If there are aliens, what will they look like?

[CalG]

Not directly to point, but an interesting look at US

We go back so far as to be aliens to our present selves.

 

[JasperFrank]

And then another one of those pesky asteroids slammed into the Earth.
I love finding meteor craters using Goggle Earth. There is usually a follow through and explanation of the crater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_Reservoir
No one, in the scientific community wants to talk about this one for some reason. Did it change the climate for 10,000 years?

Only 5% of species seem to have survived the last 4 mass extinctions: Good, if you are a Horseshoe Crab; bad, if you were pretty much anything else.

So Intelligent aliens become more improbable all the time, as we see what happenstance occurred on Earth, and the unlikelihood that it would survive forever.
I like that the new breed of TV personality people are at least getting close to seeing the difference of Sci-Fi and what we know to be possible. ... Oh Wait, they are not.... and they are not even trying....

It wasn't always that way. To sell something, it has to be interesting. It doesn't have to be real, it just has to be interesting. There has been too much of that.

The very fact that we are here is freakishly improbable. So improbable that if abiogenesis happening on other worlds, they would be so isolated to us as to make contact either impossible, or very unlikely, given our current physics.

In the uncountable galactic haze, with trillions and trillions.... what ever the number you want, as long as its less than infinity. Cause with infinity ALL things are happening now, and have to be, AND BEEN, in every combination, in every possible time line. And that's Okay. Its just not usable. Science is about what you can use.

So how, on this planet, two things happened, and the odds far exceed the calculated number of atoms in the universe if we follow the theory of abiogenesis.

I will leave that on the table.... Cause I DO NOT KNOW.


We have this world right now, and that is it. We are asking imaginary Aliens to solve our problems. Its a wish that they are out there in the first place, and a fantasy that they are even benevolent.

This,... Earth.. is the only place we know we are. The only place we know life is as we have defined it.

SETI has looked for many years, and found NOTHING. Even with Super-Computers and looking directly in to the galactic center, looking at radio waves and they found nothing.
Remember when your little computer was SO important to look through the packages and send back a Block? And you could join the search. Well, it was not that important. They just wanted money.

I am absolutely certain we could not recognize an Alien. Thats why Hollywood never made up an unrecognizable Alien: It wouldn't work as a plot to make sense. This is not a failure of scientific art. Its the failure of certain screen writers in this decade that don't do science.

 

[tradosaurus]

And then another one of those pesky asteroids slammed into the Earth.
I love finding meteor craters using Goggle Earth. There is usually a follow through and explanation of the crater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_Reservoir
No one, in the scientific community wants to talk about this one for some reason. Did it change the climate for 10,000 years?

Only 5% of species seem to have survived the last 4 mass extinctions: Good, if you are a Horseshoe Crab; bad, if you were pretty much anything else.

It wasn't always that way. To sell something, it has to be interesting. It doesn't have to be real, it just has to be interesting. There has been too much of that.

I am absolutely certain we could not recognize an Alien. Thats why Hollywood never made up an unrecognizable Alien: It wouldn't work as a plot to make sense. This is not a failure of scientific art. Its the failure of certain screen writers in this decade that don't do science.

Those aren't meteor craters. Not sure what they are but a simple thought experiment rules out a meteor for two reasons:
1) Where is the meteor?
2) How does meteor hit the "rotating and moving" earth at a 90 degree angle?
Same explanation goes for the moon.

 

[JasperFrank]

They never found a meteorite at Barringer Crater either. It vaporized on impact.

 

[the old grind]

Airplanes that crash don't always stay in one piece. Dud bombs do but tend to make a circular crater no matter what angle they land at while remaining intact.

Aliens must keep hovering without landing because because they can't maintain a 90 degree angle to a rapidly spinning object/planet to land like helicopters do.

 

[RoyJackson]

Those aren't meteor craters. Not sure what they are but a simple thought experiment rules out a meteor for two reasons:
1) Where is the meteor?
2) How does meteor hit the "rotating and moving" earth at a 90 degree angle?
Same explanation goes for the moon.

When a meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere, it'll depend on the trajectory. Might be 90° to the surface or at an angle. The speed of entry is critical...high speed, the meteor may take seconds to reach the ground and, if a 90° angle, may produce an approximately circular crater.
Angular trajectory may result in a more obround crater...
At impact, or before, the meteor can vaporize leaving little residue. But it will leave something, no matter how minute

Using the Moon as a comparison isn't a good comparison. The moon has no atmosphere to slow the impact.

So, basically, your thought experiment isn't really valid, is it?

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

And then another one of those pesky asteroids slammed into the Earth.
I love finding meteor craters using Goggle Earth. There is usually a follow through and explanation of the crater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_Reservoir
No one, in the scientific community wants to talk about this one for some reason. Did it change the climate for 10,000 years?

Only 5% of species seem to have survived the last 4 mass extinctions: Good, if you are a Horseshoe Crab; bad, if you were pretty much anything else.

So Intelligent aliens become more improbable all the time, as we see what happenstance occurred on Earth, and the unlikelihood that it would survive forever.
I like that the new breed of TV personality people are at least getting close to seeing the difference of Sci-Fi and what we know to be possible. ... Oh Wait, they are not.... and they are not even trying....

It wasn't always that way. To sell something, it has to be interesting. It doesn't have to be real, it just has to be interesting. There has been too much of that.

The very fact that we are here is freakishly improbable. So improbable that if abiogenesis happening on other worlds, they would be so isolated to us as to make contact either impossible, or very unlikely, given our current physics.

In the uncountable galactic haze, with trillions and trillions.... what ever the number you want, as long as its less than infinity. Cause with infinity ALL things are happening now, and have to be, AND BEEN, in every combination, in every possible time line. And that's Okay. Its just not usable. Science is about what you can use.

So how, on this planet, two things happened, and the odds far exceed the calculated number of atoms in the universe if we follow the theory of abiogenesis.

I will leave that on the table.... Cause I DO NOT KNOW.


We have this world right now, and that is it. We are asking imaginary Aliens to solve our problems. Its a wish that they are out there in the first place, and a fantasy that they are even benevolent.

This,... Earth.. is the only place we know we are. The only place we know life is as we have defined it.

SETI has looked for many years, and found NOTHING. Even with Super-Computers and looking directly in to the galactic center, looking at radio waves and they found nothing.
Remember when your little computer was SO important to look through the packages and send back a Block? And you could join the search. Well, it was not that important. They just wanted money.

I am absolutely certain we could not recognize an Alien. Thats why Hollywood never made up an unrecognizable Alien: It wouldn't work as a plot to make sense. This is not a failure of scientific art. Its the failure of certain screen writers in this decade that don't do science.

If the odds are one in an infinity, but you have an infinite pool for it to happen in, it becomes a certainty.

People shouldn’t confuse the “aliens” in movies with the potential forms of actual aliens. You have to remember that some costumer, has to figure out how to make a human be the alien of choice. So, they will always tend to be bipedal, or at best quadrupeds. Perhaps with more and more CGI, aliens will start to appear in a myriad of forms.

Actual aliens could be truly different. Tripodal makes a lot of sense. But then I read “Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur C. Clark. Tripedal aliens on a ship which comes into the solar system, sling shots around the sun, and heads for points unknown.

Similar to, “What does God look like?” Most common lore has God as mostly human in form. But paraphrasing, George Burns playing God, in the movie ‘Oh God” said, “I look like this so I don’t scare you”.

Perhaps if God were to appear to an intelligent species evolved from an octopus, God would appear to them as an octopus.

And, there is a difference between “Science Fiction”, “Science Fantasy”, and “Fantasy”. Science fiction only lets you break one law of physics. Faster than time travel is most frequent, followed by time travel. Science Fantasy, has no limits, but occurs in space or on another world. Straight up Fantasy, can be anything.

 

[RoyJackson]

But then I read “Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur C. Clark. Tripedal aliens on a ship which comes into the solar system, sling shots around the sun, and heads for points unknown.

Excellent novel...one of Clarke's best, IMHO

 

[tradosaurus]

When a meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere, it'll depend on the trajectory. Might be 90° to the surface or at an angle. The speed of entry is critical...high speed, the meteor may take seconds to reach the ground and, if a 90° angle, may produce an approximately circular crater.
Angular trajectory may result in a more obround crater...
At impact, or before, the meteor can vaporize leaving little residue. But it will leave something, no matter how minute

Using the Moon as a comparison isn't a good comparison. The moon has no atmosphere to slow the impact.

So, basically, your thought experiment isn't really valid, is it?

All supposed meteor impacts on the earth are at 90 degree angles. Impossible.

 

[RoyJackson]

All supposed meteor impacts on the earth are at 90 degree angles. Impossible.

And where do you come up with that "statistic"?