Crop+Circles+Workshop+-+Session+2

=Session 2: Extraterrestrial Life= Source: [|www.hngn.com] || Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk || || Source:[|www.strangerdimensions.com] ||
 * Session 1**
 * Session 3**
 * Session 4**
 * Session 5**
 * Briefcase Files**
 * ====After sensing last week that our investigators were itching to discuss the issue of extraterrestrial life, we decided to dedicate a session to this topic, as extraterrestrial communication is often presented as one of the likely causes of crop circles.====
 * ====However, before launching into this discussion, we took a little time to revisit Erin’s presentation at our first session. Provided with a list of the questions which had been asked of Erin, the students were requested to jot down what they recollected as being her answers. They took this exercise away to complete. We will revisit their answers at a later session, in relation to the reliability of eye-witness reports.====
 * ====There was some discussion of the reliability of Erin’s account, and we considered what sort of evidence the students might find convincing. There was a strong feeling that photographs would not constitute reliable evidence, because of the potential for tampering with photographic images. Some students felt that only their own first-hand experience would constitute proof, but others raised the possibility that they might be being subjected to a hoax. Do we need to experience everything in person before we will believe it? Does experiencing something make it more ‘true’?====
 * [[image:galaxy width="295" height="295"]]

We started our ET discussion with a quote which linked back to comments made in the first session:

 * ====Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.====
 * ====This prompted the questions: “Why would it have been made without any other living thing?” and “What’s the point [of the immense universe] if it’s only us?” which led to the next question: “Why do you believe there is a point or a plan?”====
 * ====We discussed what would be considered sufficient proof of alien life: “An alien.” “Something living.” This in turn led us into a discussion of how you would define the ‘life’ component of extraterrestrial life, and we discussed the possibility of a form of ‘life’ unlike any of our current understandings or definitions of this. There was a brief discussion of the types of evidence scientists might consider to be proof of life, and what might constitute ‘life’ from a scientific viewpoint.====
 * ====There was a suggestion that we should be more ready to believe a UFO skeptic who claims to have an ET encounter, rather than someone who is already convinced, and is likely to interpret any experience in line with this preconception. However, some students felt that, given human nature, our witness could still be lying or mistaken, and their credibility might depend more on the inherent nature of the individual. A difficult thing to judge or quantify...====
 * ====A lot of theories about crop circles being caused by aliens depend upon believing eyewitness accounts about lights, UFOs and timeframes, so witness reliability is a huge issue here. The students felt that eyewitness accounts are the strongest evidence that the crop circles in question are not the result of hoaxes. They suggested that extremely elaborate and sophisticated hoaxes might still be involved, but wondered why anyone would go to such lengths to perpetrate a hoax. “To give the world a mystery?” “To produce their art?”====
 * ====There was a discussion about the popular image of aliens (short, with bulbous heads) and the source of this image, which was generally agreed to be fiction/movies. We linked this to the Arecibo ‘message’ reading, which we will cover in more depth next week.====
 * ====We moved into a discussion of what type of message we could send to an alien culture, which could possibly have any meaning for them, and why crop circles might be selected as a means of communication with human beings.====