Do aliens exist?

Sounds like a strange topic to discuss on a Saturday morning, but bear with me for a while.

I always believed that Aliens don't exist. That the universe might be teaming with life, but we're unlikely to find any such intelligent life in our lifetime or in the next 100 lifetimes. However, a recent discovery over in Peru got me wondering, what if I'm wrong?
This discovery was so shocking to me, that the only thing more shocking was that we've amde 100 such discoveries before I came to know about it. Let me explain.

Drakes Equation

Here's the thing. Scientist have a equation called Drakes equation, which quite understandably was discovered by a man called Frank Drake. The equation states all the known possible variables required for us to actually make contact with alien lifeforms.

1) First of all, there actually needs to be stars in the galaxy for us to find them, since stars support life.

2) Secondly there needs to be planets around those stars that can support life

3) Third, life needs to occur on those planets.


4) Fourth, life needs to evolve till it becomes 'intelligent life'
5) Fifth, that intelligent life then needs to become intelligent enough to actually communicate with the universe (something we only discovered to do in the last 40 years)

6) Sixth, that intelligent life needs to stay around, long enough other intelligent life in the universe to communicate with them. Basically there needs to be two 'intelligent life' planets that fit the first 5 conditions at exactly the same time, in about the same region in the universe and then you'll have CONTACT.


Now, scientist know the number of stars in our galaxy, but the other conditions we know nothing about. Since we never actually encountered other plants with life, let alone intelligent life, we're more or less stumped as to how many planets out there actually have life.
Life on Earth is bloody everywhere

A little closer to home, in our own planet, Life is as abundant as you can get. Life is everywhere in your home, your city, the jungles, the ocean everywhere we can think of.

There are little creatures living at the bottom of the oceans, miles below the surface where the sun rays can't penetrate. They live of the volcanic heat. Now if an asteroid hits the earth, and blocks the sun, these guys wouldn't just survive, they wouldn't even know if the asteroid hit.

There is life in the driest place on earth, the Atacama dessert. This is a dessert so dry, some predict it has never had rainfall in the last 500 years. Even when it does get rainfall, the average for the whole dessert is less than 1 mil per year, but we've found bacteria living in the rocks of the dessert. The rocks trap the moisture in the air from the dessert humidity, which the bacteria live of. Amazing stuff.

Life on earth is everywhere, even in regions we once believed was uninhabitable.

Life in space is another story. Life in space seems rare. Why haven't we seen aliens?If aliens did exist why haven't we met them, and if we haven't met them..why not?

Is absence of proof, the proof of absence?

Not really, and here's why.

The discovery in Peru

Recently a group called "survival" published photos of an "uncontacted tribe". I never really believed that there were entire tribes living in jungles and islands that have never been contacted by humanity. The world wide web may be connecting me and you, but these people haven't seen paved roads, let alone the information super highway. I'm also willing to bet they don't even have facebook accounts, although that may be going a bit too far.

From the survival website, there are about 100 such "uncontacted tribes" on the planet, and the latest policy is that they remain uncontacted.

While we usually like to think highly of our technology and science, contacting such tribes usually end up badly...for them. Living in isolation for the hundreds (if not thousands of years) means that they never fully developed the immunity towards normal diseases we see everyday. Entire villages wiped out by pneumonia and tuberculosis. Diseases we have long been immunized too.

Even without that little disease hiccup, the economics just doesn't work. These tribes live in extremely resource rich environments, of which they have developed a harmonious existence to. We on the other want to pillage it, destroying their very livelihood, and their way of life. We end up assimilating them to 'our' economy and the tribal people often end up at the very bottom of our economic pyramid, ending up becoming prostitutes in most cases.

Just visit uncontactedtribes.org for more information on this fascinating topic.

What does this have to do with Aliens?

The latest policy of the Brazilian, Peruvian and even the Indian government, is to let the isolated tribes remain isolated.

Contacting them usually results in devastating plagues and viruses and economic plunder of their land. Isn't a wonder why they want to remain uncontacted?

Now if you were an Alien race that's mastered space-travel to the point that you can circle the galaxy as quickly as I can circle the block, then the gap between you and the human race is roughly what we're seeing in the jungles of the Amazon of the Andaman Islands.

These people are a good 10 thousands years behind us in terms of technology, and based on many trial-and-error attempts, we've discovered the best way to observe them is from afar. In fact, it's better to not observe them all and just leave them be.

Wouldn't aliens also learn from such experiences? Maybe they are observing us from afar? Maybe they are just hovering in flying saucers and not making contact for our own good, just to prove to some inter-galactic tribunal that we exist and they shouldn't destroy our sun. Sounds strange, sounds implausible, but given what we know if aliens did make contact with us, it wouldn't be to our advantage.

I guess Drake should have added another variable to his equation....whether the alien race that's looking for other intelligent life actually chooses to make contact.

That's my 2 cents. Don't spend it all in one place.