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How 'Alien' Might Aliens Be? (Biologically; Mentally)?

dr wu said:
there have been many 'believers' in aliens over the years who have made similar claims and several have mentioned more than just 4 types.
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Is there somewhere that tabulates all the suggestions?
 
My favourite alien gazetteer is by Joe Nickell;
AlienTimeLine.jpg
 
I was thinking that there weren't that many types lololololol

Allow for sexual dimorphism, age changes etc etc.

There's the big eyed sort and the dwarf/small yeti sort.

I'm interested in the lack of variety - bipedal in almost all cases, face at the top, recognisable "features".... where are the glowing lights? the octopuses? seems to be only one insect?

:)
 
Frideswide said:
I was thinking that there weren't that many types lololololol

Allow for sexual dimorphism, age changes etc etc.

There's the big eyed sort and the dwarf/small yeti sort.

I'm interested in the lack of variety - bipedal in almost all cases, face at the top, recognisable "features".... where are the glowing lights? the octopuses? seems to be only one insect?

:)
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They have all been bipedal as far as I know......but the facial aspects and bodies have been diverse....to some degree, but many exobiologists think that any space faring species might be bipedal (and have grasping appendages)for development and tech reasons to be able to build ships, etc...but then I suppose other types of tech are possible though we haven't come up with different modes of travel yet.
 
There's a great science fiction story in this - we finally visit the alien's home planet and discover that they have a really complex life cycle, going from grey to Bigfoot to robot to blob with chrysalises in between.
 
Frideswide said:
I've only started reading on UFO stuff, thank you for your patience peoples!
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No problem.....
If one looks at that chart above it's clear that all but a couple are bipedal. And it would be very very hard for a non bipedal/ non appendages type alien to create tech and travel off world. So we are left with species that can move around easy and grasp things easily. How could a blob or non -appendage race manipulate things? While the idea that a telekinetic race could build tech is fun to think about, we have no reason to believe that such a thing is even possible.
But what's even more interesting is that most 'aliens' encountered do look quite a bit like us. Is that likely in the evolution of species off world...or is there another reason for this?

sadly this post was on another thread and my reference to a chart above is at the other thread....this is what happens when well meaning people move threads.:)
 
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how about three legs? very stable. If bilateral symmetry is something that can be argued for (although why over other kinds?) then I suggest a modified tail ;)

In short, I am struck by
dr wu said:
But what's even more interesting is that most 'aliens' encountered do look quite a bit like us. Is that likely in the evolution of species off world...or is there another reason for this?
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this. Does our universe's set of physics mean that it it simply the format most likely to become spacefairing?
 
I read a non fiction book by Asimov that claimed this to be the case. Basically in his view for a species to be spacefaring it would need to be human like and from an earth like world.

No thumbs? Can't do shit. Waterworld? No fire and thus no engines. And so on.
 
Also developing advanced technology requires a reasonably complex shared language and the ability to think logically and to understand mathematics.

You can discover fire or which berries taste nice pretty much by accident but you can't accidentally build and pilot a spaceship.

Also you need to belong to a civilisation large and complex enough to have enough free resources to devote to non essential activities such as pure scientific research.

There's no particular reason to favour a bipedal body though it is a fairly efficient design, and being able to manipulate objects effectively does favour having at least two limbs free to grasp things with. Also the body needs to be agile and strong enough to escape or defend itself against predators during the pre-technological stage of its evolution.

And having eyes near the top of the body gives you the greatest possible field of vision.

Still, something with a spherical body with six limbs and protruding eyestalks, for example, should be perfectly capable of developing space travel if it's smart enough to.

And a species advanced enough to gain complete mastery over its own genetic code might reinvent itself into all manner of forms - maybe ultimately part biological and part machine.

So it's a tad suspicious that reported aliens seem quite so conventionally simian in form.
 
Extraterrestrials Might Look Like Us, Says Astrobiologist



“The laws of physics channel living creatures into restricted shapes,” he says. “They narrow the scope of evolution. Alien life may have many similarities to life here.”

A terrestrial analogy: “Go into the ocean,” he says. There, “creatures with slim, streamlined bodies” predominate, and for obvious reasons—“to move fast through the water.”

That has been true for hundreds of millions of years, of course; dolphins, sharks, the ichthyosaurus—mammal, fish, and extinct dinosaur—all have a reasonably comparable appearance.

“Things end up looking the same, even though they are completely different lineages,” says Cockell.
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James_H said:
I read a non fiction book by Asimov that claimed this to be the case. Basically in his view for a species to be spacefaring it would need to be human like and from an earth like world.

No thumbs? Can't do shit. Waterworld? No fire and thus no engines. And so on.
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Yes, it has to be the right combination of physical attributes and the environment.
Dolphins, whales and squid all have large brains and are intelligent. But they'll never build a civilisation.
There are only 2 sensible limb configurations for large creatures - 2 legs or 4. Any more would be (a) pointless and (b) a waste of resources.
The 2-legged configuration allows for a double use for the upper limbs. I think development of arms, hands and large brains happened at around the same time in humans. It's likely that a similar evolutionary principle would work for aliens too.
 
Another thing to consider is morphological freedom. I am quite convinced that we will be able to change our own body plan long before we are able to create interstellar spacecraft. So any alien greeting the arrival of a human spaceship for the first time might find that the inhabitants come in a wide variety of shapes, forms and functions. In all probability, the first interstellar ships we send out will be carrying robots that could have any reasonable shape.
 
It's gonna be so great when the aliens finally arrive and they're so alien we can't even perceive them. All this excellent analysis out the window. I believe that the aliens people report seeing (I believe none of it) are bipedal with digits because without this it would be difficult for folks to have sexual fantasies about them. Really.

Of course there is all that octopus art that shows up on Lovecraft sites.
 
I think we're beginning to sound like one of those planets that the Enterprise orbited when Kirk and Picard weren't allowed to contact them but did it anyway. In many ways - theories about aliens, inability to control our weapons or our leaders, extreme broadcasting.
 
eburacum said:
Another thing to consider is morphological freedom. I am quite convinced that we will be able to change our own body plan long before we are able to create interstellar spacecraft. So any alien greeting the arrival of a human spaceship for the first time might find that the inhabitants come in a wide variety of shapes, forms and functions. In all probability, the first interstellar ships we send out will be carrying robots that could have any reasonable shape.
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Yes...morphological freedom....as long as they can move about in the ship to take care of business and have grasping appendages...otherwise ..no.
;)
 
I like Lovecraft's emphasis on the non-humanoid aspect of his 'Old Ones' race - however I'm not entirely sure they would be very practical.
ElderOneMeasureRt.jpg


Having said that, humanoids don't look very practical at first sight, and they are only really suitable for a very narrow range of planetary environments, and hardly suitable at all for outer space.
 
Doubters take note:

POSSIBILITY OF SILICON-BASED LIFE GROWS
By Charles Q. Choi, Astrobiology Magazine Contributor - Feb 8, 2017

"Science fiction has long imagined alien worlds inhabited by silicon-based life, such as the rock-eating Horta from the original Star Trek series. Now, scientists have for the first time shown that nature can evolve to incorporate silicon into carbon-based molecules, the building blocks of life on Earth. .........

Still, chemists have artificially synthesized molecules comprised of both silicon and carbon. These organo-silicon compounds are found in a wide range of products, including pharmaceuticals, sealants, caulks, adhesives, paints, herbicides, fungicides, and computer and television screens. Now, scientists have discovered a way to coax biology to chemically bond carbon and silicon together..........."

"
In addition to showing that the mutant enzyme could self-generate organo-silicon compounds in a test tube, the scientists also showed that E. coli bacteria, genetically engineered to produce the mutant enzyme within themselves, could also create organo-silicon compounds. This result raises the possibility that microbes somewhere could have naturally evolved the ability to create these molecules.
“In the universe of possibilities that exist for life, we’ve shown that it is a very easy possibility for life as we know it to include silicon in organic molecules,” Arnold said. “And once you can do it somewhere in the Universe, it’s probably being done.”............"

See whole article here:
https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/possibility-silicon-based-life-grows/
 
I suppose alien life could take many forms but it still would be hard for them to be mobile, create tech, and fly a ship without decent appendages and being bipedal/ upright helps mobility also.
Those Shoggoths above would need one hell of a big ship.... ;)

It's interesting that all of the 'aliens' (ufo occupants) encountered by people so far in relation to the ufo enigma seem to be bipedal and look similar to us....curious.
 
Continuing in this theme...I have read many ufo books over the years and I have never heard of an encounter where the 'aliens' looked like Lovecraft type beings. There have been some 'robots', hairy ones, tall ones, short ones, skinny, fat, blue and green ones , and of course little grey ones, but they are all bipedal or humanoid in some manner. In other words not that different from us in the end.
Is that a feature of evolution in the Universe...or something else going on ?
 
In the context of technologically-capable beings, and extrapolating from our own terrestrial example (which may or may not be universally applicable) ...

Technology entails manipulating things. IMHO it's safe to say (barring telekinesis or some equivalent unknown physical manipulation means) that a species capable of devising and using artificial extensions and accessories would have to be equipped with at least two appendages by which the organism could readily grasp, move, carry, and release objects.

These appendages would have to exhibit some measure of strength and dexterity.

Over the years I've tried to convince myself it could be accomplished with one (probably quite complex) appendage, but so far I've been unable to buy into that notion.

From an evolutionary perspective (and again, with nothing to go on besides our single terrestrial example), the development of appendages with strength and finely-controlled movements originates as a means for motility (the organism's ability to move itself).

As such, I strongly suspect appendage development for motility precedes appendage specialization / sophistication to support manipulation.

The most straightforward progression would be one in which the eventual manipulation appendages will in effect be repurposed motility appendages. It's conceivable that other types of appendages (e.g., sensory or sexual extensions) might be candidates for development into manipulation appendages, but these other types (at least here on earth) aren't noted for affording, much less exhibiting, the requisite strength and / or dexterity.

My current thinking is that the total number of motility and manipulation appendages will be no less than N(motility) + 2.

Repurposing (or freeing up) at least one pair of motility appendages over time to serve manipulation duties implies the remaining motility set has to be capable of moving the organism around. Whether the final N(motility) is necessarily or optimally 2 remains an open issue. I firmly believe 2 is the minimum viable N(motility).
 
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dr wu said:
I suppose alien life could take many forms but it still would be hard for them to be mobile, create tech, and fly a ship without decent appendages and being bipedal/ upright helps mobility also.
Those Shoggoths above would need one hell of a big ship.... ;)

It's interesting that all of the 'aliens' (ufo occupants) encountered by people so far in relation to the ufo enigma seem to be bipedal and look similar to us....curious.
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It's probably the optimum body form for creatures to create an advanced civilisation. We know that other creatures can be intelligent (dolphins, whales, squid) but they haven't built a civilisation for a reason.
 
As a teen it amused me to imagine what sort of bizarre forms of alien life might exist.

One idea was a lichen that's basically a single organism spreading across the universe. :p It's concept of technology is radically different since it interacts with things by touch and it's not really that fast. Humans can steal the ships it makes, but usually strip them for parts instead of trying to USE them, because the ships don't have controls that are usable by Humans.... or living spaces, like at all.

I didn't think it through very far because it's a race I made up as a custom race when playing Master of Orion 2.
 
If we assume the Universe is a conscious entity - Then Man is an Alien Paradox.

It is possible that Man's existence is caused by the Universe's desire to see itself
differently, from another perspective.

On the other hand Man's development from the Universe's point of view may be similar to that of a virus - a pathogen.

knowing which scenario is true may be the single most important variable in determining whether the biological life form known as Man, will survive or be eliminated as a parasite.

It is still possible that Man may be able to influence the final outcome
- And being at one with, rather than at odds with the Universe is most important.

- AlienView
 
We asked astronomers: are we alone in the Universe? The answer was surprisingly consistent

Source: theconversation.com
Date: 9 March, 2020

Podcast

“Is there other life in the Universe? I would say: probably,” Daniel Zucker, Associate Professor of astronomy at Macquarie University, tells astrophysics student and The Conversation’s editorial intern Antonio Tarquinio on today’s podcast episode.

“I think that we will discover life outside of Earth in my lifetime. If not that, then in your lifetime,” says his fellow Macquarie University colleague, Professor Orsola De Marco.

And Lee Spitler, a Senior Lecturer and astronomy researcher at the same institution, was similarly optimistic: “I think there’s a high likelihood that we are not alone in the Universe.”

The big question, however, is what that life might look like.

We’re also hearing from Danny C Price, project scientist for the Breakthrough Listen project scanning the southern skies for unusual patterns, on what the search for alien intelligence looks like in real life - and what it’s yielded so far.

https://theconversation.com/we-aske...the-answer-was-surprisingly-consistent-132088
 
There isn't a recent 'alien abduction' thread so....I'll stick this here. But the book is about the greys in general...who they are, what they are, and what they want. I bumped into it years ago but it came across my radar again today ;fascinating reading but out there. It is intriguing but I don't even know if aliens are here let alone that they have this esoteric agenda.

http://www.nigelkerner.com/Books.html?LMCL=taCqtU
 
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