When E.T. phoned home, where did he call?

very interesting article. I personally believe that life, considering the most basic definition as being self sufficiently achieving electrochemically induced electromagnetic radiance, is to "be alive", I believe that we will find this type of condition almost anywhere we look, including where these parameters described in the article are present, and most probably even where they aren't. The constantly prodding pressure of creative potential that exists in our universe (big bang filled up the big balloon so it's all under pressure), flows into the substrates and valence levels of all material physics and will "live" in everything to some degree. The degree that elmr is present should be measurable locally so we should fly a few robotic ships to these various systems ASAP and take readings, if it takes 41 years (for light to get there, our ship would be much slower than that), then 41 years for the signal to get back, that's possibly hundreds of years. Between now and then we can learn to know what to do with the data. Maybe even have a way to get there that is faster than light as it were.

If along the way we surpass our abilities now, no problem. If not at least we will eventually start getting data that could prove very useful to the present day scientists, and if things continue along as they have for the past few hundred years, we may really need good news by then.

E.T. could have called home to the location of where it was standing at the time of the call. I think it is very shortsighted to believe that the universe works in a linear existence and 3 dimensions. The Bible makes reference to a "veil" that separates two worlds, heaven and earth. Then of course there is also there is also hell so there is three worlds that could possibly exist in the same place. The bible also refers to another race of beings aside from the creation of ours and that is the angelic race. Are we alone? Not if you believe in the bible. This is an easy example that many can relate to but take it a few steps further beyond the spec we occupy. What if non linear, multidimensional forms of existence and reality existed not only on earth but in all the universe? What if there was thriving cities on a water planet known as mars? mars of another dimension that occupies the the same space as the mars we know today. If this is the case then we are traveling, exploring, communicating and monitoring incorrectly. It was not very long ago that we thought the world was flat. I think we still think that way about much of our reality. Plus, E.T. would have probably texted home so it would not run the risk of having it's call dropped!

I believe our best bet to finding alien life is to start here at home. Intelligent aliens on other planets may look more like animal life on Earth than humans. Nasa should start first by studying and trying to translate certain animal languages such as birds, prairie dogs, dolphins and whales. After we solve some these communication barriers with Earth species, we will have a better understanding possibly of how intelligent alien species other than ours may communicate. Example, If you live or spend time on a water world, an alien would not need to develop radio or television. They would communicate more like whales and dolphins do. I believe we've started with the wrong premise which is aliens are like us. That's why we're not hearing any signals from radio or television. The aliens have no need for them. We need to start looking for signs of life by detecting methane and other life substances in exoplanet atmospheres.

Actually, folks, when ET phones home, she calls her parents in Hitchcock, TX! :) Just couldn't resist, since that is my favorite nickname.

ET phoned home to intelligent beings to come retrieve him. From the mere fact that these beings were obviously intelligent forms of life, one can immediately deduce that he could not have placed a call to anyone on Earth!

Alpha Centauri...hands down that's his home.

Not to be picky, but the movie's tag line says:

"He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home."

IF and I stress IF we ever had an ET here, would we let him call home? What would he say? Would he say, "Hey these nuts shot me down, send in our army to wipe them out. This is a nice place for a vacation and the locals taste great." Or would he say "There are some really nice people here who need our help, lets make friends with them." If I remember the movie right, his people simply picked him up and left.

Yes I do believe that in the vastness of God's creation there are other intelligent life forms. I think it has yet to be proved where they are, how many there are, and IF they are coming here.

The topic makes for interesting debate. My take, lots of life, very very few intelligent life forms, even fewer that survive to travel space and NONE of them coming here.

They are invisible or I should say they are visible but we can't see them because of our human body or eyeballs were not born to see all objects in this universe. Their movements are lightning fast and our eyes are unable to catch their images. They have the natural resources on their planet to create all different kinds of hi-technology to travel the astrospace. The end of the universe is also the beginning of the universe. When ET phones home, (s)he calls back to the Earth but it's the future of our Earth. Because we will be all evolved into ETs many many light years later after we married to aliens from other planets. The reason why ET's skins all wrinkled because in the future we no longer need water to survive and the water will not be exist anymore. On the other hand, fossil M&Ms will be the primary source of foods. That's why our fingers and arms will have to be longer to reach the underground M&M foods. Alright, hope that makes your day fun.

They are invisible or I should say they are visible but we can't see them because of our human body or eyeballs were not born to see all objects in this universe. Their movements are lightning fast and our eyes are unable to catch their images. They have the natural resources on their planet to create all different kinds of hi-technology to travel the astrospace. The end of the universe is also the beginning of the universe. When ET phones home, (s)he calls back to the Earth but it's the future of our Earth. Because we will be all evolved into ETs many many light years later after we married to aliens from other planets. The reason why ET's skins all wrinkled because in the future we no longer need water to survive and the water will not be exist anymore. On the other hand, fossil M&Ms will be the primary source of foods. That's why our fingers and arms will have to be longer to reach the underground M&M foods. Alright, hope that makes your day fun.

They are invisible or I should say they are visible but we can't see them because of our human body or eyeballs were not born to see all objects in this universe. Their movements are lightning fast and our eyes are unable to catch their images. They have the natural resources on their planet to create all different kinds of hi-technology to travel the astrospace. The end of the universe is also the beginning of the universe. When ET phones home, (s)he calls back to the Earth but it's the future of our Earth. Because we will be all evolved into ETs many many light years later after we married to aliens from other planets. The reason why ET's skins all wrinkled because in the future we no longer need water to survive and the water will not be exist anymore. On the other hand, fossil M&Ms will be the primary source of foods. That's why our fingers and arms will have to be longer to reach the underground M&M foods. Alright, hope that makes your day interesting.

E.T. is actually supposed to be from the Star Wars galaxy. This is due to the fact that you see some members of his species in the Galactic Senate in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

See h t t p : / / y o u t u b e .com/watch?v=pU_Q8ouCCfE
(I had to type it like that or it wouldn't show.)

Other life forms may well exist within another dimension of time within our own solar system, perhaps our own planet. UFO's dont make contact for the specific reason of the time parallax delima which would alter the time space continuium i.e. (Back to the Future). There's no doubt that statistically somewhere in the vast Universe "Life" of some form likely exists, however the vast distances required for interaction with remote "intelligent" life forms is unlikely within the geologic time frame of life here on Earth. The 600 million years or so of recorded life here on planet earth is but a blink of time relative to the vastness of the Universe and the distances involved between star systems.

Any parallel universe will work........

The pervasive notion that water is a prerequisite for life is woefully anthropocentric and completely absurd. This need to define our life and our intelligence and, more to the point, the path that led us here as a necessarily primary model is a fundamental arrogance born of the fear and ego endemic to this the earliest stage of our species' adolescence. It is a shamefully juvenile sort of reasoning and counterproductive at best. Allowing oneself to essentially arbitrarily prescribe the parameters of reality from a position of relative ignorance is the surest method I can think of (short of outright propaganda) to obscure its true nature. The time has come that we ask ourselves about our true motivations. Are we out to discover and learn, or to make the universe in our eyes as we would have it be?

It was, I believe, The Twilight Zone that posed the possibility that intelligent life was just on the other side...... of our own Sun. A planet mirroring Earths orbit in every way, and not detectable due to the Sun and the time it would take to travel to the other side. It's a possibility so simple, that it always makes me smile.

A neighboring galaxy. Thats probably what the writers were shooting for with the line "He is 3 million light years from home". The typical distance between galaxies happens to be 3 million light years. So I would say somewhere in either the Andromeda Galaxy or more likely the Triangulum Galaxy, since it happens to be 3 million light years away.

Coroscant.

When ET called home, where did he call? It certainly wasn't Mars or anywhere in this solar system. Tests of conflicting theories of origins will be conducted by future Mars robotic explorers. The Phoenix mission is scheduled to land a telerobot in the polar region of Mars later this month. This mission will look for a 'habitable zone' in the martian soil where microbial life could exist, and also study the geological history of water on Mars. All life contains proteins made up from chains of amino acids. Future Mars probes will continue the search for life with far more sophisticated equipment. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), planned for launch by NASA in late 2009, is set to collect martian soil samples and rock cores and analyze them for organic compounds and environmental conditions that could have supported microbial life. The European Space Agency is planning the launch of the ExoMars rover set for launch in 2013. The rover is to grind Martian soil to a powder and test it in a suite of instruments including the Urey Organic Oxidant Detector. (Dr. Urey is known for the famous 1953 experiment with Dr. Stanley Miller in which an electrical discharge in a test tube containing methane, hydrogen, ammonia and water was shown to produce amino acids.) Amino acids are found in inanimate nature including on meteorites. Non-biological processes create a 50/50 mix of left- and right-handed versions of the molecules. Living things, however, use left-handed amino acids (almost) exclusively. The Urey Detector will therefore be looking for the ratio between left- and right-handed amino acid molecules in the search for life on Mars. This is to be followed by NASA's Mars Astrobiology Field Laboratory planned for 2016, that will also search for life. We know from the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers and other spacecraft orbiting Mars that liquid water covered large portions of the martian surface some two billion years ago or so. Still no seashells. Why not? Is there or was there once life on Mars? No -- there is no life and never has been life on that planet or anywhere else (e.g., Europa, Titan, etc.) in our solar system. The emergence of life takes more than water. Then where did our fictional ET call? He called home within our galaxy. The universe is teeming with life and with intelligent life – but no star system which harbors intelligent life is travelable within one person's lifetime. So how do these extraterrestrial astronauts who manage the trip get here anyway (and they do -- see, e.g., the Mexican Air Force footage of the encounter with extraterrestrial spacecraft in March 2004)? And how do these authentic ET's communicate with their home when radio waves take far too many years to travel even to the closest habitable world? It is possible -- there may be other ways to communicate.

Your "8 likeliest places" --
1) Mars -- no
2) Europa (Jupiter moon) -- no
3) Enceladus -- no
4) Alpha Centauri star system -- no (no life in this star system)
5) Epsilon Eridani (10.5 light years) -- no 6) Epsilon Indi A (11.8 light years) -- no. [Good guess, Carnegie Institution, but keep on trying.]
7) Gliese 581c or 581d (20.5 light years) -- no
8) 55 Cancri (41 light years) -- no. But now you're in the ball park. Forget about the gas giants, as none of the gas giants harbor life. Look for rocky planets with oxygen that should be visible in spectral analyses. The truth is out there.

There is no such person as E.T.

He called the most alien place on earth: the White House.

The question is did he call collect and did he use AT&T Friends & Family Plan?

Wow. So this is why MSNBC bought Newsvine?

According to Stephen Spielberg he's from "The Green Planet". Case closed.