Paul Davies Quotes

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here. Well, it can't hide forever - one day we will overhear it.

Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.

Another random thing I do is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. And you may be familiar with the movie 'Contact,' which sort of popularized that. It turns out there are real people who go out and search for extraterrestrials in a very scientific way.

People quite often think of the question 'Are we alone in the universe?' in terms of other civilizations out there: life forms that have reached at least our level of technological development.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

The book that blew the doors off the house, grabbing me with its breathtakingly deep and irresistible view of the universe and our relation to it, was 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' by I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan. I recall an enchanting all-nighter completing a college homework assignment to read the first chapter.

Galactic plankton is undoubtedly out there, but it's statistically highly likely there's also another intelligent civilisation out there somewhere. Unfortunately, the distances and time differences are so great, communication might remain impossible.

It's naive to think we're the only living beings in this universe.

SETI is a mirror, a mirror that can show ourselves from an extraordinary perspective and can help to trivialize the differences among us.

The best proof that there's intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't come here.

We may be living at that moment, on the cusp, when we go from being a species that feels a kind of loneliness in the cosmos to actually one sometime in the not too distant future being able to confirm the existence of other intelligent life.

The question is being asked, 'Are we alone?' And though we now focus on that question we need to think beyond that to what if we're not alone? Then what becomes the next imperative question?

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

I think obviously there is some kind of life form somewhere else. Whether it looks like the creature in 'Alien Autopsy,' I'm not sure.

People presume we've been somehow monitoring the entire sky at all frequencies, all the time, but we haven't yet been able to do any of those things. The fact is, all the SETI efforts to date have only closely examined a couple thousand nearby stars, and we're only just now learning which of those might have promising planets.

Radio astronomers are aware in the back of their minds that if there are other civilizations out there in space, it might be the radio astronomers who first pick up the signal.

Aliens are definitely real.

Part of the point of SETI has always been a search for answers about our own cosmic potential and destiny. If 'they' are out there, it means that there may be hope for us.

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

It's hard enougth to find intelligent life right here in Washington!

I think it's fantastically narcissistic to believe that in the entire universe, with all of the planetary systems that we've already discovered and the countless others that are out there, that we are the only forms of life. Now, the real question is not are there other forms of life out there, but are there other intelligent forms of life out there right now. Because the universe is not only really big but it's also really long. It's been around for a long time; it's going to be around for a long time.

I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.

For all we know, the aliens have already done this and unwittingly concluded that there was no intelligent life on Earth. They would now be looking elsewhere. A more humbling possibility would be if aliens had become aware of the technologically proficient species that now inhabits Earth, yet they had drawn the same conclusion.

and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere … and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.

I don't see why there is no intelligent alien life in the universe.