If there are aliens, what will they look like?

[MinnesotaEric]

The aliens will look like different versions of our own development since faster than light space travel also necessitates time travel.

 

[JasperFrank]

Well, there are theoretical constructs that say one could warp space in front and in back of a space craft of some sort and not violate the speed limit of C. What is always left out of that though is that if a space craft using this tech, ever came even close to our solar system, it would cause a gravitational wake, that would re-arrange the orbital trajectories of all our planets.

 

[RoyJackson]

I've got to see the movie "Arrival" again. It shows the difficulties with communicating with aliens.

Excellent movie, as is "Contact" and "Annihilation"

Of course, I prefer the cheesy SF movies of the '50's

 

[Doughknob]

I think they would look like us; pretty sure we crash landed here. If not us, then octopuses. Octopuses definitely crash landed here. They (Octopuses, cuttlefish, and the like) have no genetic cousins and they're super weird. I don't think we should be eating them.

But they taste so good…….

 

[strantor]

But they taste so good…….

So does antifreeze. I mean, you're welcome to eat all the Martians you can cram down your gullet, but don't be surprised when they rise up and have telepathic control over your motor functions.

 

[Doughknob]

Don’t they usually eat US without issues?? Why would we not do ok eating them??

 

[Cougsfan]

I understand your beliefs but what actual proof convinced of "trillions of stars, planet" and "life started on this little remote spot out of nothingness"?

Indeed, there is no actual proof yet that there is life elsewhere. But then there was no actual proof that the world was round prior to Magellan's crew circumnavigating the globe. Prior to that though, there were several ancient scientists who were convinced that the world was round based logic rather than physical proof.

I suppose there is also no proof that life started on this planet out of nothingness. Maybe life was planted here by little green aliens from who knows where. That is entirely possible, but I am not convinced.

 

[BravoXray]

I've got to see the movie "Arrival" again. It shows the difficulties with communicating with aliens.

Yep, that was a great movie. I think I've watched it five or six times, you have to so you can pick up on little things you missed the first few times.
Besides, Amy Adams ain't too hard on the eyes.

 

[BravoXray]

As to the questions about how life could just spontaneously emerge on Earth, this is how one book I read, I don't remember which one it was, explained it.
After the Earth was formed and was cooling off, and water was beginning to rain down and form puddles, lakes and oceans, there were a lot of chemical compounds formed as the different available raw materials were mixed, heated, and struck by lightning. The shear numbers of reactions and possible combinations of those components produced were enormous, on the order of 10 to some very large power. When you have that large of a number of combinations and reactions, it's probable that some are going to be made that have special properties, for example, a molecule that can "eat" other molecules, and use that material to make itself larger or make copies of itself. That was the critical step forward in creating life, being able to reproduce. One of the next critical steps was to create a surrounding shell to protect the nucleus, usually a lipid molecule of some sort. Another crucial step was to either develop or capture another cell or nucleus that was able to convert other captured protocells into food to run it's cellular machinery.
From that point, it was a long process of evolving into a myriad of more complex and differing types of cells until they started clumping together and becoming more specialized, becoming a more complex organism.
None of this is magic or requires divine intervention, it's simply the right combinations being formed by the brute force of enormous numbers of compounds formed over millions of years, some that ended up having special properties that gave it special abilities.
I may not have all the details correct, but this is the general concept of how life most likely arose on Earth.

 

[tradosaurus]

Indeed, there is no actual proof yet that there is life elsewhere. But then there was no actual proof that the world was round prior to Magellan's crew circumnavigating the globe. Prior to that though, there were several ancient scientists who were convinced that the world was round based logic rather than physical proof.

I suppose there is also no proof that life started on this planet out of nothingness. Maybe life was planted here by little green aliens from who knows where. That is entirely possible, but I am not convinced.

So you have a belief system, like everyone else.

 

[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"?