Alien appearance and facial features

TheGoldcountry said:
Good call. I don't want to think about the alien he wouldn't take on. Maybe a female Gorn.
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Why do you think he didn't kill the Gorn captain? He realized she was female, and thought he might still have a chance later.
 
The other thing to consider is why are reports of ETs so specifically grounded in the science of the time they are "encountered" in? Think about it; ETs and their craft really aren't that far beyond our conventional understanding of aerospace travel - they come in craft that carry passengers, they fly near to and even land on the ground, they have bright lights that scan the ground... Why if it weren't for the idea that these things are supposed to come from 'the outter space' we wouldn't be able to differentiate them from a conventional helicopter. But the hard truth that science fiction writers and ET believers have never really been able to accept is that it's extremely unlikely biological life will ever be capable of interstellar travel. And why would we bother overcoming the amaizing complications of cradling a squishy biological entity across the vastness of space (and the risks and extra weight associated with it) when we could much more realistically send an unmanned vehicle? Even our own aerospace technology is increasingly shifting away from having a pilot on board, our surveillance technologies allow us to closely examine and record data on the ground from a safe distance high above . . . Why it's almost as though our own technology is more advanced than the technology believed to be bringing ET's here. I mean, given our own advances in remote drone aircraft; why would we ever travel to another planet and have clandestine teams of explorers come down to striking distance of the natives and their primitive weapons when we can already gather biometric data from friggen space! Why is it that ET technology seems to be grounded in the technology, mythology and folklore of the past rather than the future? Or even the present for that matter? Why does it seem that the most fervent believers in ETs tend to be 50+ year old geeks whose concept of aerospace is grounded in the technology of 60's and 70's teevee? If some one can provide me with a satisfactory answer to those questions other than "because ETs are nothing but our own modern version of leprechauns and angels" I will buy them lunch. And I'll warn you ahead of time that any variation of "well they're coming from the Matrix Neo" is not an acceptable answer. That's just another Sci-Fi trope and you know it...
 
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I don't think the premise is wrong as provided by the original poster at all.

As to whether I believe extraterrestrials actually look like that...

Okay, let me lay it out on the table here. Whether extraterrestrials come from the Alpha Centuri or Sirius star systems, hail from a civilization far in advance of ours or one stuck in the stone ages, they still live in the same universe as us.

Meaning that they must be subject to the same laws as anything else that lives in the universe, for example humanity.

Whether life is the result of evolution or divine intervention is pointless because in either case the result is the same: Any design that's successful you can expect to see else where.

So baring minor differences I think we can expect to see more Star Trek like life forms as opposed to Star Wars like life forms.
 
Mudcat said:
So baring minor differences I think we can expect to see more Star Trek like life forms as opposed to Star Wars like life forms.
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I don't know about that. If it were the case, I'd expect more convergent evolution on earth. We have some very different species that have come to adopt similar biological forms, but we also have a long, long history of some very weird looking things that survived millions of years on earth.

The problem is that we only have one data point. We'll know more once I get this warp drive working.
 
I think it's doubtful that a technological civilization capable of interstellar travel would resemble anything we've seen in conventional science fiction. As I pointed out in my earlier post; if we ever do encounter an extraterrestrial civilization, it will more than likely be an encounter between us and their technology rather than an encounter with a biological entity. Even if they could transport a living, breathing, eating, pooping, bag of water and gas across interstellar distances, why would they ever bother coming down here in person and taking all of the unbelievable risks that come with that? More likely they'd do exactly what we do when we need to proxy our presence into a hostile environment or nation: send in an unmanned drone.

As for what sort of life does evolve into technological civilizations on other worlds? Well we have no way of knowing for sure that our "body template" is the only, or even ideal one. But it is certainly possible.
 
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Mudcat said:
I don't think the premise is wrong as provided by the original poster at all.

As to whether I believe extraterrestrials actually look like that...

Okay, let me lay it out on the table here. Whether extraterrestrials come from the Alpha Centuri or Sirius star systems, hail from a civilization far in advance of ours or one stuck in the stone ages, they still live in the same universe as us.

Meaning that they must be subject to the same laws as anything else that lives in the universe, for example humanity.

Whether life is the result of evolution or divine intervention is pointless because in either case the result is the same: Any design that's successful you can expect to see else where.

So baring minor differences I think we can expect to see more Star Trek like life forms as opposed to Star Wars like life forms.
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Yes all life on earth looks the same from bacteria to algae to fungi to plants to invertebrates and all their subgroups to vertebrates. Hell even dinosaurs looked the same as us and they lived millions of years ago. I mean they had bones and everything. So why wouldn't an alien race in another solar system within our galaxy or at the other side of the galaxy look like us.
 
Resume said:
These alien abduction stories would be much more entertaining if they featured Benny, not Betty (or Barney) Hill.
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There are very few things that could not be made more entertaining by adding Benny Hill.
 
UnrepentantHarlequin said:
The other thing to consider is why are reports of ETs so specifically grounded in the science of the time they are "encountered" in? Think about it; ETs and their craft really aren't that far beyond our conventional understanding of aerospace travel - they come in craft that carry passengers, they fly near to and even land on the ground, they have bright lights that scan the ground... Why if it weren't for the idea that these things are supposed to come from 'the outter space' we wouldn't be able to differentiate them from a conventional helicopter. But the hard truth that science fiction writers and ET believers have never really been able to accept is that it's extremely unlikely biological life will ever be capable of interstellar travel. And why would we bother overcoming the amaizing complications of cradling a squishy biological entity across the vastness of space (and the risks and extra weight associated with it) when we could much more realistically send an unmanned vehicle? Even our own aerospace technology is increasingly shifting away from having a pilot on board, our surveillance technologies allow us to closely examine and record data on the ground from a safe distance high above . . . Why it's almost as though our own technology is more advanced than the technology believed to be bringing ET's here. I mean, given our own advances in remote drone aircraft; why would we ever travel to another planet and have clandestine teams of explorers come down to striking distance of the natives and their primitive weapons when we can already gather biometric data from friggen space! Why is it that ET technology seems to be grounded in the technology, mythology and folklore of the past rather than the future? Or even the present for that matter? Why does it seem that the most fervent believers in ETs tend to be 50+ year old geeks whose concept of aerospace is grounded in the technology of 60's and 70's teevee? If some one can provide me with a satisfactory answer to those questions other than "because ETs are nothing but our own modern version of leprechauns and angels" I will buy them lunch. And I'll warn you ahead of time that any variation of "well they're coming from the Matrix Neo" is not an acceptable answer. That's just another Sci-Fi trope and you know it...
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tl;dr

Paragraphs are your friend, etc.
 
UnrepentantHarlequin said:
I think it's doubtful that a technological civilization capable of interstellar travel would resemble anything we've seen in conventional science fiction. As I pointed out in my earlier post; if we ever do encounter an extraterrestrial civilization, it will more than likely be an encounter between us and their technology rather than an encounter with a biological entity. Even if they could transport a living, breathing, eating, pooping, bag of water and gas across interstellar distances, why would they ever bother coming down here in person and taking all of the unbelievable risks that come with that? More likely they'd do exactly what we do when we need to proxy our presence into a hostile environment or nation: send in an unmanned drone.

As for what sort of life does evolve into technological civilizations on other worlds? Well we have no way of knowing for sure that our "body template" is the only, or even ideal one. But it is certainly possible.
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Waiting for the TickTock Man or someone very like him???:confused::confused::D
 
UnrepentantHarlequin said:
The other thing to consider is why are reports of ETs so specifically grounded in the science of the time they are "encountered" in? Think about it; ETs and their craft really aren't that far beyond our conventional understanding of aerospace travel - they come in craft that carry passengers, they fly near to and even land on the ground, they have bright lights that scan the ground... Why if it weren't for the idea that these things are supposed to come from 'the outter space' we wouldn't be able to differentiate them from a conventional helicopter. But the hard truth that science fiction writers and ET believers have never really been able to accept is that it's extremely unlikely biological life will ever be capable of interstellar travel. And why would we bother overcoming the amaizing complications of cradling a squishy biological entity across the vastness of space (and the risks and extra weight associated with it) when we could much more realistically send an unmanned vehicle? Even our own aerospace technology is increasingly shifting away from having a pilot on board, our surveillance technologies allow us to closely examine and record data on the ground from a safe distance high above . . . Why it's almost as though our own technology is more advanced than the technology believed to be bringing ET's here. I mean, given our own advances in remote drone aircraft; why would we ever travel to another planet and have clandestine teams of explorers come down to striking distance of the natives and their primitive weapons when we can already gather biometric data from friggen space! Why is it that ET technology seems to be grounded in the technology, mythology and folklore of the past rather than the future? Or even the present for that matter? Why does it seem that the most fervent believers in ETs tend to be 50+ year old geeks whose concept of aerospace is grounded in the technology of 60's and 70's teevee? If some one can provide me with a satisfactory answer to those questions other than "because ETs are nothing but our own modern version of leprechauns and angels" I will buy them lunch. And I'll warn you ahead of time that any variation of "well they're coming from the Matrix Neo" is not an acceptable answer. That's just another Sci-Fi trope and you know it...
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"Ever"... as in "not even in 100 million years"... IOW, we can simply forget about the idea of Earth life surviving the death of the Sun by bringing it to some other world... Or, for that matter, for things even closer to the present day (i.e. not hundreds of millions or billions of years in the future): we'd better control our population here, otherwise someday the Malthusians will be right after all, since the Earth and solar system IS finite and we humans ain't gonna be goin' anywhere else! (if ET can't do it, then we sure as heck can't either!). The failed doom predictions simply meant we underestimated the ultimate limit, not that such a limit doesn't exist.

Which makes one wonder... why have we never encountered any alien robot UFOs? I.e. why haven't any alien UFOs -- even robotic ones -- been encountered? Fermi paradox...
 
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Hungry81 said:
Yes all life on earth looks the same from bacteria to algae to fungi to plants to invertebrates and all their subgroups to vertebrates. Hell even dinosaurs looked the same as us and they lived millions of years ago. I mean they had bones and everything. So why wouldn't an alien race in another solar system within our galaxy or at the other side of the galaxy look like us.
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That isn't what I said and you know it.
 
mike3 said:
Which makes one wonder... why have we never encountered any alien robot UFOs? I.e. why haven't any alien UFOs -- even robotic ones -- been encountered? Fermi paradox...
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Well... When one generally thinks of alien civilizations they're imagined to be far in advance of us. The reason we haven't encountered anything yet could be that any existing alien civilizations could be less advanced than us, or at the same level of advancement.

Also could be that a robot ship may have been sent here and had a close encounter with a comet and they never bothered to send another. A solar flare could have cropped up and fried their sensors and caused it go off course and burn up in the atmosphere of another planet.

Space is disease and danger wrapped in progress.
 
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