The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life (also called ‘alien’ life), for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.
The scientific investigation began shortly after the advent of radio in the early 1900s, and focused international efforts have been going on since the 1980s. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced a well-funded effort called the Breakthrough Initiatives.
Find below a collection of most famous quotes about aliens and extraterrestrial life said by the greatest figures of all humankind.
“In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.”
-Carl Sagan, American Astronomer
“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things within that enormous immensity.”
– Werner von Braun
“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. The beauty of physics has nothing to do with human beings. Somewhere, in some other planet orbiting some very distant star, maybe another galaxy, there could well be entities that are at least as intelligent as we are, and are interested in science. It is not impossible. I think there probably are lots. Very likely none is close enough to interact with us, but they could be out there very easily. And suppose they have very different sensory apparatus and so on, they have seven tentacles, and they have fourteen little funny-looking compound eyes, and a brain shaped like a pretzel, would they really have different laws? Lots of people would believe that, and I think it is utter balony. They the three principles in nature are emergent properties. Life can emerge from physics and chemistry plus a lot of accidents. The human mind can arise from neurobiology and a lot of accidents.”
– Murray Gell-Mann
“If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
-Carl Sagan
“I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
-Bill Watterson
“A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth.”
-Christopher Wren
“In very different ways, the possibility that the universe is teeming with life, and the opposite possibility that we are totally alone, are equally exciting. Either way, the urge to know more about the universe seems to me irresistible, and I cannot imagine that anybody of truly poetic sensibility could disagree.”
-Richard Dawkins
“It is possible that the future of human civilization depends on the receipt of interstellar messages.”
-Carl Sagan
“In our time this search for extraterrestrial life will eventually change our laws, our religions, our philosophies, our arts, our recreations, as well as our sciences. Space, the mirror, waits for life to come look for itself there.“
-Ray Bradbury
“It is unnatural in a large field to have only one shaft of wheat, and in the infinite Universe only one living world. “
-Metrodorus of Chios
“The key to SETI is to guess the type of communication that an alien society would use. The best guesses so far have been that they would use radio waves, and that they would choose a frequency based on ‘universal’ knowledge-for instance, the 1420 MHz hydrogen frequency. But these are assumptions formulated by the human brain. Who knows what sort of logic a superadvanced nonhuman life form might use? Just 150 years ago, an eyeblink in history, radio waves themselves were inconceivable, and we were thinking of lighting fires to signal the Martians. “It is unnatural in a large field to have only one shaft of wheat, and in the infinite Universe only one living world. “
-David E. Fisher
“Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
-Arthur C. Clarke
“To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field sown with millet, only one grain will grow.”
-Metrodorus of Chios, 4th century BCE.
“The earth is not alone, it is not like a single apple on a tree; there are many apples on the tree, and there are many trees in the orchard.”
-John Burroughs, The Breadth of Life, 1915.
“A single message from space will show that it is possible to live through technological adolescence… It is possible that the future of human civilization depends on the receipt of interstellar messages.”
-Carl Sagan, ‘The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.’
Smithsonian magazine, May 1978.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.(Ellen Ripley)
-Alan Dean Foster
The most important thing in the face is the eyes, and if you can make the eyes talk, you’re halfway there.
-Ash (Ian Holm)
Paralyzes Him, Puts Him In A Coma.
-Brett
“A word can change a mind, a sentence can change a life and a book can change the world.”
-Thomas Kane
“If we want to grow as teachers – we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives – risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.”
-Parker
It’s is pretty clear from facebook we can enjoy entertaining each other as much as we enjoy surfing the experts expression.
-Joe Lambert
I admire its purity. A survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality
-Ash
The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility
-Ash
The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?!
-Parket to Ash
One has the responsibility to oneself, to the writer, director and the people who put up the money, to put out the best of what one has experienced and understood about the human condition as it relates to the role one has been hired to portray.
-Tom Skeritt (Captain Dallas)
This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.
-Ellen Ripley
Do what you do only for God’s sake, start for God’s sake, work for God’s sake, and act within the sphere of God’s good approval.
-Said Nursi
“A covenant made with God should be regarded not as restrictive but as protective.”
-Russell M. Nelson
“I feel self doubt whether I am doing something difficult or easy, but I have always been a late bloomer.”
-Sigourney Weaver
“There’s a little thing on your shoulder called intuition and it whispers in your ear. Everyone has that, there is a voice telling you to do something. Most people ignore it – but you must listen to it. I do it every day, all day.”
-Director Ridley Scott
“Prometheus is reaching out for the stars with an empty grin on his face.”
-Arthur Koestler
“I’m afraid that I’m either going to have to write myself something or direct something if I’m going to get somewhere.”
-Yaphet Kotto
“New discoveries in science and their flow of new inventions will continue to create a thousand new frontier for those who still would adventure.”
-Herbert Hoover
“I was feeling real good and real manly. Until a real cowboy walked by and told me I had my hat on backwards. So much for my career as a cowboy.”
-Michael Biehn(Dwayne Hicks)
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
-Robert Frost
“The best defense is a good offense.”
-Jack Dempsey
“I think in most sports sometimes you need a little luck for the ball or calls to roll your way.”
-Kim Smith
“Nothing quite brings out the zest for life in a person like the thought of their impending death.”
-Jhonen Vasquez
“He just put his hand through the bulkhead, exactly as she’d done, and squeezed my shoulder. He has very strong fingers. And he kept his hand there the whole way home, even when he was reading the map and giving me headings. So I am not flying alone now after all.”
-Elizabeth Wein
“It’s another glorious day in the corps. A day on the farm. Every meal’s banquet, Every paycheck a fortune, Every formation’s a parade! I love the corps.”
-Sgt. Apone
“Joining vigilant was a one-way door, an express elevator with only one button: down.”
-Craig schaefer
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”
-Marshall Mcluhan
“I think this land may bee profitable to those that will adventure it.”
-Henry Hudson
Lieutenant Gorman directing them to lay down suppressing fire with flame units and fall back by squads is the last thing they need.
Burke, I’m not sure which species is the worst.
A number of tests must be carried out. Are you serious, Ash? Ellen Ripley: Acid was leaking from this item. When it’s no longer alive, who knows what it’ll do? Ash: Isn’t it safe to assume it’s not a zombie?
Alien was a groundbreaking space thriller that terrified spectators with a threat never before seen in such a tangible way. One of the best science fiction films ever made.
A sorts of tests must be conducted.
That was enough to make science officer Ash excited about the prospect of conducting more tests on the extraterrestrial interloper in order to uncover its secrets.
That is the only option! We’ll work in groups of two. We’ll cut off every bulkhead and every vent one by one until we’ve cornered it, and then we’ll blow it the fuck out into space. Is that something you can live with?
Third officer reporting on the commercial vessel Nostromo’s last report. Kane, Lambert, Parker, Brett, Ash, and Captain Dallas are among the crew members that have died. Both the cargo and the ship were destroyed.
I’m not going to draw any straws. I’m for killing that goddamn thing right now.
During the late 1970s, Ridley Scott’s iconic film Alien reinvented what sci-fi horror pictures were all about. With the exception of a few immediate classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the decade had been damaged by overly hallucinogenic and trippy films that opted for artistic expression rather than a terrifying idea.
Before the three of them depart for the escape shuttle, Ash says this well-known quote with a grin on his face, and Ripley attacks him with a flamethrower.
Actually, I’m compiling, but I’ve validated that he’s got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. Has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions.
Really deep thoughts on such an important matter. Carl Sagan’s is my favorite one.
cheers!