Quick Chat 015: Do you believe in aliens?

In this episode, Kevin and Jack ask an important question about the universe: are aliens real? You have to listen to find out what their answers are.

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Quick Chat Episode 15: Do you believe in aliens?

 

Full Transcripts, Key Words, and Discussion Questions

 

Kevin: Welcome to an A to Z English Quick Chat where Jack and I are gonna surprise each other with a topic for the day and just see where the conversation goes. Check our site for a study guide with vocabulary notes, discussion questions and more as well as links to our Whatsapp or Facebook pages. And you can join in the conversation there. So Jack what do you want to talk about today?

Jack: All right, well I have a good topic for us uh Kevin. I want to ask you a question here: Do you believe in aliens?

Kevin: Do I believe in aliens? And when you say let's define this. I think first, what do you mean aliens? Do you mean like bacteria living on another planet or like some creatures that are as smart as us traveling through space and visiting Earth…

Jack: Yeah, I'm talking about uh life forms that are much smarter than we are um intel intelligent life forms that are advanced so uh advanced life outside yeah in in another universe or oh sorry in in the universe but in another galaxy um you know.

Kevin: So maybe in our galaxy too. Our galaxy could be an argument right? Quite huge um yeah I mean I yes just to just to break it down I think definitely. I think for me I'm a big sci-fi fan. I know you are as well and although I've seen a lot of other science documentaries that talk about this from. Did you ever see the movie contact?

Jack: Yes, I love the movie Contact.

Kevin: Yeah, it's yeah, it's a really cool one and I think it was in the movie Contact where they looked up at the skies and they said you know is there life out there and they said more or less like if there's not, it's a waste of space.,

Jack: True yeah.

Kevin: That's a good, there's good, there's so many stars and galaxies and they're discovering more and more planets every day that it seems like how could there not be. I mean there's trillions and trillions and trillions of stars out there. Like it seems uh amazing to think that we're the only one in all of that.

Jack: I agree and it's infinite. It goes on, it seems to go on forever and ever like there's, no there's no stop to the expanse of space and so if are you telling me that in all of that area that massive amount of just space, there's nothing, there's not, one of those stars is a sun of another uh you know uh planetary system that there are no planets that can uh sustain life and uh you know it might be there might be some that had like you said before that are just small organisms and it's not advanced life but if they have you know just simple life forms, then there must be planets out there that have advanced life forms are bound to happen.

Kevin: If yeah and I think that simple life will have to exist and if simple life exists and eventually it will become not simple life like we are. The difficult or more interesting question is like do you think do you think aliens have ever you know so many people think that aliens have come to planet Earth and like abducted people and things do you think that that's happened do you think we've been contacted by aliens?

Jack: Yeah, this is a very popular conspiracy theory in the United States uh the Roswell uh story right?

Kevin: Area 51.

Jack: Area 51, right, where supposedly an alien spacecraft crash landed uh in that area. Now is that in your, is that in New Mexico? Is that that's next to Arizona right? Yeah Roswell New Mexico okay and so there's also a big a large military installation around there right? I think there's, okay and so supposedly within this military base they have tried to reverse engineer a spaceship that is so far beyond our technological capabilities and so things that we are able to build. Our spacecraft are so much slower and so much less sophisticated than what this machine is and I think although the alien uh craft that crashed in Roswell doesn't work that was able to teach us some very sophisticated and advanced uh technology that we never even thought about using and so some people believe that's what some people believe right and so I’m probably I'm not gonna say I don't believe it and I'm not gonna say I do believe it. I am on the fence as we say in English. I'm on the fence. What about you? where are you?

Kevin: I mean yeah, I can't say yes or no for sure on that one. I do think it's I'd say it's unlikely. I don't think aliens have actually come to Earth because if they have, I don't think it would could have remained a secret in the same way like if it happened, people would know about it. This isn't like a superhero movie where aliens come down and somehow no one knows about it for you know hundreds of years. like we would probably know and I do think alien life exists. Intelligent life probably exists somewhere in the universe but the universe is again so big that the odds of them finding us or us finding them are like finding a needle in a haystack. It's tiny that it's a you know 0.0001 chance of finding something because there's just so much out there you know they could point their telescopes like we are we're pointing our telescopes up into the galaxy and we find nothing because there's so much to look for and we're and we're constantly beaming messages out into space to see if we can get some kind of response or some kind of you know that signal will reach some intelligent life and it doesn't seem like we've ever gotten any definitive evidence of it. It's just there's been some strange things that have happened but there hasn't been that contact with an alien life form that would confirm, at least nothing that we know.

Jack: Yeah.

Kevin: I’m not sure if you've ever seen it. I’ll have to try and find the map for you. There's um like you've been talking about, we've been beaming things out into space for 100, so years now with all of our TV and radio, but even all of that compared to the size of our galaxy let alone the universe, it's been going out for 150 years. It's a tiny amount like it's not gone very far right and so if there are aliens out there, unless they're very close to us which is possible, but who knows unless they're very close to us, they haven't noticed it yet you know. It's impossible for them to have seen it because it just doesn't go far enough right, so I think that there's aliens out there. I don't think they've been to Earth yet, and I don't know if they ever will be because it's just so big. it's like yeah trying to find one seashell, one specific seashell in all of the ocean.

Jack: Yeah, you know, like I saw this show when I was five. Where did it go, the thing is, the thing I hope for is like just given enough time and enough effort that eventually something will happen where there will be some sort of intersection um or the other the alien species will be so advanced that they'll be able to travel at speeds that we cannot even imagine. Right now, um, you know I mean we've only been you know flight has only been possible for a hundred years. In America, I mean wasn't it the Wright Brothers who invented the airplane only 100 years ago.

Kevin: Just over.

Jack: Yeah yeah or just over 100 years ago, so the fact that we now have um you know little airplanes like Cessnas that can fly all over the place. We have giant jumbo jets that can transport hundreds of people.

Kevin: To the moon.

Jack: Yeah, then we can go to the moon. Um, it's really, it's amazing to think about what we've accomplished in just a hundred years so. If I fast forward two or three hundred years um, it makes me wonder if we're not going to, it just seems inevitable to me, like I just think that there will be we will at some point we find out that there is intelligent life but like you said, the ability for us to meet is so difficult because the distances are just, that's so incredible, but it's ridiculous yeah, the fact that space seems to go on infinitely makes me think there just have to be other places that are habitable for either human beings or other species of life form and so that's yeah

Kevin: There's two interesting thoughts about that that could take us a long time, but let's not do too long. One you said other species, other types of life, that's a very interesting one. Like for what we know, all life needs water for example right? But it's possible that there's some other crazy life that we can't even imagine that doesn't even need water out there, so maybe we're looking in the wrong place. But just to finish up, I’ve got one final question that to take this assuming that there is intelligent you know super advanced aliens out there Jack and assuming that eventually we will contact them do you think they'll be friendly?

 

Jack: You know that's a good question. Again, I’m on the fence about this one. Uh I'm not sure if they look at what we're doing to our planet, the way we destroy our planet and the way we treat our planet so poorly. I wonder if they you know will look at us and say why are you not taking care of your planet um right? You know or the other side of that issue is maybe they did the same thing to their planet and they want to take our planet and use it for themselves, and so we become a lower species on the uh totem pole uh and so we become kind of working for them. So, it's kind of scary. I don't know what you know in the movies the aliens usually are the bad guys you know. They're coming to take our resources and they're coming to uh you know strip our planet of its of its natural resources and stuff like that and uh I prefer the other uh version where aliens just want to communicate with us and understand us and it's more like a they're just seeking information about the planetary systems and they come across Earth and they see human beings and they appreciate us for what we are you know um so we can we can only hope that they will be friendly because if they're more advanced than us, then if they're not friendly, we're in trouble.

Kevin: Exactly, exactly. That's right, that's right all right well, yeah, I hope that they're friendly and let's see what happens. At least we do have some friendly people that we talk to in our chat room every day so have we got any listener mail.

Jack: Um, yes, we want to talk to you today. We have some listener mail and I would like to talk about uh phobias. S, this one is from, let me see here, Layla. And Layla was talking about her phobias and she has a phobia of escalators which is interesting um and she says as soon as she, yeah, she says as soon as she thinks about escalators, her heart starts beating so fast

 

And she says uh fortunately she has outgrown this phobia. Or at least she has tried to, I think. She's still, there's still a little bit of the phobia there, and uh she says in Dubai there are a number uh a big number of malls and they all have escalators and uh so she uses the stairs to go to the next floor the first floor the second floor and so uh or sometimes she says her sister-in-law will help her by holding her hands so that's the uh that's uh Layla's phobia. Yeah, so thanks for thank you for sharing that Layla.

Kevin: Cool, all right well thanks everybody for listening, and we'll come back and talk to you more about aliens next time. Remember to check our webpage and our Whatsapp group for you to join in the discussion all right.

Jack: Bye, bye.

 

 

Key Words:

 

Universe: all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos

 

Bacteria: Microscopic single-celled organisms

 

Expanse: the distance to which something expands or can be expanded.

 

Sustain: support physically

 

Intelligent life: beings that can learn and understand things

 

Finding a needle in a haystack: The act of trying to find something very small in a very large area

 

Infinitely: without limits; forever

 

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you believe in aliens?

2. Do you think aliens have visited Earth?

3. Do you want aliens to exist, or would you prefer humans to be alone in the universe?

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