Former government 'UFO expert' to speak in Garston (From Watford Observer)

http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=C6e8rPlWs
wM

Check out this vid on the same theme.

I wonder how he will arrive? On a flying saucer, perhaps, from outer space or on a humble train to Watford Junction?

Nick Pope has made an exceptionally good living out of promoting and spouting nonsense for the benefit of the gullible.

Let's be clear about this, shall we? There is no such thing as the paranormal! There is no such thing as the Unknown! There are no UFOs or flying saucers!

However, so long as there are gullible fools around to listen, people like Nick Pope will thrive on mumbo jumbo and claptrap.

Roy,

you say this definitively and with such clarity but as a mathematician the odds of life being supported elsewhere in this vast universe are stacked against you ... quite why they would want to be seen in Watford im not sure although I am sure I have seen a few alien looking types come turf out time at the top of town.

Now the math

The statitistics

1) The number of galaxies. An estimated 50 billion galaxies are visible with modern telescopes and the total number in the universe must surely exceed this number by a huge factor, but we will be conservative and simply double it. That's 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.

2) The number of stars in an average galaxy. As many as hundreds of billions in each galaxy.

Lets call it just 100 billion.

That's 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy.

3)The number of stars in the universe.

So the total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

That's 10,000,000,000,000,0
00,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. Properly known as 10 sextillion. And that's a very conservative estimate.

4) The number of stars that have planetary systems. The original extra-solar system planet hunting technology dictated that a star needed to be to close to us for a planet to be detected, usually by the stars 'wobble'. Better technology that allows us to measure the dimming of a stars brightness when a planet crosses its disk has now revolutionised planet hunting and new planets are being discovered at an ever increasing rate. So far (August 2003) around 100 have been discovered so we have very little data to work on for this estimate. Even so, most cosmologists believe that planetary formation around a star is quite common place. For the sake of argument let us say it's not and rate it at only one in a million and only one planet in each system, as we want a conservative estimate, not an exaggerated one. That calculation results in:

10,000,000,000,000,0
00 planets in the universe. Ten million, billion, as a conservative estimate.

5) The number planets capable of supporting life. Let's assume that this is very rare among planets and rate it at only one in a million. Simple division results in:

10,000,000,000 planets in the universe capable of producing life. Ten billion!

I in this particular matter agree with Roy that UFO's don't exist but I disagree with him on the paranormal front.

The thing is with Humanist is that unless it can be proven with science they say it can't exist, but that is to ignore a massive source of evidence i.e. human witnessess and so on. Science can not prove everything and to think so is to have a very narrow focus.

I know I sound contradictory as there have been many sightings of UFO's but I think they can be explained in other ways whilst the paranormal (ghost sightings - although I don't agree they are the souls of dead people) are a slightly matter.

I seem to remember when the US confirmed the existence of the stealth fighter F117 after about 10 years of existence that it explained hundreds of 'ufo' sightings around the air base and area they had flown from/in (they had only flown at night and rarely with lights on and if I remember correctly had also had a number of accidents).

Even the recent event where a wind turbine was damaged and there was all that speculation came down to something to do with vibrations when turning making one of the blades sheer off and what not.

As to all the maths, well there may be a point there too!

I cannot help but be impressed with makkag's mathematics, which is a subject on which I would never claim to be anything other than very average.

However, the one thought that does bother me is this: if, indeed the universe is teeming with extra-terrestrial life, somewhere amongst those 10 billion planets capable of supporting life might there not be a race so far advanced of us in technology and lifestyle that we might appear to them as insects appear to us? Might we not be millions of light years behind them, in which case could we not be inviting doom and disaster in even thinking about trying to contact beings from another world?

Best to hide and hope not to be noticed!

I'm sure if beings from other worlds exist and wished us harm it would have happened by now so I doubt we have anything to worry about there (apart from the fact they probably don't exist)