Gregory Benford 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.

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.

There's so much interest and curiosity about alien life, interstellar travel. It's always in the news.

Within the scientific community, there is healthy skepticism. And the question is, 'How do you ever get to a meaningful null result? How long and how hard do SETI scientists have to look for extraterrestrial intelligence and find nothing before they say, 'There is nothing. We are alone.'

We can never prove that we're alone in the universe. But the Allen Telescope Array could prove that we're not.

I think there's all kinds of life out there, including intelligent life, but the reason we haven't found each other is because of vast distances.

No company is hiring anyone to search for messages from aliens. Most people don't seem to think there's much benefit to it. The lack of interest is, I think, because most people don't realize what even a simple detection would really mean.

Life outside of Earth is probably going to be really hard to find.

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.

Among the radio astronomers of SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - it's only sort-of a joke that the true hallmark of intelligent life is the creation of radio astronomy.

For many centuries, humans have speculated that there might be planetary systems around other stars and that there could be extraterrestrial life there and even intelligent being. However, those were simply speculations, and now we have evidence for the first part of these ideas.

The total number of people that do a job that has the same description as mine in the entire world is fewer than 10. There's a lot of effort looking for life in space - that's a lot of what NASA does, but they're not necessarily looking for the kind of life that can hold up its side of a conversation.

I believe that there may be intelligent life on other planets.

We're all interested in life outside of Earth. We all have a fascination with what's out there because we don't really know.

It's just too egotistical to think that we are the only lifeform in the universe.

I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves.

I think space exploration is very important. I think there is very intelligent life on Mars. I believe that Martians are spying on us from the bottom of the ocean.

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.

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 one way to discover about aliens is to tune your radio telescope and listen to the signals.

It's presumptuous for us to think we are the only beings in the cosmos.

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.

While NASA talks about 'Are we alone?' as a number one question, they are putting zero money into searching for intelligent life. There's a big disconnect there.

The discovery of any kind of life [in Space] at all would be a tremendous watershed moment in biology, as well as all of science.

SETI is probably the most important quest of our time , and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.