Scientifically Plausible Aliens

hello there guys and thank you for joining me today on my new series scientifically accurate where I examine how science is represented in the media in pop culture and see if it's accurate or not today let's talk about aliens well how much diversity can you get with these guys as you may have noticed aliens are everywhere in pop culture hundreds of movies video games books feature aliens constantly the popular idea of an alien is kind of basic if you have a noticed bipedal human looking two arms two legs but what if we were to discover real alien would any of our predictions of extraterrestrials be correct so before we look at how aliens are displayed in the media let's take a look at some history and find out where exactly the modern image of aliens came from the word alien originates from two Latin words that mean belonging to another it describes a foreigner outsider or stranger it also describes something unnatural or out of the ordinary but most people normally associate the word with something not of this earth this understanding of the word is fairly recent for the longest time most humans believed that there were no other planets therefore no other life other than that on earth in the early 1708 that God could create life elsewhere in the universe throughout the centuries many Christian religions start to believe that God had made many humans across the universe when the humans of Earth were only one part of the God's master plan until the 1800s aliens were not mysterious creatures but human beings living on other earth this idea would most likely influence the public's view of aliens in the future during the mid to late 1800s the view of aliens changed as science such as evolution and biology became more prevalent many scientists concluded that alien life completely unrelated to humans could evolve from small cellular organisms on other planets it wasn't until 1897 when HG Wells wrote his book War of the Worlds that aliens became a popular idea among the people the first actual concept of aliens impacted the view of aliens greatly the public's viewed extraterrestrials as violent unfeeling monsters running our destruction wells aliens called the Martians do to them originating from Mars are greatly different from the modern stereotype of aliens the martins were greatly influenced by Welles scientific knowledge the martins were squid-like creatures that had tentacle-like legs they were tall spindle lake creatures adapted to Mars low gravity the Martians did not speak and communicated by telepathy the Martians consisted of a brain lungs heart and blood vessels they had no organs for digestion therefore sustain themselves on earth by mechanically transfer using blood via pipettes from other animals notably humans they had no ears the Mars different atmosphere these Martians fit a pretty scientifically accurate description of aliens they were something unrecognizable to humans having many similarities and differences to that of most life on Earth as well as completely adapted to a planet different from Earth and for intelligence having manipulative hands and large observing eyes to help aid their growth of tool-making this fits a scientifically accurate description of an intelligent alien something that is strangely recognizable to us but is also unrecognizable to us this is what an alien would be like they evolved in a way to that of the octopi of Earth which is actually pretty probable octopi seem to have all the traits that an intelligent being would have they have arms that can manipulate their environment such as creating tools it is highly probable that the octopus body plan could resurface in an intelligent alien life form therefore fitting a scientifically accurate tone to Wells as novel but there was one problem his representation of aliens did not fit the religious ideas at the time and was not widely accepted also did not fit the scientific opinions of intelligence in the animal kingdom at the time the people of that time believed an alien should look more human if it were to be intelligent scientists at the time believed that the human body plan was the only perfect body plan to achieve intelligence in animals and other life-forms therefore rejecting Wells totally inhuman looking Martians this idea is extremely biased the scientists had a personal bias to intelligence and they believed that we were the only and perfect way to have intelligence and animals but the public didn't seem to take one of his ideas to create what they thought was an accurate alien believe it or not it was not the Martians that inspired the public in the small portion the narrator talks about the Martians livestock which are extremely human looking the livestock were bipedal and resembled human beings it was said that this idea inspired the grey aliens the most popular view of aliens and the most influential this idea most likely fused with another HD Welles story man of year million in the story it describes the future of mankind and not anything related to aliens the humans that the story described had evolved over a million years in the future resembling the grace greatly these humans had big heads and big eyes along with smooth naked bodies the two ideas mixed to create an inaccurate alien later called the greys these aliens are too human looking and greatly resembles something that came from Earth something that an alien would most likely not be something that came from another planet and had adapted to a completely different atmosphere and fight different predators and grow towards a different natural selection than us it would most likely look nothing remotely human think about it the human body plant is relatively rare in the animal kingdom there is almost nothing that walks on two legs and has an erect back like a human being in the whole world it is quite shocking to find out that such an iconic idea that would greatly influence the world's view of aliens can trace all of its origins back to a small short article in a journal not even speaking about aliens but future humans it has become one of the greatest misconceptions of pop culture in history due to their origins the grey alien perceived by the public are very inaccurate they originally were not meant to describe aliens but humans this incorrect stereotyped idea of aliens was strengthened by Welles second book the first men in the moon where we meet a race of humanoid aliens greatly resembling livestock from War of the Worlds these aliens were accepted by the non-scientific media and the biased science who believed an intelligent being should look more human thus starting the greatest misidentification of aliens over the years into the early 1900s aliens became a forgotten idea they were featured in movies and films every now and then but we're not as popular as they are today when they were featured they were featured as humanoid and resembling the greys it was not until the 1940s when aliens became a more popular idea than ever in 1947 the infinites Roswell crash occurred the classic gray aliens filled the public's opinions of extraterrestrials in the 1970s and 80s the public fell in love with the idea of aliens et alien in the film version of War of the Worlds can all trace their origins back to the grey alien featured in HD Wells's War of the Worlds and Man of the Year million so now that we've learned the history of the origin of all the public's perception of aliens let's talk about why this inaccurate idea was so highly accepted why is the human looking big eyed and big headed grey alien so popular in a way the grey aliens are a reflection of us first of all the humanoid body the greys two-legged two-armed in a wreck backed body is of course in reference to the data the biased idea that the human body form is the only body form for an intelligent being it began when Victorian scientists noticed the lack of intelligence in every animal on earth except for humans they believed this was due to humans having the unique features of two legs two arms and an erect back they applied this idea to things from another planet believing if an alien has intelligence too it must look human this idea of course was very biased and based on the opinion that humans are extremely special in the animal kingdom which they are not the scientists thought the human body plan was so unique it was common for intelligent beings this is called convergent evolution is when creatures unrelated in genes tend to evolve a similar set of traits this can be seen in sharks and dolphins pterosaurs and bats and Triceratops and rhinos they believe this some of similar conditions similar traits could be the same with humans and intelligent aliens who they assumed would evolve and adapt in a similar environment to humans to gain their intelligence these scientists did not account for octopi and dolphins which have intelligence very close to Apes but do not have any of the human features the modern scientists of today know that having a human-like body does not make you telogen in the animal kingdom the more scientifically accurate intelligent being would most likely look completely different in body form than a human most likely an alien would not have two legs two arms or in a wreck back the only thing modern scientists believe an alien must have to be intelligent would be a manipulative arm or limb to interact with the environment around it which makes sense so it can create tools and affect the environment next let's tackle the bighead the Grays are most notable for having a large vaguely human head this large head is also a misconception the popular belief is that a larger skull means more intelligent the Grays capable of space travel would probably be more intelligent than us therefore the common people think that they would have a larger head this idea is also inaccurate a larger brain does not mean more intelligent this can be seen in and earth oles and humans these two creatures are very similar but with one difference their skulls the Andrew dolls have a larger skulls than humans do and a larger head so with the common people's logic the Neanderthals would be smarter than us this is not the case Lynnae and earth awls were believed to lack creativity skills and we're less smarter than the smaller scold humans this means if an alien were to have a big head it doesn't mean that it's intelligent next we should talk about the greys eyes and skin their pupil is eyes and vote strangeness about the greys people--is eyes are natural to see any human it makes us unsure of what the creature is looking at we are unsure if it's looking at us therefore becoming a threat this causes your flight or fight response to kick in as your brain tries to decide if the human looking thing is human or not this is called the uncanny valley effect your brain notices many similarities to the human but also many differences the grey seem to have features drastically different than that of a natural human being but they do have some human attributes your mind is simply stumped at the sight it knows something is wrong and knows most of the problems but it cannot truly predict if the sight is entirely human or animal this creates the uncanny valley effect and creepiness towards the thing described hence the name this effect is heavily involved in the pop culture interpretation of an alien this same logic can be used with a reptilian skin of grace this also invokes strangeness making aliens seem more foreign unnatural and like a person with a skin condition causing you to be creeped out so to sum it all up the grey aliens are most popular because they mirror and invoke an unnatural feeling when we see them there are something so human that it scares us and that's what people want from an alien they want to relate to it but still feels kind of scared of it at the same time think of it this way when we want to feel an emotion or empathy towards something we tend to make it have cute puppy dog eyes or more favorable human characteristics this is why people tend to feel more emotion towards a kitten than an anglerfish you see the opposite logic can be used on grey aliens we want the aliens to make us feel uncomfortable and unnatural because they are aliens they are something that is foreign so the gray aliens inspired by Wells as original works are a sort of mish match of all the negative attributes and unfavorable human characteristics they remain vaguely human because we still want something that reminds us of ourselves to add even more uncomfort you see the gray aliens seem to fit on a scale between something that is almost human and almost alien we don't know if we should be afraid of it or not if we use this scale of between human and animal we can see that this scale is used commonly in movies and media and helps determine the response to the creature we are presented a grey alien would probably be in the center of the scale because it is something that we are not sure of the uncanny valley effect causes us to not know if we want to approach it or not we do not know if it's friendly or unfriendly so our response to it is neutral an alien like et would be closer to the more human appearance of an alien this is most likely due to as more human facial features as a creature approaches humaneness it becomes more approachable and likeable this is why aliens featured in children's films and films that we want to be attached to the aliens seem to look more and more human this can be used for the movie character Paul we can see as as mysterious people as eyes disappear he becomes more human and more approachable to our brains now something like a xenomorph looks considerably less human and more animal-like a xenomorph appears more dinosaur in posture and has completely lost a human looking face therefore he appears more animal and is instantly a threat to us is our natural instinct not to approach something that appears so animal so our brains completely shut off the uncanny valley effect and we know that this creature deserves a negative response something like HD Welles original Martians would be a little bit closer to the middle due to the humor looking faces they appear a little bit more human in their faces but everywhere else on their body seems to be something very animal-like the middle gray alien would most likely include the 2005 martians and the independence day aliens the prawns from district 9 would be a little bit close to the middle from the xenomorph but behind Wells as Martians this is due to their human-like puppy-dog eyes and their human-like body posture the predator would be a similar spot on the scale as they are sort of a reversal of the Martians they have a human body but a nonhuman head at the very end of the human likeness scale we would find the Navi from Avatar which appear like blue humans with cat ears and cat tails glued to them on the animal looking side we would see Barlow's extremely scientifically accurate aliens which appeared something completely animal and not human at all so now that we've destructed the origins of the pop-culture alien and why the pop culture alien is so popular what would a real alien look like so a real alien would probably look like something completely out of this world unlike anything you would imagine scientists picture an alien looking like a creature that lived in the early oceans of Cambrian Earth they picture something like anomaly cars or I don't even know how to pronounce that name a strange prehistoric shrimp-like creature with five eyes in a grabbing claw something that's completely unrelated to us and any other earth life our view of aliens is incredibly biased as most multicellular organisms of Earth descend from a single ancestor a species of backboned four-legged animals with their head in the front and their sexual organs in the back these are vertebrates scientists have destructed that instead of looking at vertebrates to see what an alien would look like we should look at something that's vastly different and unrelated to us the invertebrates such as starfish and insects these creatures are extremely unconnected to us in a genetic sense and have chosen a vastly different list of adaptations yet they have many of the same characteristics of other life on Earth despite being unrelated this is called convergent evolution as spoken before convergent evolution pretty much just says if a trait works it is most likely to show up similarly in an unrelated creature for example both vertebrates and invertebrates have joints and fangs spite not being related at all I believe this logic can be used to predict an alien an alien would appear to us something very animal and primitive yet probable in contrast the extremely human earth-like grace my best example of aliens portrayed accurately in the media are any of the aliens besides the Navi from Avatar these creatures have many of the characteristics of living creatures on earth would need they have noses eyes mouths and legs like most like on earth related to us or not the difference is the orientation of these organs think about it an organism needs a universal set of requirements a mouth to consume outside objects to obtain energy to sustain life this section of their body devoted to breaking down food and transporting it to other parts of the body a way to interact and sense their environment such as eyes ears noses or touch and lastly a way to transport themselves such as legs fins or wings this is probably the set criteria living organism would need to survive and probably the criteria and alien would meet the many probable alien creatures in Avatar are great examples of this they were all created by one man Wayne Barlowe Wayne Barlowe believes extraterrestrial life would look like strange dinosaurs with no eyes or mouths as seen in this book the expedition and the Discovery Channel documentary Barlow pictures giant beasts with bioluminescence covering their bodies sonic earholes - here instead of ears some would have mouths on their feet while others would have sharp tongues near their head even most of H P Lovecraft's monsters are pretty scientifically accurate we would probably find something in the outer reaches of the galaxy with multiple eyes tentacles and wings like his creatures these creatures are very unnatural but are probable and have the universal set of requirements an organism must have so far barlow's and CM codes means aliens seem to be the most scientifically accurate depiction of aliens to this date their aliens appear thing that look like nothing from Earth but have some adaptations that mirror something from Earth such as legs mouths and eyes but have many organs and vastly different areas finally we can wrap this up ok so my final deduction is that aliens are displayed very inaccurately in the media the classic gray aliens that is in everybody's head were a product of misidentification and bias they were created by a misunderstanding and were originally supposed to be humans from the future and not anything remotely alien as we learn the greys are not anything alien after all but a mirror of ourselves they are creatures created by us using all the negative attributes we find unnatural so this leads me to why you came here in the first place what aliens in the media are scientifically accurate well I would say anything that looks too human is off the list this includes Alf ET the predator the Navi the 2005 Martens the independence day aliens Paul almost all the mass effect aliens the vortigaunts the prawns and anything based on the grey aliens heck even our Lord Cthulhu suffers from humanoid itís the only humanoid alien that is not scientifically inaccurate are the Xenomorphs they have a reason to look humanoid this is due to them actually being human and alien hybrids after all in the movie the Xenomorphs are created by facehuggers a sword a larval stage of a xenomorph hugging onto a human host the face hugger seemed to release a virus into their host this virus acts like viruses on earth it uses the hosts DNA to create a chestburster xenomorph this method stops the body from trying to kill the chest burster with antibodies the virus tricks the host into thinking it's creating a human baby or new organ within itself this allows the chest burster to form inside the host without being killed by the hosts immune system the DNA borrowed allows the chest burster to take on a appearance of the host in this case a humanoid appearance this is why the xenomorph takes on the appearance of their hosts in the movies in a sense a xenomorph is not entirely alien after all this is actually a pretty scientifically accurate method this is probably the same method used by the thing to appear human in the movie the thing by borrowing the human DNA this is a method of reproduction called genetic swapping it is when one organism borrows DNA and genes from another organism this causes the new organism to have traits consisting of both organisms as said before this is incredibly common in viruses on the unicellular level the Xenomorphs and the things are just doing on a multicellular level it is incredibly probable that life from another planet would convergently evolve and acquire this mode of reproduction wait a second wait a second imagine if a facehugger attached to a whale or a t-rex what I also include the engineers from Prometheus being scientifically accurate due to them pretty much being human so finally grays and anything that has an erect back is nay and xenomorph Stelter things and most inhuman alien designs are yay so final answer is an alien would most likely look nothing like most of the aliens portrayed in the media the closest a humanoid alien would appear like would probably something close to resembling a dinosaur or something so I call this case scientifically inaccurate with most aliens being completely humanized and not anything being close to alien eyes anyways thanks for watching the first episode in my series scientifically accurate hope you enjoy tell me what you think like comment subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes in the future well before our end the thing is we can speculate deduce and infer what the image of alien life would appear like to us but the only way for us to get honest true answers is to start searching well we may have actually discovered aliens already believe it or not in December 1984 a meteor was found in Antarctica weighing almost two kilograms the meteorite was simply catalogue and given a name alh84001 at the time people did not know the importance of this rock the sample was ejected from Mars about seven million years ago and spent 11,000 years in or on the Antarctic ice sheets in this tiny rock from Mars lie what seems to look like the fossilized remains of bacteria Mars has long been inferred to be a planet that could support life but no proof has ever been seen until now it may be tiny and it may have died the same day it was given life but it is quite possibly maybe just maybe the first alien ever discovered

Channel: undefined

Views: 912,851

Rating: 4.785759 out of 5

Keywords: aliens, evolution, alien, ufo, speculativeevolution, science, space, Extraterrestrial Life

Id: i7H6uW2fb9Y

Length: 24min 7sec (1447 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/ChickenAndRiceIsNice]

The earliest account of large headed aliens is in modern Satanism, specifically, by Aleister Crowley for a creature called LAM.

http://www.boudillion.com/lam/lam.htm

There are some interesting similarities and differences between shamanistic creatures summoned by DMT / ritual magic and those we see in modern UFO encounters.

[u/CaerBannog]

This guy needs to learn the difference between "destructed" and "deconstructed". And "Martian" and "martin".

And to work on diction. And crossfading.

The original "Grey Alien" comes from a Polish Sci-Fi story in the 1930s IIRC.

[u/Kinis_Deren]

To the genesis of the modern grey alien, I guess could be added pre-Wells creatures from folklore, such as fairies, goblins, pixies and so on.

To the non-humanoid aliens in our media list should be added the Heptapod's from Arrival. Personally, because they depart so far from the humanoid form, I don't feel they even appear on the uncanny valley spectrum.

Whilst I agree with the basic premise that many of our imagined aliens are overly anthropomorphic in form, we should not forget that biological fitness will play an important part in the overall phenotype:

• Sense organs should be clustered near the processing center since signals travel at a finite speed in biological organisms. The shorter the path, the faster the response time.
• An olfactory sense organ near the point of ingestion ensures the correct/fresh food is ingested.
• Forward facing binocular light sensing organs provide for depth perception for threat evaluation and hunting.
• A head allows for efficient heat loss, especially for organisms with large brains, as well as an easy way to direct sense organs to points of interest.

This list is far from exhaustive, but what convergent evolution tells us is that given a similar set of environmental conditions, life will tend to produce similar optimal solutions through blind evolution. I see no reason why the same reasoning would not apply to extraterrestrial ecology too.