I'm curious on this and I've been thinking about it lately. I believe they exist - after all, our universe is so huge, it'd be a bit presumptuous to say we must be the only life form on it. Portrayals in books/movies seem to fall into three categories: 1) a deadly bacteria, virus or other type of invisible organism, 2) shape-shifters of some kind, or 3) humanoid-shaped "gray alien" creatures. I certaintly wouldn't expect they'd look like us - or just like us except with gray skin, black eyes and larger heads. Soooo..what are your thoughts?
Not to scare you, but they could shape-shift into Humans.. haha they probably wouldn't tho. Cause Earth is a pretty small planet compared to others, and we Humans like going to War often and they probably don't bother with us. There might be an intergalactic empire among-st are closest galaxy that know who we are. It's quite possible.
I agree. ^ The only life forms that scientists have ever discussed is that of the bacterial, one-celled variety (shrimp-sized as the largest predator, one source said), but I think it's preposterous to assume that of all the life out there, it must be boring and barely-evolved. There has to be some form of intelligence that could give humans a run for their money.. Maybe they observe Earth's tyranical governments, warlike tendencies etc the same way we do those of the ancient Vikings and cavemen. lol.
I have always seen in the movies aliens look ugly and hideous and inhuman. I mean sure they can look inhuman. But what about pretty aliens? That would be scary. And no I do not mean those sexy parasite woman wearing bikinis. I mean... "And their infamous light embraced you in warmth. They felt friendly even if their own smile felt malicious" Or something yeah.
I get you. Scary because their beauty is deceiving. If pretty, light-radiating aliens came to earth with a sinister plan, I bet 90 percent of folks would swoon over them with adoration and trust simply because they look good. People are idiots in that way.
'My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.' - J.B.S Haldane What do they look like?...all three and then some. It's a pretty big ol' place after all.
There is a theory of some kind of Extraterrestrial that we wouldn't even consider to be alive. Think some kind of Lovecraftian, Yog-Sothothian mass. But unless we knew where they came from it would be hard to know what extraterrestrial would look like; we would first have to know the place on which this life evolved before even making an educated guess.
Art: great quote. Thanks for sharing that. Lemex: Can you expand further on this Lovecraftian theory? I'm interested.
This. Look at intelligent sci-fi and you will find a wide range of hypotheses. You have smart, cloud-like entities; gelatinous masses that act as hive minds and are together capable of assuming varied forms; projected likenesses that result in mercurial, hologramatic-style non-entities and so on. What's pretty certain is that their looking anything like us is extremely unlikely. Their very structure could easily be non carbon-based, or even non-tangible. Many individuals could act as one. Consider our own evolution. Quirks of fate/mutation/outside influence has led man to be dominant, but our bi-pedial set-up is extremely uneconomical/unstable and therefore unlikely to be repeated often. So carbon-based life would as a minimum probably be quadraped+. Our planet has three states: solids, liquids and gasses. Imagine life that started in an environment in which you largely remove one or two of these elements. And consider relative size. Why could there not be planet-sized life, or bigger? Or ecosystems on a pinhead, or smaller? It gets a little philosophical at this point with the "russian doll" / universe in an atom" hypothesis, but you get the idea. Think big. Think small. Extraterrestial life has the potential to be everything and nothing.
Well, one theory is that life might have been able to evolve, not on any solid planet, but in a gas giant. The result wouldn't need substance as we understand it, obviously, and nor would it have definite shape. It's like such an 'organism' would be a living gas cloud, or a globulous mass. Another theory suggests that like could have evolved in space itself. What something like this would look like is anyone's guess.
Let's do the math: The US government started something called Project Blue Book back in 1952, a project to gather UFO-sightings in the US to determine if they existed, and if so, if they were hostile. When the project ended in 1970, they had gathered 12.618 UFOs. Most of them turned out to be natural phenomenas and so on. Still, they never said "all" of them were explained. So just for fun, let's say 99% of them were explained. What about that last percentage? Even if 99% of them too were later explained, that still leaves a few that can't be explained. And keep in mind this was in the US alone from 1952 to 1970. What about the rest of the world? And what about the next 40 years? All in all saying there have been no real UFO-sightings anywhere in the world is kinda ridiculous. But as for whether they are from outer space, another dimension or whatever is anyone's guess. As for what the aliens look like, I think they can look like anything. Still, with so many having "accepted" small, grey humanoid aliens with big black eyes, it can make you wonder if there's a reason for it.
I always get a bit bugged by stuff like Star Trek and whatnot for their idea of aliens looking like humans with a ridge on their forehead, you know. Look at life on our planet, all the different animals that exist in this world. From dung beetles to elephants, giraffes, snakes, birds, all the different and amazing creatures that live in the sea. All species are so different. What are the odds of something that sparked to life on another planet looking more-or-less human, when practically nothing else in our very own world does? Quite mind-boggling just imagining what an alien might look like... I'm sure they'd not be hideous monsters, though.
I wholeheartedly agree. So smart, and well stated Gannon. IMO, extraterrestrials would look as different/alien to us, as we probably look to wildlife/non-domestic animals. And as far as carbon-based life forms go... Seeing as there are so few terrestrial planets in our solar system, it is difficult for me to assume there would be many other terrestrial/rock/metal planets in other solar systems, making it even more of a stretch for my imagination to think there are other carbon-based life forms outside our little system. However, that is not to say that there might be Aliens floating about who are humanoid in appearance, but otherwise completely biologically different.
That's because they have a limited budget. CGI is expensive and puppets not realistic enough for modern fans (aka kids).
I think I've heard some theory about humanoid aliens being humans from the future. That would explain the similar appearance. I think aliens could be invisible. I mean, we only "see" a very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum--I think they could exist in another form that was invisible. But I try not to get into this stuff too much or I won't be able to sleep at night.
Not sure. Earth, with its special circumstances and position alone, is quite a rarity. The universe is beyond any size of our conception, and who's to say we are the first and last of advanced life? I don't think aliens will ever be a problem, nor will we ever encounter them. Even if they did exist, there is no way of telling how advanced or numerous they are. Whether aliens are out there or not, as far as space goes, and the scale of things, we really are all alone.
I'm a Stargate fan... Most aliens look just like us, little grey men, little snakes or vampire looking things with sharp teeth that suck the life out of you through their hands Oh wait I forgot, the replicators can look like little robotic bugs or like us too, even though they are very much different.
So I went on ahead and wrote a little something, after thinking about this question last night. ----- If you had been familiar with the verses of Lord of the Rings, you have had assumed they were elves despite the spacecraft behind them. They stood tall with golden, bronze skin that seemed to glow and absorb the moonlight. They had long faces with thin noses much more like that of a cat, with almond shaped eyes. Six of them to be exact in perfect position. Their ears were the familiar shape of an elf, but they only had two fingers and even appeared to have a second pair of arms near their abdomen. But they were more like pincers than anything else. They appeared to have no mouth and they were almost fish like in appearance. On their neck were gills, and they seemed to open from time to time. Oddly enough they wore robes that the Vatican would have been jealous of. Rich fabrics that appeared alive in their own retrospective. Each of their six eyes blinked in synchronicity as they stared at the people who had curiously came to view what had just landed. "Humans," came a low hum in your mind. It wasn't as if they were talking. You got the feeling of words. The sense of words, but they actually didn't talk. It was more like your brain naturally picked it up and translated the strange waves in the air. "These are called humans," said another voice in your head. "I will record it," said another voice. They didn't pay you much attention, actually seemed they were more interesting in exploring the world than they were in talking to you. It reminded you a bit of those nature documentaries, when scientific men would wonder the jungles and forest of creatures. Though the city was hardly a jungle.
My theory is: This place that earth Lies in, isn't the only Galaxy, indeed they're many more. They're probably another "Earth out there, trying to figure out if there is any other life forms out here in this big ole' place That planets lie in. You could never know exactly where to look, that's why they've never discovered any extra-terrestrials. Who knows, they might even exist on the moon, or mars, or any planet in our solar system. Maybe not, maybe, there in a galaxy very, very far off, that by the time they reached a "Planet" with life existing, they would be dead before anybody even knew. You can never know what one looks like, unless you see them. Sure we can make guesses and try to imagine them, but, the likelihood of your guess being correct is very, very small. Alright, suppose you're playing a video game on xbox live or PS3 I think?, and you talk to some southern accent girl/guy on there. You quickly imagine, Alright, they're probably tan, might have buck teeth, wears a cowboy hat with denim and have cowboy boots on. Thanks to stereotypes we think differently. But, my point is, you imagine them being like that, and if you ever meet them, they probably wouldn't know who you are, because their guess was far off. You may never know what they look like, but, hey, imagine all you want Us writers tend to use our imagination anyways
Are you being serious? If you are may I ask you where you heard that at? I've not heard anything about it yet?
^ Yeah I'd like to know too... One of these days I'll draw up my own interpretation and upload the image on this thread....how do you upload pics that are just from your computer, not online?
