I'm one of those Christians who don't believe in the alleged aliens. Here's a recent scientific observation:
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Source: Johns Hopkins University
Glimpse at Early Universe Reveals Surprisingly Mature Galaxies
Observations challenge standing view of how and when galaxies formed
A rare glimpse back in time into the universe's early evolution has revealed something startling: mature, fully formed galaxies where scientists expected to discover little more than infants.
"Up until now, we assumed that galaxies were just beginning to form between 8 and 11 billion years ago, but what we found suggests that that is not the case," said Karl Glazebrook, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-principal author of a paper in the July 8 issue of Nature. "It seems that an unexpectedly large fraction of stars in big galaxies were already in place early in the universe's formation, and that challenges what we've believed. We thought massive galaxies came much later."
Using the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, Glazebrook and a multinational team of researchers called the Gemini Deep Deep Survey (GDDS) employed a special technique called the "Nod and Shuffle" to peer into what had traditionally been a cosmological blind spot. Called "the Redshift Desert," this era - 8 billion to 11 billion years ago, when the universe was only 3 billion to 6 billion years old - has remained relatively unexplored until now, mainly because of the challenges inherent in collecting data from the faintest galactic light ever to be dissected into the rainbow of colors called a spectrum. In all, the team collected and analyzed spectra from 300 galaxies, making it the most complete sample ever taken from the Redshift Desert.
"This was the most comprehensive survey ever done covering the bulk of the galaxies that represent conditions in the early universe," Glazebrook said. "We expected to find basically zero massive galaxies beyond about 9 billion years ago, because theoretical models predict that massive galaxies form last.
Instead, we found highly developed galaxies that just shouldn't have been there, but are."
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/ho.../earlyuni.html
As another poster, here, noted:
As far as I can see, this supports the 'Rare Earth' hypothesis. If
1. mature galaxies have been around for 11 billion years
2. it takes 4 billion or so years to develop technological societies
3. technological societies are common in the universe.
Then the ol' Fermi Paradox. Where are they? Instead of having 4 billion years to reach us, communicate with us, or send probes to us, they'd have 7 billion years. Even at sub-light speeds, that's deep time.
http://www.arn.org/boards/ubb-get_to...-t-000889.html