[net.space] Alone

dcs (10/22/82)

I hope I am not opening a pandora's box, but here goes.

Does anyone think that maybe another civilization has visited us in the
past, maybe even stayed on?  Is there any credible evidence for this?

					Doug Smith
					BTL-HO houxh!dcs
					201-949-3569

tjr (10/28/82)

re: "does anyone have evidence that any extraterrestrials have ever
     visited earth?"

     I remember a method to investigate the universe (but cannot remember
     who said it):

     Build a self-replicating (Von Neumann) machine, send it out to
     some galaxie, have it replicate itself "N" times, investigate
     its surroundings, and then communicate them back to HOME BASE.
     This will cover the (known) universe in a finite time, and supply
     A LOT of information about it.

     I could never help thinking that WE are part of such a Von Neumann
     machine, about half-way along in the program.
     (Fossils? - the program has been executing here on earth for
     hundreds of millions of years; fossils are the remnants of
     earlier steps in a "bootstrapping" process.)

     So the question becomes: "Are WE extraterrestrials?"

				Tom Roberts
				ihnet!tjr