Alien appearance and facial features


Don't you know 'The Owls are not what they seem'.

ETA- This was meant to be a response to RogerRamjet
 
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jhunter1163 said:
There are some traits (binocular vision, for example) that might be evolutionarily advantageous and therefore might occur elsewhere; however, generally speaking, I think it is extremely unlikely that alien life would look anything like anything on earth.
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Well, you have to keep in mind how amazingly varied life on earth is. Alien life may look similar to some kind of life on earth, just nothing like humans.
 
Wolrab said:
It's just that the greys won the contest on which alien gets to anal probe Earthlings. They campaigned very hard to win, even though none of the other aliens used anal probing, preferring remote sensing technology. The greys are the reason aliens raise whatever appendage they have for a greeting. No one wants to touch a greys hand as they know where it's been.

Captain Kirk has nothing on Riker, Riker spent a whole episode trying to hit on an androgynous alien.
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Not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
AdMan said:
Well, you have to keep in mind how amazingly varied life on earth is. Alien life may look similar to some kind of life on earth, just nothing like humans.
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I disagree. In all likelihood, any spacefaring or somewhat advanced culture would be humanoid in appearance even if they have aspects that are different.
 
Mudcat said:
In all likelihood, any spacefaring or somewhat advanced culture would be humanoid in appearance even if they have aspects that are different.
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Of course this is all speculative, but I disagree. I realize your argument stems from the fact that life anywhere in the universe must have arisen and evolved obeying the laws of the universe that govern us all. However, what about the vastly different conditions that can exist within the universe, even within our planet, and that still allow life to evolve? That is what gives rise to the extremely varied forms of life on earth. If you are suggesting that any advanced civilization must be humanoid in appearance, you are saying that an advanced civilization can only arise in an environment very similar to the one in which we arose. I think that is an unreasonable assertion.
 
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AdMan said:
Of course this is all speculative, but I disagree. I realize your argument stems from the fact that life anywhere in the universe must have arisen and evolved obeying the laws of the universe that govern us all. However, what about the vastly different conditions that can exist within the universe, even within our planet, and that still allow life to evolve? That is what gives rise to the extremely varied forms of life on earth. If you are suggesting that any advanced civilization must be humanoid in appearance, you are saying that an advanced civilization can only arise in an environment very similar to the one in which we arose. I think that is an unreasonable assertion.
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First, I said the words most likely. As in the majority of the time that's what we can expect to see. At least that which we would stand a reasonable chance to communicate with.

Also the most successful lifeforms, the only lifeforms we have any experience with, are all carbon based. Anything we encounter in space or any civilization we find would have to be the most successful lifeforms in their respective native planets.

And until we get more information saying otherwise we have to assume carbon based lifeforms are the norm.

Any race that can form a society capable of space travel would pretty much be limited to humanoid appearances because they would have to be able to design, build, and manipulate tools necessary to design, build, manipulate, and repair space faring technology.

You can't really do this if you're some kind of fat gelatinous creature with a carapace, wings, numerous legs, and no discernible way of doing all that above.

None of this is unreasonable, expecting some stupid looking creatures that look like failed drawings from kindergarden art class, ala Star Wars, Mass Effect, etc, is.
 
Mudcat said:
Any race that can form a society capable of space travel would pretty much be limited to humanoid appearances because they would have to be able to design, build, and manipulate tools necessary to design, build, manipulate, and repair space faring technology.
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I was going to mention limbs and opposable thumbs being the ideal for making the craft necessary for the journey...

... but, then if the aliens had telekenetic powers, they wouldn't need to touch stuff to make it. :) Or they could be sufficiently advanced that they used humanoids on their planet as slaves to build their flying saucers for them in the same way we use and have historically used animals to do our work.
 
WHat about prehensile tentacles like a squid or octopus? WHat about being able to use 4 limbs at once or even 6? (bipedal spider anyone?)

To think any ALien vistior would have to look even vaguely human is being a bit short sighted.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
WHat about prehensile tentacles like a squid or octopus? WHat about being able to use 4 limbs at once or even 6? (bipedal spider anyone?)

To think any ALien vistior would have to look even vaguely human is being a bit short sighted.
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I agree, human anatomy is not necessarily required to build advanced technology or interplanetary vehicles.
While we're at it, I'd imagine self-assembling molecules escaping the gravitational pull of their home planet, which has become polluted and over-populated, without the conscious intention of ever reaching another planet at all, just the genetic "will" to survive and reproduce (although they would probably never reach the Earth or be observed by human eyes).

truethat said:
This is an interesting topic, thanks for starting the thread.

I don't agree that intelligent life would look humanoid, I've often thought that bugs would be the most successful life forms and alien faces look like insect faces to me.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ins...9b9ebaf0746237&bpcl=40096503&biw=1517&bih=714
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That's some interesting input, now that I think about some of the alien faces I've seen on the internet or in movies, the resemblance with bugs is often noticeable.
 
jhunter1163 said:
There are some traits (binocular vision, for example) that might be evolutionarily advantageous and therefore might occur elsewhere; however, generally speaking, I think it is extremely unlikely that alien life would look anything like anything on earth.
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Well, if abductee reports be true, the anus appears to be a universal feature (and an apparently quite fascinating one).
 
Captain_Swoop said:
WHat about prehensile tentacles like a squid or octopus? WHat about being able to use 4 limbs at once or even 6? (bipedal spider anyone?)

To think any ALien vistior would have to look even vaguely human is being a bit short sighted.
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Again, how would they be able to design, build, and manipulate tools to design, build, manipulate and maintain said ships?

Prehensile tails and tentacles are all well and good, but opposable thumbs they are not.

Also what ever intellect designing, building, manipulating, and maintaining the tools, infrastructure, civilization, and ships would have to be able to envision all that. They would need depth perception, problem solving skills, and a certain range of movement.

In other words, we can expect to see loads of humanoids if we ever encounter other civilizations. Maybe we will see the kinds of stupid looking exotic life suggested by Star Wars, but I would put them in the minority.
 
Personally, I don't think sentient aliens - assuming they exist - would be humanoid. Humanoid form was the product of Earth's evolutionary path. Another world, even if it is another "Earth", will have its own path. Remember - ours was shaped by a countless events. Change one of them and the result may be completely different.

The more I think about it, the only things I can think any sentient alien lifeforms would need are:

1. Organ(s) to process information - something like a nervous system and a brain, but I am not even sure if the "brain" would have to be similar to the spheroidal thing we have. Why not a cyllinder? Maybe not, because better electrochemical exchanges would require proximity of neuron-like cells and this would drive towards sphericity?

2. Organs to gather sensorial data about the critters' environment. It will depend on environment and the evolutionary history of the species. It could have sonar, extra sets of "eyes" to gather wavelenghts other than those picked by ours, etc.

3. Organs to manipulate the environments. This could be the equivalent of hands but also tentacles, pincers, proboscis and maybe even other things I can't imagine. Just two? Don't know. Maybe four? Or three? I guess it will depend on the evolutionary path and environment.

4. Locomotion organs. Legs (DUH!), but not sure on how many. Or something like tentacles, maybe... Why not use the same organs for locomotion and manipulation, like apes do? One can also think about locomotion modes like those used by squids or even jellyfishes if we imagine certain types of environments.

Once you've got the above, you must think on how are you going to pack it all. Yes, humanoid shape is a possible answer, but why not some other shape, like a centaur, a praying mantis, an octopus, a spider, a jellyfish, etc. Not to mention we are talking just about "natural" evolutionary paths of biological entities. Hypothetical AI aliens may depart a lot from this as would some sort of synthethic / biologic hybrid or even biological but genetically engineered beings.
 
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Correa Neto said:
3. Organs to manipulate the environments. This could be the equivalent of hands but also tentacles, pincers, proboscis and maybe even other things I can't imagine. Just two? Don't know. Maybe four? Or three? I guess it will depend on the evolutionary path and environment.
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Interesting that even though a tripod is the most efficient means of making a table, stool or other thing that need to be stable on the ground, there are no animals (that I can think of) that naturally have three legs. Two legs yes, four legs yes, six legs yes, eight legs yes, hundreds of legs yes... but none with just three. :)

Though I realise there are certain monkeys (and I suppose kangaroos) that use their tail as an extra limb.
 
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