How do you envisage aliens will look when we finally meet them?

[HoopyFrood]

Yeah, it's be like Hitchiker's (again!!)...the only time we realise aliens are here is when they're telling us Earth is about to be demolished!

 

[Harpo]

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly!"

 

[Admiral Ryouhei]

they might decide to wipe us out because the most advanced species on the planet has a natural tendency to blow the **** out of what it doesn't understand or like before they check it out to see if it's harmful.

on an alternate note, our bodily systems are pretty much organic versions of the motor vehicles we use... take in products that contain the fuel we require to operate through one hole, then internally burn the fuel while what's left gets discarded out the back end as waste

granted cars are much faster at doing this so it is more probable that this is the reason why the polluting gasses are so damaging, and the fact it is built out of things more durable than organics, and they only have a 'youth' period of around four or five years, then it's middle and old age before it gets scrapped. so, think how mellow the combustion must be for our bodies... new thought, what if we [humankind] developed a slower-burning combustion cycle for vehicles with solid/liquid waste elimination

more messy, but the pollution is constrain to the ground and not blown all over the place, need a different design too, imagine what a car would look like passing solid and liquid 'exaust', wouldn't that make it a artificial construct instead of a machine?

so, yeah back to aliens, would their method of obtaining energy to survive, function, and develop be the same combustion Earth-forms and the stars use or will it be something different? like feeding off gravity waves, thus they would populate areas of stellar turmoil and super-heavy planets and planetiods

or maybe they feed off of another's essence (aka. soul) thus they develop to sapience and begin 'farming souls' instead of being parasitic or active and passive hunting of prey (i.e. hunting spiders and net-weavers)

 

[ClintonHammond]

" I'm reminded of an old cartoon (National Lampoon or Heavy Metal, I think) spoofing Close Encounters of the Third Kind ... when the alien reaches the Mother Ship, all battered and bruised and is asked: "So, how did it go?" his(?) response: "Level this planet!"

Well, that wasn't Heavy Metal, at least not the movie...

"the most advanced species on the planet has a natural tendency to blow the **** out of what it doesn't understand"

Based on what evidence?

 

[j d worthington]

Well, that wasn't Heavy Metal, at least not the movie...

No, the magazine, which was also published by the people behind National Lampoon (the magazine); began as an American version of the French Metal Hurlant, then quickly took its own tack. Most, if not all, of the material in the film was drawn from the magazine. The comic I referred to was one which appeared back in 1977 or early 1978, shortly after Close Encounters was originally released....

Métal Hurlant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heavy Metal (magazine) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Specfiction]

I don't think we'll ever meet any--the stars are too far apart--thank goodness. If they weren't (too far apart), we might have to endure what animals endure on Earth if we met the wrong ones. Or worst yet, could you imagine any alien race to have the misfortune of having humans come to their planet and humans were more advanced. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Define "meet." If we encounter some sort of microbe or weird bacteria on Mars, does that count? Granted, the conversation won't be so hot, but I'm not sure that's an important criteria; I've hung out with record label publicists...

What if we encounter an advanced probe, something along the lines of our Voyager space craft? Does that count as meeting them? If so, we're talking about complicated looking toasters.

I don't know. I've heard that the bipedal creature is a good bet for climbing up the evolutionary ladder, but it just seems like life takes on so many shapes, so many forms, that intelligence could arrive in any of an infinite amount of packages. I'm inclined to agree that tool-use would be helpful, but who knows -- maybe aliens developed trunks to manipulate objects, instead of opposable thumbs. Then they created advanced robots, who in turn built the aliens' spaceships. Impossible to speculate.

But fun.

 

[Specfiction]

I agree, one must define "meet." I'm thinking of contact with an "intelligent" species. Intelligent-->sufficiently technically capable of making contact, probably by radio or laser. I don't think this will happen. Check the Drake Equation. The problem is that tech savvy species probably don't last very long--for obvious (Darwinian) reasons. Probability of sender and receiver lining up in time is vanishing small even if there are thousands or millions of such candidates--and I think there are.

Physical contact is probably impossible. If it is not, then they will have to come here--we're not capable and probably never will be. If they are smart enough to come here, they would be to us as we are to ants--no contest. Better hope they're friendly--and if they are they probably don't want to talk to us, we're not that interesting.

 

[Sibeling]

Well, if they arrive here, they must be very clever to make fast spaceships, therefore, they will have large brains, therfore, they will have big heads.

Or, on the contrary- they will have only one central brain for all their race and the brain will control them from their planet..

 

[SpaceShip]

First, with disbelief; secondly, scared - very scared.

 

[AHJ87]

Hmm, interesting speculation, but I, personally, have a feeling that these "aliens" as they are famously called, look no different from us.

I mean, they can be human beings existing on their own "evolved planet" (which is basically what Earth is, after all) who are also searching the heavens for intelligent life.

As much as I enjoy science fiction stories that involve hostile extraterrestrials, I also get seriously disappointed by the xenophobia the authors are reflecting upon the readers.
Yes, I do know that 'alot of people fear what they don't understand' but isn't time to step out of this "dark age psychological disorder" and walk into the "dare to know more" portal? Hehehe...

I mean, come on! The Universe is infinite!

 

[SpaceShip]

I mean, come on! The Universe is infinite!

How do you know?????????

 

[AHJ87]

I don't know, hehe.
I just trust my intuition that's all.

Plus... how do you know the Universe is not infinite??????

 

[Nesacat]

They are probably here and all around us and reading this thread and probably posting in it as well ...

 

[Saolta Oiche]

We may actually be aliens! We just don't know it!

 

[Urien]

As an alien I find much of this thread deeply upsetting.

 

[AHJ87]

Mitochondria are alien in nature.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

I don't know, hehe.
I just trust my intuition that's all.

Plus... how do you know the Universe is not infinite??????

Well... We know it has an edge. Now, granted, that edge is expanding, but it means the universe isn't actually infinite.

On the other hand, there could be an infinite number of universes, and perhaps something might find a way to cross from one universe into our universe. Though I'm more often wondering why anything would want to do that...

 

[AHJ87]

On the other hand, there could be an infinite number of universes, and perhaps something might find a way to cross from one universe into our universe. Though I'm more often wondering why anything would want to do that...

String theory's awesome! hehe

 

[chrispenycate]

Well... We know it has an edge. Now, granted, that edge is expanding, but it means the universe isn't actually infinite.

On the other hand, there could be an infinite number of universes, and perhaps something might find a way to cross from one universe into our universe. Though I'm more often wondering why anything would want to do that...

Actually, the universe probably hasn't got an edge; it is non-infinite but non bounded, and expanding at the speed of light, and any point in it can be accurately considered as the centre from which it's all expanding (it can't be expanding into anything, because to have dimension into there has to be spacetime, and the definition of the universe is that it is everything that exists, all the matter and energy and all the spacetime, too)
Still while, if you accept the big bang theory, the universe is non-infinite, it is still unimaginably large, and there's space for lots of strange things, even without introducing suplementary dimensions.