What do Aliens look like?

Not human. I'm guessing that maybe 10% or less look vaguely humanoid. Even in those cases they're not really going to look like something that normies would want to fuck.

Think of it this way, what intelligent life is there on Earth besides primates? Dolphins, elephants, crows and dogs are just a few examples and none of them would resemble humans in the slightest if they evolved human-like intellect. Here's the thing though, all of those animals are actually pretty close relatives of one another. They're made up of a similar molecular composition, their cells are near identical, their skeletal structure, muscles and organs are just resized and retuned for different tasks. A creature that started its long march to sentience on a planet where everything is different would have a distinct set of traits native to its home environment. Even a mirror image of Earth would result in a completely different set of species just as result of random luck and misfortune. Without the Cretaceous meteorite hitting us 66 million years ago for example, the hands(?) typing this message would have a distinctly more reptilian look to them.

Headless Horseman 10/29/15 (Thu) 21:42:39 No.19243

>>19241

it all depends on the gravity, atmosphere composition, radiation levels, composition of the ground, rotation of the planet and whatnot.

Humans are very unique and because of it why were were so successful

>have the superior intelligence of a predator but can revert to a vegetarian lifestyle if meat is scarce, very little creatures on earth can do this.

>evolution took place in both trees and flat land so we can walk while carrying things with useful and powerful manipulators

>home planet has abundant flora that can be used to make flotation devices on water

>fauna's skin and fur can make weather protection with little technology

>atmosphere has oxygen so we are able to have fires, aliens on planets with no oxygen would not get past the stone age

>one of the best digestive stomachs on the planet that can eat such a variety of foods allowing settlement to nearly any part of the surface possible

>compared to other worlds where life would most likely arise on we have a very high gravity so we have greater strength but it is harder to get into space, so the large alien "empires" probably spawned on a low gravity moon

>ability to not be fueled entirely by hormones like our closest relative the chimpanzee but also have the ability to go wack insane when we need to

The universe is also so vast that there is a good chance there is a planet exactly like earth in every single respect, even another 8chan with anther human posting this exact same message

Headless Horseman 10/29/15 (Thu) 23:18:22 No.19247

>>19243

Earth isn't the only model that works I'm sure. I think there's likely a few broad categories of planets that allow for intelligent life to evolve. A lot of things that you're suggesting are necessary for intelligence to come about are instead just the sorts of things that humans couldn't go without.

Take combustion for instance, it's far from being the only chemical process to generate light and heat and aliens may not even need such things to get by. On a planet with a much higher oxygen concentration than our own for instance, no one would ever even consider fire as anything other than a weapon of total annihilation.

Low gravity is also tricky. While it does make it easier to reach escape velocity, there's a lot of added benefits to living on a larger world. Firstly it's a lot more likely for a planet to retain an atmosphere and enough light elements long enough for life to evolve. There's also more living space and resources to work with, so the costs of building expensive launch systems and researching technology to make them happen are lower.

It might well be that Earth is actually on the lower end of the planet types where intelligent life can evolve. It's easy to boast about our oxygen and weak gravity; but what if it's actually us who are missing something that others consider critical to becoming a spacefaring civilization?

Headless Horseman 10/30/15 (Fri) 06:48:47 No.19255

File: 1446187728626.gif (2 MB, 468x742, 234:371, ani superheroes would hit ….gif)

>>19125

extraterrestrials or ultraterrestrials?

We have no reason to assume that extraterrestrials look anything like anything which we have or could imagine. As lifeforms which developed in an entirely different environment from a far-off corner of space, they could look like anything but are unlikely to like anything we know. They could be microscopic. They could hyper-intelligent shades of blue.

Ultras are another matter entirely. They look exactly like other things. As pan-dimensional beings visiting from other universes, they adapt their forms to local conditions. Often this involves becoming the form that they are expected to take according to local folklore. In ancient times, this was gods in flying chariots. During the Dark Ages, they were faeries. In the 19th Century, they were mysterious airship pilots with beards and goggles. In the 20th Century, they were greys. In the 21st, I don't know – maybe reptoids or shadow people.

Ironically, science has uncovered some significant new evidence regarding the possible existence of both types within the last week or so. First, a freaking Dyson Sphere was spotted around a star some thousand light years away. Then just yesterday, the European Space Agency released a report about an area of deep space where honest-to-gosh light seems to be leaking in from a different universe.

Headless Horseman 10/31/15 (Sat) 02:01:02 No.19266

>>19255

>>19241

Basically anyone with a basic education knows that it is unlikely aliens would be very humanoid.

Pumpkin 10/31/15 (Sat) 03:54:37 No.19270

>>19266

>everyone who thinks that aliens have visited Earth are claiming that they're humanoid

>any type of media that has aliens in it is going to have 90% of them be humanoid

>said claims and depictions are not just of humanoid aliens, but the aliens are basically just humans with green skin and pointy ears or the like

>any time non-humanoid aliens are depicted, they are immediately the bad guys and are treated as breaking the "norm" for the fictional universe that they're in

I very much doubt that anyone with an education will think of aliens as non-human when basically all our works of fiction educate otherwise.

Loch Ness Monster 11/01/15 (Sun) 23:37:30 No.19328

(given we're just talking about aliens from this universe)roughly humanoid in proportions, face configuration(2eyes, 1 mouth, bilateral symmetry etc.) and have hands; if they originated from planets with similar atmosphere & gravity as ours due to evolutionary convergence.

notably taller - lower gravity than our planet

notably shorter - probably higher gravity than our planet

not restricted to but may include insectoid intelligent beings(which may vary greatly and not resemble humans much) - notably higher oxygen content than our planet I guess

Their internal organs and minute details will vary from ours a lot ie: toes/fingers, fur, 'reptile' vs 'mammal', facial geometry, DNA(or analog), senses etc.

Loch Ness Monster 11/02/15 (Mon) 21:28:32 No.19342

File: 1446499713506.jpg (181.48 KB, 765x1024, 765:1024, alien_timelineLG-765x1024.jpg)

Loch Ness Monster 11/03/15 (Tue) 22:08:41 No.19363

I'd imagine they would probably be aquatic or the equivalent.

Evolving to live on land is such a massive effort, since it's hugely unlikely that life could germinate on bare rock.

It's also a simpler transition from living immersed in liquid to travelling in space.

Their brains would have evolved to work in full 3D space all the time, and they would be pretty good at developing pressure-sealed environments living in an ocean.

I like the idea of squid or prawn-like aliens, those body plans are incredibly effective.

The universal overlords could even be a hyper-intelligent radio frequency for all the fuck we know about how this place works, so it's fun to speculate.

Loch Ness Monster 11/05/15 (Thu) 07:17:31 No.19416

File: 1446707851517.jpg (111.6 KB, 915x491, 915:491, colorful aliens.jpg)

I'd imagine aliens would have features and motives that are beyond our understanding. The media seems to love putting human looks and attitudes on aliens, but what if they're entirely different?

I like to think of Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space in this sense. You don't quite comprehend what the alien looks like, where it came from, its motives, or even what exactly its been doing to the land and animals, but it's having an obvious negative effect since they grow sickly and grey before eventually disintegrating. The closest description you get is the fact that it changes states from being solid, to gaseous, then to liquid. It also has an unusual brightness to it described as an unrecognizable color, which is most noticeable at night when it made the farm's well its home.

Even in this thread people are trying to narrow down what an alien's appearance could be by trying to place human features on them, but what if they have an entirely different set of sensory organs? What if they perceive the universe in a completely different manner? What if they interact in a way that's foreign to us?

But if I pushed all that shit aside, then their appearance would depend on their ability to adapt to their environment over time such as aquatic features for water planets and all that. I would personally be fascinated if they were horrible abominations that somehow manage to survive in the vacuum of space without any machinery. Aside from that, nothing that hasn't already been stated here by smarter people.

Bloody Mary 11/06/15 (Fri) 19:41:44 No.19455

File: 1446838904503.jpg (135.39 KB, 620x491, 620:491, 776sxhVQ.jpg)

>>19416

Most likely there are a few types of life that can come about. That said I don't think that the one we ended up with on Earth is going to be particularly uncommon throughout the universe since we're made up of some of the most common materials in existence. Something to consider in the "aliens will be very alien argument", is that very different lifeforms can look very similar on the outside. So a creature with a body with a different set of organs composed of completely different cells made up of exotic elements can still LOOK like something you might encounter on Earth just by the virtue of certain body plans being universally desirable.

I do think that aliens will look nothing like they do in popular media, but that doesn't mean that they will look impossibly strange and be altogether unrelatable. There are certain laws that evolving intelligent life must abide by to make it to the top of the food chain and as a result some body plans are competently ruled out and some social structures are completely ruled out. The sorts of creatures that stayed in the game long enough to make it to outer space will almost certainly have at least some "human" traits to them even if not of the sort that popular media would like them to have.