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scientific researches

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The Mystery of the Third Planet, 1981, R.Kachanov

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The Mystery of the Third Planet, 1981, R.Kachanov

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Ryan Britt is a science fiction journalist and associate editor at Inverse, based in New York.

In 1979, none of the promotional material for the film "Alien" showed moviegoers even a glimpse of the titular creature.

The star of this monster movie in space was invisible up until the moment people actually bought tickets and went into theaters. 20th Century Fox employed this strategy because it wanted audiences to be completely surprised by the way the monster looked.

The gamble paid off. Thirty-eight years later, the design of the xenomorph creature from "Alien" set a new standard for how science fiction films depict extraterrestrials.

This month, the extraterrestrials from the "Alien" film series return to terrorize film audiences in "Alien: Covenant." But the nightmarish look of the alien will hardly be shocking.

Even non-fans of science fiction these days can recognize what is supposed to be styled as an "alien," to the point where the telltale signs of a creature from other worlds have become somewhat expected.

So, why do different aliens look the way they do? And what will they look like in 20 years? Below is a look at the art and design of some of film's most memorable extraterrestrials.

An alien by any other name is an artist

Originally hired in 1973 by Alejandro Jodorowsky for conceptual work on an unproduced cinematic version of "Dune," artist H.R. Giger was instrumental in creating the disturbing design for Ridley Scott's "Alien." Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the novelization of the film, says Giger's artwork was "critical to the success of the film and its successors."

Boldly going ... to Earth!

Dangerous and aggressive aliens come in all shapes and sizes in "Star Trek." From 1987 to 2005, makeup artist Michael Westmore created over a hundred different aliens -- many of them menacing -- across four "Star Trek" television series.

"The eyes and mouth are the communicative windows between the aliens and the humans," he says. Writing in his memoir, "Makeup Man," Westmore reveals he based some of his "future forehead designs" on real "dinosaur vertebra."

The devil's in the 'Star Wars' details

After creating primitive apes for "2001: A Space Odyssey," Stuart Freeborn designed the vast majority of the aliens in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, including the famous face of Yoda. But because Freeborn was briefly hospitalized in 1976, many of the background aliens in the original "Star Wars" cantina scene were repurposed creatures originally meant for other films.

'Grey' aliens

Historian and expert on UFO ephemera Jack Womack (author of "Flying Saucers Are Real!") describes the large-oval eyed-aliens, "grey" aliens, as part of a change in the way extraterrestrials were depicted by both true believers and filmmakers like Steven Spielberg. "'Close Encounters' aliens were very indicative of the shift going on at the time," he says. "From aliens being a mystery to aliens being our friends."

Seeing tentacles

The heptapod tentacled aliens from "Arrival" represent a divergence between science fiction aliens and aliens reported by supposed eyewitness accounts. Tentacled aliens are "more prevalent in science fiction," Womack says.

"There's a long tradition of squishy cephalopodic aliens that predate anything in Lovecraft." Womack also thinks the prevalence of humanoid aliens among true believers is cyclical. "If people are familiar with little green men, they will see little green men."

The future of aliens might be in the past

Aliens in films or television 20 years from now might not look too different from the ones invading our screens now. Like the cycle of fashion itself, certain aliens will always come back around.

"From the beginning of time, alien images, or what is supposed to be an alien image or symbol, has appeared in the art of various historical cultures," Westmore says.

And from Giger's hissing, acid-blooded Alien to the friendly, wrinkly Spielberg-style E.T., aliens with limbs, eyes and mouths will continue to visit us on TV and film. At least until real ones arrive.

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how depictions of aliens have evolved - cnn

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Wrinkles, tentacles and oval eyes: How depictions of aliens have evolved

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Ryan Britt is a science fiction journalist and associate editor at Inverse, based in New York. In 1979, none of the promotional material for the film "Alien" showed moviegoers even a glimpse of the titular creature. The star of this monster movie in space was invisible up until the moment people actually bought tickets and went into theaters.

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In its bid for our ticket-buying dollars, Hollywood has long sought to reach into our pockets by giving us films that appeal to our current sense of hopefulness or fearfulness.

Over the years, one of the most reliable mechanisms for doing that has been the alien, the evil, destructive invaders hell-bent on laying waste to everything we hold dear ( The War of the Worlds, say) or the inquisitive visitors curious to make our acquaintance and see what they can learn from us and our experience ( Close Encounters of the Third Kind, maybe).

And to many, the extent to which these film aliens have been friend or foe has had a great deal to do with our general emotional state of mind.

"I think that it goes in waves," said Yair Landau, the former president of Sony Pictures Digital. "There was a wave of benign aliens around E.T. and Starman...Then there was a wave of, 'They're out to destroy us' aliens, like in Indepdence Day and the remake of War of the Worlds. It depends on whether we're looking for fear or reassurance as a society."

In 1951, Twentieth-Century Fox released director Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still. In that Cold War-era film, we meet an alien, Klaatu, who has come to express, in the most soothing terms possible, that if we proceed with our nuclear weapons proliferation and are seen by the galactic consortium Klaatu represents as presenting a threat beyond our own atmosphere, we will be destroyed.

Even as he delivers this mortal threat, Klaatu, played by Michael Rennie, comes across as sympathetic, even benevolent, as he really, really wants to give us humans some say in what happens to us. He seems really to care, as expressed by his budding friendship (would it have become romance?) with Helen Benson, played by Patricia Neal, and the urgency with which he strives to deliver--even in the face of a belligerent U.S. military--his message that we have some say in our fate.

Next month, Twentieth-Century Fox will release a remake of the film, this time directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu.

This time around, Klaatu is here to tell us that the galactic consortium has had it with humans' mistreatment of our own planet, and he has come to explain that, effectively, his colleagues have taken the side of the Earth over the humans. Large-scale explosions and destruction ensue.

Why would these beings from outer space care so much about the health of the third rock from the sun? That's not entirely clear, said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute who worked for a time as a scientific adviser on the film.

"The (aliens) come down...trying to save the planet, but saving the planet requires them to obliterate the problem threatening the planet," Shostak said, "and in this case, that's not just SUVs and coal-fired plants."

In the 57 years between versions of The Day the Earth Stood Still, aliens covered a lot of evolutionary ground, so to speak, in how they've been portrayed. Some of that ground has had to do with the world's emotional makeup and some has had to do with what has been possible from a technological perspective.

For example, the look and feel of the aliens in a film like the remake of The War of the Worlds have almost nothing in common with those of the original. What originally had to be built using crude models and special effects is now done to exacting detail with computer graphics. And these advances put a lot of pressure on filmmakers today to keep the audience's attention with a story while those in the old days could do so much more with the novelty of on-screen aliens, no matter how rudimentary they looked.

"Anything you can conceive of can be (computer generated)," said Landau. "Just blowing stuff up, or just having an alien creature itself, is not very compelling...We're (now) able to give aliens a much higher complexity, so you can imbue them with character...Now you can make us believe almost any physical destruction you can think of and you can make us believe in any sort of 3D CGI environment. So it's all about whether you can drive compelling story and performance."

Our friends the aliens
Further, as Landau put it, the story has to fill in gaps left by the fact that people view aliens--who have long stood in for foreigners, or the "other"--as less threatening. And while that presents writing challenges to filmmakers, it also opens doors to a whole new era of stories in which aliens can more easily be presumed to be friendlier than in the past.

An example of that might be Contact, the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film in which Jodie Foster plays a scientist scanning the skies for intelligent life. Upon discovering a far-away civilization, Foster interprets messages sent to us as instructions on building a monumental transporter that will allow us to travel to the aliens' distant world. And while the film gives a nod to the inevitable military suspicions of the aliens' motives, it is the optimistic view that carries the day.

"Aliens in fiction are exaggerations of our hopes and fears about ourselves," said Mike Kuniavsky, a co-founder of the ubiquitous computing device company ThingM. "If they were genuinely alien, they wouldn't be particularly interesting because we wouldn't be able to understand them."

To Allan Lundell, a co-founder of the DigiBarn computer museum and a former editor of Byte magazine, the question of how aliens are depicted has very much to do with the financial considerations involved in how people's fears and hopes resonate at any given moment in time.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger was popular as a good Terminator, keeping us safe from the evil sentient machines and the ever-present Skynet," Lundell said. "But soon, he will be facing serious competition from a new hero, Ramona, a sentient cybernetic being hatched from the inventive mind of Ray Kurzweil, in his upcoming feature release, The Singularity is Near. Much cuter than Arnie, she saves the world from a nano grey goo attack while showing us what love beyond biology is all about."

The question here, Lundell poses, is whether an artificial intelligence construct can be considered an alien. Given that the term "alien" in this context is generally assumed to be a creature from another world, that's open to debate. But his point is a good one, as Ramona, as Lundell described her, is certainly the other.

Yet even as cybernetic others will be increasingly making their way onto the silver screen, it's almost certain that malevolent aliens of a traditional kind will also be making regular appearances, despite the fact that we, as a people, are becoming more and more comfortable around those with whom we aren't familiar.

And why?

"Aliens have a bigger role today as bad guys in film," Shostak, of the SETI Institute, said, "because once the Soviet Union collapses, who are you going to make as bad guys? You can make certain (nationalities be) bad guys, but it's a little hard because everybody's so culturally sensitive. And aliens don't have any advocacy organizations that are going to protest (outside) your theater if you make them the bad guy."

Today, it seems, Hollywood has decided to apply that approach even to well-worn stories like The Day the Earth Stood Still.

For where the Klaatu of 1951 adopted a concerned facial expression as he explained to humanity that he wanted to save us, Reeves' 2008 Klaatu seems content to dispense with us as the only way to save our planet.

And while there might be some truth to that conclusion, it's not very benevolent, at least from the humans' perspective.

Perhaps, suggested Lundell, that's because we haven't been in a very optimistic mood the last few years, an idea backed up by opinion polls showing that vast majorities of Americans, at least, think things have been going very badly. But if things begin to look up, then perhaps the benevolent alien will return in force.

"From my perspective," Lundell said, "ultimately the greatest revelation about aliens is that 'they' are 'us.' It's just that some of us don't quite know that just yet."

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In its bid for our ticket-buying dollars, Hollywood has long sought to reach into our pockets by giving us films that appeal to our current sense of hopefulness or fearfulness.

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actually why can't i find some good illustrations/paintings/fine art featuring aliens except comics
why it seems a theme only for some "low genres" in visual art since like 70s

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The Scariest Aliens Ever from Sci-Fi Films

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When it comes to scary aliens, science fiction has never failed us. From the xenomorphs of the "Alien" films to the titular Killer Klowns from Outer Space, the sci-fi universe is chock full of terrifying extraterrestrials to choose from. But not all alien monsters max out our "scare" meter at Space.com.

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Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is one of many tools that talented artists and filmmakers use to help better tell their stories. CGI is not created by the push of some magic button. It is the culmination of careful thought, design, experimentation and the pure creativity of artists. The impossible becomes reality and when done well, evokes wonder and awe as it transports the audience deeper into the story...

Let's quickly clarify the difference between CGI and computer animation. CGI encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images.

The history of CGI goes back to the 1950's, when mechanical computers were repurposed to create patterns onto animation cels which were then incorporated into a feature film. That first film which used CGI was Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO (1958).

Thanks to the amazing and comprehensive website COMPUTER ANIMATION HISTORY-CGI over 250 examples of the first instances of every CGI method are chronicled with video examples covering the last 60+ years. Every filmmaker and artist should visit this website and Youtube channel to go down the rabbit hole...

18 of my favorite CGI moments in film history: FIRST COMPUTER ANIMATION EVER - VERTIGO (1958)
John Whitney used a WWII anti-aircraft targeting computer on a rotating platform with a pendulum hanging above it to create the spiral elements in the opening sequence. With graphic designer Saul Bass, Whitney created the first computer animation in a feature film.
FIRST EXPERIMENTAL COMPUTER ANIMATED FILM - CATALOG (1961)
John Whitney created this film to build up his demo reel. This inspired Douglas Trumbull and his VFX work in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
FIRST DIGITAL MORPHING - HUMMINGBIRD (1967)
To demonstrate the morphing of hummingbirds, over 30,000 images were created and animated for the final film.
FIRST DIGITAL ANIMATION IN A FEATURE FILM - WESTWORLD (1973)
John Whitney Jr and Gary Demos digitally processed motion picture photography and created the pixellated POV of Yul Brynner's gunslinger robot.
FIRST PARTICLE SYSTEM COMPUTER ANIMATION - COSMOS (1979)
Jim Blinn worked with Carl Sagan to create these animations including these spinning and interactive galaxies made from CGI particles.
FIRST CGI SPACESHIPS - MAGI Synthavision Demo (1980)
MAGI was formed in 1966 to evaluate nuclear radiation exposure. This technology was the basis for the first CGI spaceships.
FIRST MOTION CAPTURE CGI ANIMATION - THE JUGGLER (1981)
Presented at SIGGraph 1981, this demo led directly to Richard F. Taylor's involvement in Disney's TRON one year later in 1982.
FIRST FULL HUMAN BODY REALISTIC CGI - LOOKER (1981)
The futuristic computer scanning scene of Cindy (Susan Dey) was the first full human body CGI imagery ever.
FIRST COMBINATION OF CGI AND LIVE ACTION - TRON (1982)
First talking and moving CGI character (Bit). First combination of CGI character and live action character. First extensive (15 minutes) of fully computer-generated polygonal animation in a movie (Light Cycle sequence). First fully CGI background.
FIRST MOTION BLUR EFFECT - ADVENTURES OF ANDRE AND WALLY B (1984)
Motion blur - a post-processing effect that blurs and streaks moving objects in a photograph or sequence of frames. Rendered on a Cray X-MP/48 supercomputer and ten VAX-11/750 superminicomputers from Project Athena, provided by Cray Research, the fastest computer in the world at the time.
FIRST LIQUID METAL COMPUTER ANIMATION - CRANSTON/CSURI CLOCK DEMO (1985)
Computer scientist Chuck Csuri and investor Robert Cranston Kanuth formed the American computer animation company CCP. The liquid metal effect was later used by James Cameron in Terminator 2 (1991).
FIRST PHOTOREALISTIC FLUID MORPHING - THE ABYSS (1989)
Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) spent 6 months to create the 75 seconds of computer graphics needed to bring the creature to life.
FIRST HUMAN SKIN CGI ANIMATION - DEATH BECOMES HER (1992)
Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) used the first human skin CG software to replicate skin and link it to a body and head together with a digital neck.
FIRST DIGITAL FACE REPLACEMENT - JURASSIC PARK (1993)
Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) not only created the first photorealistic CGI dinosaurs but at the 0:42 second mark, you can see the digital face replacement for Ariana Richards' stunt double as she hangs from the ceiling.
FIRST 3D BULLET TIME - SMIRNOFF COMMERCIAL (1996)
Created by BUF Compagnie for this Smirnoff commercial that aired in the UK. Three years later THE MATRIX (1999) popularized this technique of using still cameras to capture individual images then playing them back in sequence.
FIRST USE OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY IN A MOVIE - GODZILLA (1998)
Wire-frame 3-D models were created from photographs or real, still objects. The photos were then re-employed as texture maps, augmented with additional paintwork.
FIRST CGI DE-AGING - X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006)
For the opening de-aging effect, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen gave the Visual Effects Experts pictures of themselves as younger men, so that the computer program "LOLA" could make them look younger.
FIRST CGI BODY REPLACEMENT - CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)
Paul Warren was used in pre-production to help develop the 'Skinny Steve Rogers' effect by CGI supervisor, Christopher Townsend, as well as one of the 'Skinny Steve' on set stand-ins.

The evolution and merging of analog to digital filmmaking has embraced so many innovative and new solutions to creative challenges. CGI is a liberating tool that can amplify the story and show us all new worlds. By revisiting the past...we can learn from the giants and break new ground in the future.

The 18 CGI filmmaking breakthroughs I shared above are only the tip of the iceberg. There are another 200+ CGI stories waiting for you HERE.

Until next time...
Vashi Nedomansky vashivisuals.com

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The Ultimate History of CGI in Film | VashiVisuals

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Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is one of many tools that talented artists and filmmakers use to help better tell their stories. CGI is not created by the push of some magic button. It is the culmination of careful thought, design, experimentation and the pure creativity of artists.

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(Image: © YU Jingchuan from Beijing Planetarium)

In a year when mysterious monoliths literally appeared out of nowhere, you'd think the first real detection of alien life would be a stone's-throw away. Well, 2020 didn't bring any little green men, but it did bring astronomers closer to finding extraterrestrial life than ever before. From organic molecules turning up around the solar system to mysterious radio signals finally being traced back to their source, here are some of the biggest findings of the year about where aliens may be (and definitely aren't) hiding in the universe.

There could be alien life in the clouds of Venus

In September, Venus became the most popular planet on Earth when scientists discovered possible traces of the molecule phosphine in the planet's atmosphere. On Earth, phosphine (made from one phosphorous atom and three hydrogen atoms) is mostly associated with non-oxygen-breathing bacteria, as well as some human activities. The molecule is produced naturally by gas giants, but there's no good reason why it should be on the hot and hellish world of Venus, the researchers concluded - unless, perhaps, there is some sort of life breathing it into the planet's mysterious clouds?

... But it's not likely

Exciting as it was, the phosphine discovery was met with strong skepticism from the scientific community. For starters, it's not even clear that the researchers detected phosphine at all; their observations contained so much noise that something mimicking phosphine's chemical signature could have appeared by accident, John Carpenter, an observatory scientist at the Atacama telescope in Chile, previously told Live Science.

And even if the reading was accurate, phosphine could very easily be created totally randomly through a number of geological processes that don't involve life at all, said Lee Cronin, a chemist at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. The processes that shape Venus' scorching surface and sky are largely a mystery, and one trace of an inexplicable molecule is, sadly, not enough to confirm alien life exists there. Significant study of the planet is required to solve this chemical conundrum.

There could be 36 alien civilizations sharing our galaxy

How many intelligent alien civilizations are lurking among the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way? According to a study published June 15 in The Astrophysical Journal, the answer is 36.

How did the researchers arrive at that number? By taking a fresh stab at a decades-old alien-hunting riddle known as the Drake equation. Named for astronomer Frank Drake, who debuted the equation in 1961, the puzzle attempts to guess the likely number of alien civilizations in our galaxy based on variables like the average rate of star formation, the percentage of stars that form planets and the much-smaller percentage of planets that have the right stuff for life. Most of these variables are still unknown, but the authors of the new study tried to resolve them with the most up-to-date information on star formation and exoplanets available.

Their result? There are precisely 36 planets in the Milky Way that could host intelligence life similar to that on Earth. But even if the researchers nailed all those unknown variables, it'll still be a while before we meet one of our intelligence neighbors; assuming an even distribution of civilizations throughout the galaxy, the closest one is 17,000 light-years away from Earth.

And more than 1,000 alien stars could be watching us

Will they find us before we find them? We could find out in this lifetime. Two stars on the list host known exoplanets, one of which will have a direct line of sight to Earth in the year 2044.

But while we hunt for alien worlds, are aliens also hunting for us? That's the question that motivated an Oct. 20 study in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in which astronomers calculated the number of alien star systems that have a direct line of sight to Earth - and therefore could be watching us right now.

The team calculated that approximately 1,000 star systems within about 300 light-years of Earth could feasibly see our planet as it passes between their location and Earth's sun. Those sky-watching aliens would see our sun dim as Earth passes over it, just as humans have detected thousands of exoplanets by watching for suddenly-dimming stars in the night sky. What's more, if those alien astronomers have similar technology to ours, they could even detect traces of methane and oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which would be potential signs of life, the researchers noted.

Aliens aren't responsible for FRBs (at least, not this one)

Fast radio bursts ( FRBs) are millisecond-long pulses of radio light that blast through space thousands of times a day. Until recently, nobody had any idea what they were. Could it be aliens, pulsing the jets on their hyper-speed spacecraft? The idea had crossed at least one astronomer's mind. But for better or worse, that idea may be dead after astronomers successfully traced an FRB to a known source in the Milky Way for the first time ever.

The source, it turns out, was a magnetar: the fast-spinning, highly magnetized corpse of a long-dead star. For thousands of years after their formation, these temperamental objects cycle through periods of violent activity, beaming powerful pulses of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation into the universe around them at seemingly random intervals. While astronomers were watching one such outburst, they also caught an FRB beaming out of the dead star. Perhaps not all FRBs in the universe come from magnetars (aliens, you're still on notice), but this discovery goes a long way toward solving a decade-old mystery of the cosmos.

White dwarfs may be alien strongholds

About 4 billion years from now, Earth's sun will swell into a red giant, then collapse into a small, smoldering white dwarf. This fate is inescapable, and the odds of humankind fleeing to another star system are near-impossible. Maybe, if we're still around at the time, we could find a way to harness the dim light of our dead star and keep on trucking as a civilization. And maybe, a paper published earlier this year to the preprint database arXiv suggests, other alien civilizations are already doing the same.

White dwarfs have been largely ignored in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the paper's authors claim, as a dead star is unlikely to host a thriving civilization. But white dwarfs do sometimes have planets in their orbit - and a highly advanced civilization might be able to make their tiny sun work for them, even after death. Astronomers therefore shouldn't cut white dwarfs out of their SETI equations, the authors write; in fact, maybe we should be looking to them first.

Aliens might not breathe oxygen

Another underrated target in the search for alien life: oxygen-free planets. While it has been long assumed that alien life needs air to breathe, a study published May 4 in the journal Nature Astronomy argues that maybe "air" and "oxygen" aren't always synonymous. Hydrogen and helium are far more common elements in our universe (Jupiter's atmosphere is 90% hydrogen, for example), so what if an alien species evolved to breathe that stuff instead?

It turns out, it may be possible. The study authors exposed a type of non-oxygen-breathing bacteria called E. coli to two different "atmospheres" fabricated inside some test tubes. One set of flasks was pure hydrogen, the other pure helium. They found that the bacteria were able to survive in both conditions, though their growth was stunted. This experiment "opens the possibility for a much broader spectrum of habitats for life on diverse habitable worlds," study author Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT, wrote in the paper.

Aliens (probably) didn't build 'Oumuamua

The strange, cigar-shaped rock named 'Oumuamua has puzzled scientists since it was first spotted in our solar system in October 2017. The object was traveling too fast to have originated in our solar system, and seemed to be accelerating for no good reason. Some astronomers - particularly Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb - said it could be an alien spacecraft, powered by a paper-thin sail. That theory met with ongoing skepticism this year, however, thanks to several studies that describe the object's potential natural origins.

One of the leading theories: 'Oumuamua is a "hydrogen iceberg" - essentially, a solid chunk of hydrogen gas that strayed away from its local star and into the icy heart of a giant molecular cloud. After leaving the core of the cloud, the berg was battered by radiation and molded into an elongated shape. Once it entered our solar system, hydrogen began boiling off of the icy rock, causing it to accelerate without leaving a visible trail of gas. It's a tantalizing theory that explains many of 'Oumuamua's quirks; still, Loeb believes aliens are the more likely explanation.

Four worlds hold the most promise

In our solar system, four worlds seem to have the right stuff for the possibility of life. The foremost is Mars - one of the most Earth-like worlds in our solar system. Earlier this year, a large lake was detected beneath the southern polar ice cap, giving new hope that tiny microbes could be present there (assuming they have something to eat).

The other three candidates are all moons: Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan. Like Mars, Europa hold the promise of water; its surface is a vast expanse of ice, which may conceal a gargantuan global ocean more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) deep. Enceladus, too, is an icy world that may holds liquid water deep beneath its surface. Recently, gargantuan geysers were spotted spraying water, grains of rocky particles and some organic molecules off of the moon and into space. Titan, meanwhile, is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere, which is rich in nitrogen - an important building block of proteins in all known forms of life.

Alien hunting just got a little harder

On Tuesday, Dec. 1, the Arecibo Observatory's iconic radio telescope in Puerto Rico finally collapsed, after hanging on by a literal thread for nearly five months (two mysterious cable-snapping incidents in August and November left the telescope in dire condition).

The tragic collapse ends Arecibo's 57-year legacy of searching the cosmos for signs of extraterrestrial life. In 1974, the telescope broadcast the now-famous "Arecibo Message," declaring the technical prowess of humanity to any intelligent extraterrestrials that might be listening. So far, there have been no answers - but that message to the stars inspired the 1997 film "Contact," in which the Arecibo telescope plays a starring role. The telescope's loss leaves a gap in SETI that won't easily be filled.
Originally published on Live Science

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Here's what we learned about aliens in 2020

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(Image: © YU Jingchuan from Beijing Planetarium) In a year when mysterious monoliths literally appeared out of nowhere, you'd think the first real detection of alien life would be a stone's-throw away. Well, 2020 didn't bring any little green men, but it did bring astronomers closer to finding extraterrestrial life than ever before.

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Time: Why Real Scientists Think Aliens Would Never Eat Humans

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Time: Why Real Scientists Think Aliens Would Never Eat Humans

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Why Real Scientists Think Aliens Would Never Eat Humans

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While Hollywood suggests we should expect to battle aliens, science tells a different story

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Science Focus on "What would alien life actually look like?"

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Science Focus on "What would alien life actually look like?"

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Our Universe could turn out to be a pretty wild place. Recent astronomical discoveries suggest that billions of Earth-like planets are dotted throughout our Galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies in the Universe. "Our best estimates are that one in four stars have a planet that is the same size and the same temperature as the Earth. That's very high," says David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, US.

And many scientists now think there is life on at least some - if not many - of those planets and their moons. One of them is Dr Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, who says that we can assume that life is widespread based on "two simple facts".
Read more about alien life:
First, the chemical elements of life, such as nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, are widespread in the Universe, as are the two key compounds of life on Earth: liquid water and organic carbon. Second, we know that life was present on Earth very early in its history - soon after the planet was formed - which suggests that once the conditions are right, life springs up easily and quickly.

"If the origin of life is widespread, then complex life will be widespread," says McKay. That means we might expect to find more than just single-celled microbes out there. "The best way to find out is to go look."

Some scientists and entrepreneurs are already thinking about how to get to distant stars quickly. Yuri Milner, a Russian tech entrepreneur, came up with the Breakthrough Starshot project, which proposes that tiny chips could be attached to craft propelled through space by an intense Earth-based laser. If it works, this would cut the travel time to the closest star system, Alpha Centauri, from 100,000 to just 20 years. The first tests of early designs took place this May.

In the meantime, two NASA missions are set to shine light on the atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars (exoplanets), pinpointing those that could harbour life. The TESS mission started collecting data this year, and the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch in 2021. "We know virtually nothing about the actual conditions on those planets," says Charbonneau. These two missions will change that.

Visions of other worlds

Some of science's brightest minds have already brainstormed what we might expect to find, and their conclusions formed the basis of two cult documentaries, Natural History Of An Alien and Alien Planet, which first aired in 1998 and 2005 respectively. The two films inspired many people to think about how other life may be similar and different on other planets. Indeed, some scientists are now trying to lay down the science of not only how life-as-we-now-it would be different in space, but also of what exotic life that was made of other chemicals might be like.

These shows parted with the common fictional view of sentient green aliens, and they applied rigorous thinking by evolutionary biologists, biomechanics experts and astrobiologists to design plausible living worlds within the restrictions of alien geology and planetary science. Many scientists think the unlikely-sounding creatures dreamed up for these shows two decades ago are still as good a guess as we have for what alien life will look and behave like. Though, with myriad of discoveries since, we also now have new insights that paint an even wilder picture.
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"On any planet in the Universe the laws of physics and chemistry will still be the same as here," says Prof Peter Ward, a palaeontologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. "There's only a limited number of ways to beat physics."

Even in outer space, he argues, on an Earth-like planet there would be similar physical constraints leading to the evolution of similar life to what we have on Earth. The premise is that there are only so many ways one can efficiently see, hear, walk, swim or fly - and that natural selection will largely weed out inefficient body plans, as it has on this planet.

This means we can make educated guesses about what such life would look like, based on our biological understanding of evolution, and our geological and climatic understanding of conditions on other planets. Most of the scientists interviewed for this feature said the educated guesswork in the TV programmes mentioned previously might not be too wide of the mark - if anything, those visions might be too tame, given the potential for the vast amount of life that might have evolved on very different planets.

"The Universe has a way of surprising us," says Theresa Fisher, an astrobiologist at Arizona State University, US. "My suspicion is that, with a range of environments that we could be looking at, it could feel very alien."

She says that any life would be expected to follow the broad principles of ecology: it would need to have a way of getting energy, and there would be competition leading to the emergence of predators and prey, for example. But beyond that, it's anyone's guess what life might look like. "There's no reason that it would have to be particularly similar to what we see on Earth."

Stranger things

So we can't really say that alien life would look like Earth life. Even on Earth, life gives rise to radically different, sometimes unique life forms at different times and in different places.

When dinosaurs went extinct, what came after them wasn't more of the same. And the flora and fauna of New Zealand, with kiwi birds and practically no land mammals, are very different from those of the Serengeti, with its elephants and giraffes, or Madagascar with its lemurs.

For unique life forms on Earth, look no further than seahorses, says Dr Lauren Sallan, a palaeontologist at the University of Pennsylvania. The animal shares basic components of other fish but has a unique shape, and reaching that form required a very unlikely evolutionary pathway. "You do get weird things that happen once - both now and in the distant past," says Sallan.

On an Earth-like alien planet, things could get even weirder. It's possible that we wouldn't even recognise them as life, given that our current efforts focus on finding "life as we know it", says Casey Brinkman, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii: "There's all sort of possibilities out there for weird stuff."

Sallan agrees. Any life forms will have to get energy, but the way they would go about it is hard to predict, she says. "They would be filling similar ecological roles, but whether we would recognise them without a lot of study - I doubt it."

So to start with, astronomers are focusing their search on signatures of life that we know from Earth, such as oxygen. They're also focused on finding Earth-like rocky planets where liquid water could exist. "We have to begin with a search for life as we know it," says Charbonneau.

"There could be life that's very different than life on the Earth, but we wouldn't recognise that in our data, because we don't know and understand that chemistry very well," he adds.

When gravity meets biology

There are many different conditions on other planets and moons, beyond chemistry, that could affect how life would evolve there. Take gravity, for example. On a bigger or denser planet, the gravity would be higher, meaning that life would evolve to be shorter, sturdier and perhaps with multiple limbs for structural support. Conversely, on a lighter planet with weaker gravity, life could hop, soar and glide more easily, and would be more likely to evolve a lighter, taller build.

The density and chemical makeup of the atmosphere would affect how easy it is for life to take to the skies: denser air would allow for more life forms treating the sky like an ocean they can 'swim' in, while oxygen-rich air would fuel more energetic creatures.
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The seasons could be vastly different, too. Many planets have much shorter orbital periods than the Earth's 365.25 days, speeding up seasonal changes to weeks or days rather than months. Some planets have more elliptical orbits that would make seasons much more extreme, with scorching, short summers followed by long, deep-freeze winters.

The type and number of stars a planet orbits, as well as how closely it orbits them, would also affect how much solar energy and radiation it receives, and whether photosynthesis is possible or whether life would have to instead rely on chemosynthesis - using energy derived from reactions involving inorganic chemicals rather than sunlight.

The majority of stars are red dwarfs, says Charbonneau, which are less energetic and more durable than our Sun, so could offer longer time periods for life to evolve. But, early on in their evolution, such stars emit a lot of radiation that could be harmful to life and planets' atmospheres, or even eliminate them. Alien Planet envisaged life around such a star as plant-like creatures that could fold up to protect themselves when there are solar flares, and dinosaur-like animals with a third eye on top of their heads to give them early warning that a burst of radiation is on its way.

Closer to Earth, many scientists hope we'll find life in space within our lifetime, possibly on the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, such as Enceladus and Europa. "I'm willing to bet you a flat white that in the next 20 years we'll find some life," says Dr Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, US. "It will probably be microbial life squirting out of Enceladus or maybe Europa, or maybe under the sands of Mars: there are all these places in our own Solar System where we could find this stuff."

NASA is preparing a mission to Europa for a 2023-24 launch, and is backing a private endeavour to reach Enceladus and study signs of life there. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is hoping to launch a mission to Jupiter and its moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa in 2022.

There is early evidence that those moons have oceans of liquid water deep under their icy crusts. This has raised hopes that there might be life there, especially given that we see oases of unusual life in the extreme environments around hydrothermal vents at the bottom of our own oceans.

Indeed, Natural History Of An Alien suggested that entire ecosystems may be based around deep-sea thermal vents on Europa, with tall towers of bacteria powered by the warmth and nutrients from the vents rising high above the sea bed, and territorial fish-like grazers sucking the nutrients from those towers, and in turn being preyed upon by streamlined shark-like animals.
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In principle, this vision might be possible, says Dimitar Sasselov, astronomy professor and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, US, a centre that supports multi-disciplinary research aimed at revealing if life is abundant in the Universe. But he adds that because there is less energy available in the dark ocean, so any complex life there would be expected to be much smaller.

"You have to take anything from today's Earth and recent Earth history of complex life and just shrink it," he says. "Can you have exactly the same behaviour and the same level of complexity but 100 times smaller? Absolutely. What's wrong with a shark that's just 5cm long? Nothing."

Not everyone thinks life on those moons will be complex, though. "If there is life in the Solar System, it's probably microbial," says Dr Yael Kisel, support scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. And scientists agree that most life in the Universe as a whole is likely to be microbial, especially given that for the majority of the history of life on Earth it has been microbial. "What does a typical alien look like? It's going to be a little blobby thing under a microscope," says Shostak.

That's not to say there won't also be complex, perhaps even sentient life. Any intelligent life might not look like us, though: even here on Earth, if you take a trip to the zoo, most animals there are highly related to you but don't look much like you. But as Shostak jokes, "If you ask trilobites: 'Hey, what do you think the aliens will look like?', they would probably figure they're going to look like trilobites."

In fact, highly advanced and intelligent life, if it exists, might be machine-based. "The majority of the intelligence in the Universe is probably not soft and squishy biology," Shostak says. "The majority of the really smart staff in the Universe is going to be machinery." This vision of artificially intelligent, highly autonomous machine life featured in Natural History Of An Alien, imagining it travelling the Universe, analysing planets, and adapting to local conditions much quicker than any biological life ever could.

Whatever the case, life is most probably out there, many scientists believe. "Statistically, it's almost a certainty," says Fisher. And this means the search must go on, says Brinkman.

"We should continue to try - because if it were to get discovered, it would be the most important discovery humans have ever made."

Listen to our podcast with Mike Garret, the Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, on the search for extraterrestrial life:

What aliens might look like

Scientists have long speculated about what living creatures on other planets and moons might look like, based on what we know about those planets and the principles of evolution and biomechanics. Here are some of the strange organisms they have imagined...
Walking plants
On other planets the boundaries between plants and animals could be blurred, and you might have trees with beating hearts, or with feet to move to better positions as they compete for light and water. You could also have an animal that spends most of its time staying still, photosynthesising, only running away if threatened. Or a massive dinosaur-like creature that splays itself out on the ground to get nutrients directly from the soil, and obtains extra energy with the help of photosynthesising plants on its back.
Mega creatures
Cooperation could lead to some fascinating creatures, such as a sea of amoebae acting as single jelly-like mega-creature, thousands of voracious shrimp-like carnivores forming a single organism that devours anything in its way, or a web of intertwined trees that collect water in wide pitchers at the top of their canopies. Similar entities do exist on Earth: for example, the world's largest organism is a 43-hectare forest of aspen trees in Utah, comprised of about 47,000 genetically identical stems, and one massive root system.
Extreme Endurance
Getting oxygen to muscles is a key determinant of an animal's endurance. Here on Earth, cephalopods like octopus use a copper-based molecule in their blood to shuttle oxygen, making them more sluggish than mammals and birds that use iron-based haemoglobin. Scientists have speculated about other types of oxygen transport that could make animals fitter: in atmospheres with more oxygen, we might see creatures that can fly without ever having to stop for a rest.
Tiny, blind worlds
On cold planets and moons without much sunlight, such as the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, life might have to get by with chemosynthesis, giving them a more limited energy supply. This could still lead to similarly complex life, but on a much smaller scale: a miniature version of Earth's life. Also, in worlds without light, such as the depths of Enceladus's oceans, there might be little need to evolve eyes: whole worlds of creatures may exist that sense their environments using other means.

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What would alien life actually look like?

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Our Universe could turn out to be a pretty wild place. Recent astronomical discoveries suggest that billions of Earth-like planets are dotted throughout our Galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies in the Universe. "Our best estimates are that one in four stars have a planet that is the same size and the same temperature as the Earth.

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an article about literally same idea rooted in star trek universe (covering cheap production of ST)

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an article about literally same idea rooted in star trek universe (covering cheap production of ST)

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One of the most common criticisms of Star Trek over its long and storied history has been its somewhat limited physical portrayal of its aliens, but there are multiple purposes for that ostensible shortcoming. Star Trek is home to some of the most iconic alien species in all of fiction; the emotionless Vulcans, the duplicitous Romulans, and the violent, honor-obsessed Klingons are all part of the cultural lexicon at this point, with characters like Spock and Worf appreciating their status as household names. Yet even those species are aesthetically defined by what amounts to some fairly basic prosthetics glued onto actors' heads.

Most science fiction franchises at least attempt to implement some non-humanoid aliens, perhaps most famously utilized in Star Trek's biggest competition in popular space fiction - . With very few exceptions - we'll get to those in a moment - there's nothing like fish-man admirals or tiny green Jedi warriors in Star Trek. Over the years, the franchise has established both real-world and in-fiction reasons for the physical similarities, some more convincing than others.

Related: Star Trek: When Did Picard Take Over From Kirk?

With Star Trek looking to expand massively as season 3 moves into the far future, Picard reunites The Next Generation fans with Jean-Luc, and even more TV shows are in the works, we can expect many more humanoid aliens. Here's why the future doesn't go as bold as you'd expect.

The Real World Reason: Most Star Trek Was Cheaply Made

To invoke Star Wars again, this is a franchise that never flirts with billion-dollar movie grosses or ratings dominance on television. Star Trek: The Original Series first aired for three seasons starting in 1966 on NBC. Despite a devoted cult following, the show struggled to maintain an audience and TOS was ultimately canceled after season 3. Due to its relative underperformance and the fact that special effects were limited even for the most lavish productions of that era, the crew of The Original Series had to get innovative. The show's most omnipresent extraterrestrial, the Vulcan Spock, was made to look alien with fairly simple ear prosthetics, shaved eyebrows, and a bowl cut. The original Romulans looked essentially identical to Vulcans, meaning they simply borrowed Spock's prosthetic and makeup design. Even the original Klingons were just actors with fake beards and dark makeup on their faces; most of those actors were white, which makes watching those episodes in the 21st century more than a little uncomfortable.

Star Trek: The Original Series made a few attempts at non-humanoid aliens, with mixed results. The best was likely in the beloved episode "The Devil In The Dark," where Kirk and Spock attempt to hunt down an alien that is gruesomely murdering workers on a mining planet. The creature is eventually revealed as the Horta, a misunderstood alien simply trying to protect its young. The Horta itself was played by Janos Prohaska, who created many of the special effects for the show. The Horta was intended to appear as a creature of living rock, but ended up looking more like a giant pile of burnt cheese. Still, Prohaska managed to make the Horta seem alive, and the seriousness with which William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy acted alongside the Horta made that particular experiment a success. Less impressive efforts include the Alfa 177 Canine species seen in "The Enemy Within," which was basically a small dog in a wig.

Related: Picard's Dog Is A Brand New Addition To Star Trek Canon

While their efforts were shaped by practical, real-world limitations, this simplicity would go on to define the look of the franchise for the next six decades. When Star Trek was revived for the small screen in 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation spruced up some of the alien looks - the Klingons now had their iconic forehead ridges - but for the most part, the designs from TOS were simply updated and make to look a bit sleeker. The Vulcans have remained physically unchanged for the entirety of Star Trek's run - the Sarek in Star Trek: Discovery looks just like the Sarek seen in The Original Series.

The In-Universe Reason: Star Trek's Aliens Share Humanity's Ancestor

While Star Trek: The Next Generation was more than happy to continue in the aesthetic footsteps of The Original Series, it eventually became a more thoughtful, meditative show than its predecessor. In the season 6 episode "The Chase," TNG establishes an in-fiction reason for why humans and aliens look so similar. Captain Picard is delighted by a surprise visit from his archeological mentor, Dr. Richard Galen. The doctor wants Picard to accompany him on an important archeological mission, but Picard declines.

Soon after, Galen is killed by a Yridian ship for reasons that are not made immediately clear. Picard eventually realizes Galen had found a piece of an ancient puzzle and wanted Picard's help in solving the mystery. As they investigate Galen's findings, the Enterprise finds itself accompanied by Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian ships also looking for whatever Galen discovered. Eventually, the four parties pool their resources and find an ancient, uninhabited planet. On the planet, they are greeted by a holographic message recorded by a long-dead humanoid species. The message explains that this civilization existed billions of years ago, but that they were utterly alone in the universe. In an effort to create similar civilizations, the ancient race seeded their DNA across the galaxy, meaning that humanity and most of the galaxy's humanoid alien species shared a common progenitor.

Related: Predicting The Next Generation Crew's Future In Star Trek: Picard

The notion of sharing ancestry disgusts the Klingons and Cardassians, but the Romulan commander offers the thinnest of olive branches to Picard in the aftermath, suggesting that their peoples have more in common than they understood, and peace between humanity and the Romulans might one day be possible. "The Chase" not only offered a perfectly acceptable fictional explanation for all those prosthetic foreheads, while also seeding a possible relationship between Picard and the Romulans, rumored to be a major plot point in the upcoming Star Trek: Picard.

Humanoid Aliens Are Part Of Star Trek - And Always Will Be

It's unlikely Star Trek is ever going to dazzle audiences with creature effects. The modern interpretations have come close on a few occasions - Scotty's diminutive friend Keenser from the J.J Abrams films and Star Trek: Discovery's Saurian Lieutenant Linus look like they would be at home in a Star Wars production. But the iconic alien aesthetics - the Vulcan ears, the Klingon forehead ridges, the Ferengi earlobes - are all low tech, practical work. Some of them may have been modified over the years - like Discovery's highly polarizing, Orc-looking Klingon redesign - but that aesthetic simplicity still tends to cut through.

That low budget, DIY-feel is part of the DNA of Star Trek. It's the smaller-scale, more thoughtful science-fiction franchise, almost never relying on space battles or fistfights to tell the kind of stories it was meant to. And in the age where CGI surrealism dominates not only science fiction, but just about every genre movie and TV show in existence, there's something comfortingly tactile and real about actors performing Shakespearean dialogue with faces covered in rubber.

The explanation offered in "The Chase" is great for fans who like everything to make perfect sense in their fiction, but the blunter real-world explanation is just as thematically important as the fictional one, embodying the franchise's underdog status, that while plenty of science fiction franchises aim for the cheap seats, Star Trek is defiantly specific, a sharply focused vision of a better, more optimistic future. Let's just hope there's a lot of spirit gum in the 24th century.

Next: Will Discovery's Secret Be Known In Star Trek: Picard?
About The Author

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Star Trek's Crazy (& Brilliant) Reason Why So Many Aliens Look Human

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One of the most common criticisms of Star Trek over its long and storied history has been its somewhat limited physical portrayal of its aliens, but there are multiple purposes for that ostensible shortcoming.

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an article with a self-invented theory of why most of aliens in star trek could look human-like (as alien characters look in movies)

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an article with a self-invented theory of why most of aliens in star trek could look human-like (as alien characters look in movies)

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https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-only-sci-fi-explanation-of-hominid-aliens-that-makes-scientific-sense

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Popular Mechanics article "What Do Aliens Actually Look Like"

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Popular Mechanics article "What Do Aliens Actually Look Like"

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'Fundamental Shape-Shifters'
The expert: Nnedi Okorafor
Street cred: Sci-fi author
What do aliens look like?
"Three things are generally intrinsic about human beings: 1. We think we know everything. 2. We think everything is about us. 3. We need things to be about us in order to care. Thus, in most of our stories about aliens, the aliens come because of us (be it to kill, enslave, or study us) or to take things that are dear to us. We are also usually the first who make contact with the aliens, and they almost always look something like us or like something familiar to us.

"I believe aliens exist. However, I don't pay much mind to the little-green-men mythology. I don't think aliens have to be humanoid, carbon-based, or even alive by our definition of alive. Human beings aren't made to survive in space. If aliens arrive on Earth here, it means they have survived in space and have the means to adapt to our atmosphere. I think it highly possible that they'll be nothing like us.

"In my novel Lagoon, the aliens that show up in Lagos, Nigeria, are fundamental shape-shifters with consciousness and control all the way to the molecular level, and their molecules do not resemble or operate like anything Earth-based. They use matter (whatever that matter is and wherever it comes from) and they adapt to wherever they are. And their wants and needs and methods of going about their business are wholly foreign to humans.

"I don't see why aliens couldn't be microscopic, only be seen at wavelengths beyond human detection, be built in a way so outside of human understanding that to look upon them would cause one to faint. I don't think aliens have been, are, will be what we are expecting."

'Neck? Not at All Necessary'
The expert: Harry E. Keller
The street cred: Former chemistry professor, Northeastern University
What do aliens look like?
"Somewhere in the universe, there must be, have been, or will be other advanced civilizations. The chances of anyone alive today seeing or even communicating with them are very slim. However, such problems should not stop us from imagining what they might be like.

"First, a real alien is bilaterally symmetrical, endothermic with excellent manipulative abilities, and has a hard container for a brain.

"Eyes? Of course. You have to see to build a civilization. The squid has better eyes than we do, and the eye seems to have evolved separately a few times at least. Our alien will have eyes that may only resemble ours superficially. A lens and iris are almost an absolute requirement. The whites do not have to be white. Neither does the iris have to be colored in anything like the way ours are. How many eyes? One just will not do. Inability to perceive distance will lead to rapid extinction. Unless you can find a good reason for it, extra eyes create evolutionary baggage and will not persist, spiders not withstanding. Eyes being important, they will be recessed and capable of being covered, as necessary. Our aliens are not likely to be bug-eyed, although we cannot totally rule that out.

"Nose? An alien must have the means to breathe. It must be symmetrical. The nose does not have to be in the middle of a face, although that is convenient for some purposes such as sharing the air pipe with a mouth for times of exertion. You can imagine other arrangements.

"Mouth? Must have means for ingestion of food. All large animals have some means to capture and swallow food. Some masticate it; others do not. Teeth are rather common on Earth but other systems of eating are possible. The problem is that plants and animals have been in an evolutionary war for millennia. We inherit the outcome of that war. Teeth were necessary to eat plants that became more fibrous, an evolutionary reaction to being eaten. There are other ways to sheer off plant food, such as what birds do. They 'chew' in their gizzards.

"Legs? Most certainly. Other means of locomotion will be relatively slow and be relegated to armored animals and of those living in holes. Neither of these lifestyles will lead naturally to greater intelligence. How many legs? In our case, we adapted the forelegs for manipulation from animals with four legs. No land animals with endoskeletons have more legs. The implication is that aliens with two legs are more likely than those with four.

"Fur? Hair? Feathers? Scales? Something else truly alien? The skin covering could be anything that makes sense. Real feathers are not so likely. Because feathers are used for flight, brains will be small. Scales are unlikely because they are particularly well-adapted for ectotherms, although a scaly sort of skin might be possible. Fur versus hair is hard to sort out because of my inherent bias. Fur has good reasons for being that are not related to intelligence. If furry, our aliens probably have short fur.

"Head? If you define head as a bony enclosure for the brain as well as the location for eyes, nose, and mouth, then it's likely. The nose could be located above or below the mouth. Above works better for swimming, but that's not a strict evolutionary requirement.

"Neck? Not at all necessary. Useful to swivel the head, but you can imagine other ways to look around. It's an annoying place for big cats to grab and strangle you with their powerful mouths.

"Arms? You must have something with which to manipulate things. Tentacles are unlikely because of their inability to perform fine manipulation. They usually have suckers on them and a very different purpose than toolmaking. The number of joints could be greater, and the direction of bend could be different.

"Fingers? You must have a way to grab tightly and a way to pick up small objects and twist and turn them. Two fingers are probably too few. Five is overkill. Three or four (as cartoon characters have) is about right. Our three joints in our fingers is about right. One would not do. Two, as with our thumbs, is unlikely."

'It Might Be Quite Overwhelming'
The expert: Tobias Buckell
Street cred: Sci-fi author
What do aliens look like?

"Aliens with pointy ears and bumpy foreheads are a way for Hollywood to save money by applying prostheses to human beings and to move forward with the plot. It seems strange to think the truly alien would look anything at all like us. And yet there are examples of parallel evolution in nature: the eye of the octopus being identical to that of a human being a famous one. Some speculate that an alien evolved to have a civilization similar to ours would have a similar form.

"We have examples of aliens right here on Earth to look toward that might give us a hint of what an alien intelligence would look like. Octopuses and squids exhibit startlingly intelligent responses and learning, and the form of their bodies is designed for an environment alien to our own. Tentacles and large brains seems to be a fantastic form for low-gravity or aquatic environments. Creatures that may communicate by flashing colors across their skin. Science fiction has a long history of exploring hard-to-understand tentacled horrors.

"An article about the gears found in plant hoppers' legs has gotten a lot of attention online. The idea of biology and evolution already using cogs leads one to wonder what else might exist. Minds that evolved silicon circuitry through natural selection? Steampunk, radiation-powered life forms that we couldn't even approach? Thought experiments can get rather mind-boggling. Nature always surprises.

"Talking and reacting to alien behavior will be the hardest. We already struggle to keep patient enough to understand other cultures and differences within our own human cultures. Dolphins, octopuses, elephants-these all seem to be higher-order thinkers, yet we cannot communicate well with them nor do we particularly share the planet well. What will an alien encounter be like? How will their actions seem?

"In short, I'd assume things would be easily misunderstood, as we all come with an existing load of baggage about such an encounter. And their actions will depend a great deal on the environs they come from, and the nature of their groups. Are they solitary? Or prefer herds or small bands? What would be the mind of an intelligent predator who normally lives alone? If we do find other life, I have to assume that it would hint that a great deal of life is possible. We may encounter all of the above. Creatures like us, and yet so different from us we can barely understand them. It might be a plethora of minds and body types, much like the world is filled now with a wide variety of intelligences and forms. It might be quite overwhelming..."

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Experts Are Revealing What They Think Aliens Actually Look Like

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Advertisement - Continue Reading Below 'Fundamental Shape-Shifters' The expert: Nnedi Okorafor Street cred: Sci-fi author What do aliens look like? "Three things are generally intrinsic about human beings: 1. We think we know everything. 2. We think everything is about us. 3. We need things to be about us in order to care.

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https://kosmopoisk.org/articles/performances/msemenova_izuchenie_kosmopoiskom_fenomena_krugov_na_polyah_v_2013_godu_1780.html

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/91682806@N07/8987493103/in/photostream

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full list of aliens from MIB

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IGN is your site for Xbox One, PS4, PC, Wii-U, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS, PS Vita & iPhone games with expert reviews, news, previews, trailers, cheat codes, wiki guides & walkthroughs

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pic + weird article about ancient imagery with somenting alien-like
https://paranorms.com/ufos-and-ancient-aliens-in-art/?amp=1

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great big list of movies in chronological order

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eyewitness evidences

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https://www.ural.kp.ru/daily/26540.4/3556782/

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Перевал // The Pass, 1988  Vladimir Tarasov / Kir Bulychev

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Перевал // The Pass, 1988  Vladimir Tarasov / Kir Bulychev

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Mars attacks! 1996, Tim Burton

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aliens used as common metaphor of everything vs pure  entertaining scifi content

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low-budget visual decisions in sci-fi
// visual effects in sci fi before good CGI

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traditional visual images of extraterrestial life

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visual features of alien life in soviet movies