2. LGM

3. Background One of the first things astronomers get asked is “Are UFO’s Real” The simple truth is we don’t know if any other life forms exist but they probably don’t buzz cornfields in south Texas to pick up people for the purpose of probing and releasing them. Because of this scientists jokingly refer to all alien life forms as LGM or little green men.

4. UFO’s Of course anything I tell you is a cover up organized by the government. After all we all know a UFO crashed at Roswell New Mexico in 1947 After that the secret shadow government that really runs the US formed a group called MAJESTIC 7 with the express purpose of subverting that or any other UFO sighting to protect the aliens giving them technology. Since then the shadow government (which also controls Canada) has subverted all attempts to prove the existence of UFO’s

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6. Roswell Probably the most famous supposed UFO sighting is at Roswell New Mexico A UFO supposedly crashed there in a farmers field People believe that the space ship is stored in the super secret Area 51 There are still yearly UFO festivals there.

7. Other UFO Sightings There are a multitude of other UFO sightings reported over the years. From Edwards air field in Texas to Vancouver island there have been UFO sightings for decades. Some even believe scriptures in the Bible might even represent alien visits.

8. The Truth is Out There But what is the real truth. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object Almost all UFO sightings reported turn out to be everyday things like weather balloons or weather phenomenon A few are hoaxes and a very few are never completely explained. However there has never been a verified sighting of anything. Also as for the Roswell thing Area 51 is restricted because it is a test area for prototype military aircraft.

9. Problems With UFO’s Einstein's Theory of Relativity NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Why? According to relativity nothing can move faster then the speed of light so it would take thousands of years to get here NORAD maintains a radar net over north america since the 1960s to notice incoming aircraft or missiles. Why would aliens travel all the way here and not make contact?

10. So Are We Alone? Just because nothing has visited us does not mean that there is no other life in the universe. The Drake Equation is a method of determining how many intelligent races exist in the universe. Since we do not know most of the values in the equation it is more a thought exercise then a mathematical tool.

11. N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL : N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy? Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion. fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems? Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%. ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how many planets are capable of sustaining life? Answer: Current estimates range from 1 to 5. fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve? Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%. fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves Question: On the planets where life does evolve, what percentage evolves intelligent life? Answer: Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%. fc is the fraction of fi that communicate Question: What percentage of intelligent races have the means and the desire to communicate? Answer: 10% to 20% fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live Question: For each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive? Answer: This is the toughest of the questions. If we take Earth as an example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. So far we've been communicating with radio waves for less than 100 years. How long will our civilization survive? Will we destroy ourselves in a few years like some predict or will we overcome our problems and survive for millennia? If we were destroyed tomorrow the answer to this question would be 1/100,000,000th. If we survive for 10,000 years the answer will be 1/1,000,000th. When all of these variables are multiplied together when come up with: N, the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.

12. How Can We Find Them? Since we can’t travel to them we need another way to find them. What we do is listen for radio signals from other planets to see if any contain intelligent messages. We listen with radio telescopes like the one at Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico

13. Why Radio? We have been sending radio signals out into space for almost 70 years. I say radio but it is also TV, Cell Phones, etc…. Any intelligent race would probably figure out how to communicate using radio waves. So we scan the sky for signals that are not random but are not completely regular. Most scientists think that we would get something like prime numbers that would be the same for anyone developing math. The SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project is currently scanning the sky for signals from space.

14. Seti@home To analyze all this data would require a giant expensive computer. To save money SETI uses many small computers when their users are not using them.

15. Are We Sending Messages? Earth has never sent out a dedicated message saying “We are Here” into space. People are not sure if we should. However our TV signals have been strong enough since the 1930’s to escape into space. So the first messages we sent are almost 70 light years from Earth. Unfortunately the first broadcast strong enough was of Hitler opening the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hopefully they stay tuned for a few years to see how that turned out before judging humanity.

16. What Would They Look Like? Honestly we don’t know. We have never seen life anywhere else so we don’t’ know how many forms it can take. It might even look like us. Or it might be something completely different.

17. Why Do We Care? Not Alone or only Life in The Universe. Technology Completely change thoughts of ourselves, our history, even our religions.