems.

Wall Street Journal might just be too boring. Perhaps we ought to send them an issue of Time or Newsweek. Of course, there are some British tabloids that might interest them, at least from a sociological point of view.


Source:

Vakoch, Douglas. 2009. Why we shouldn't hide our problems from ET. New Scientist.com. (18 April)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16981-why-we-shouldnt-hide-our-problems-from-et.html?full=true&print=true