What would you imagine a possible extraterrestrial species to be like?

When fantasizing about E.T. creatures, we run into anthropomorphic problems- which is, all the E.T.'s

tend to look in some way or other humanoid.All the drawings of supposed aliens seen by witnesses

might have big heads and eyes with small child-like bodies,or be green or some other color, but

they still have humanistic traits. Plus, any other type of life form-plant or animal-looks like something

we've seen before, though it's usually scrambled up in order to make it look scary. Artists can come

up with some great concepts of what alien beings might look like, but they're all going to look like,in

one way or another, something we've seen or dreamed ,or been told about before. Of course, E.T.'s

might look just like us- Lady Gaga- for example! Now, that would be scary.

P.S. In case some misunderstood me, let me clarify my statement. I'm not saying that E.T. life, if

encountered, would look anything like us. In fact, if it did ,that would be as amazing as finding life

elsewhere itself. WE could have looked completely different than we do if just a few simple things

had occurred differently during the evolutionary process. All I'm saying is, we're biased toward things

looking like we know them here on earth. Look at E.T. himself(the movie) or the creature from ALIENS,

a combination of insect and reptile with human- like intelligence. E.T.life could be a bubble-like

being, floating through an alien atmosphere, eating nitrogen and sulpher and emitting carbon dioxide

as a waste product.( Paraphrasing Carl Sagan). Who knows?.

Yeah, thats all pretty far fetched. Except about extraterrestrials existing. We've found over 600 planets in other solar systems, with more accurate measurements all the way. As for time travel...Well, this is the fun part. Space..Time..These things are just the desperate attempts of mortals to try to apply pattern to chaos. We see the darkness. And we are afraid. And we make stories to bring these events closer. to apply agency where none was, to make the dark seem a little less dark. Because you know what? Whats really out there? is more terrifying than you can possibly imagine. I will tell you whats out there. Our universe is flat with a 0.5% margain of error. This means it is spatially unbound. It goes on forever. Literally. It is boundless in three dimensions, and theres no end to "space." And thats the least scary part. In the milky way galaxy, there are 200-400 billion stars. Our galaxy has a diameter of 100,000 light years. When you get past our galaxy, you find not a handful. Not a cluster. You find 160 BILLION galaxies. The stuff you speak of? The ideas you have? Protection. Protection from the darkness. We are all so small. Terrifying, is it not? But those are just words. Im giong to link you a picture. Its a bit of a wait to load it, but I assure you, quite worth it.

I would guess that microbial life would be highly similar across the Universe, at least when looking from the outside. There is absolutely no reason that DNA/RNA would be the genetic carrier molecules. Proteins, sugars, and polysaccharides are quite likely, however, in my mind. We are descended from worms, and worms would be common on other planets, I believe. As you get more complex from worms, the sensory organs need to be in the front, so the brain would form just behind the sensors. Limbs of some sort would be necessary. At this point, could a species form that was linear with limbs like a fish, or more spherical with limbs, like an octopus/starfish/jellyfish/spider/crab? Sexual reproduction would be the norm, in my opinion, due to the accellerated evolution of sexually reproducing species. The use of Calcium Phosphate for our bones and teeth was quite by accident. Other compounds that could have been used for bones include limestone/marble, quartz(diatoms use this for their outer shells), polysaccharides such as wood or chitin, and maybe even biological carbon fiber technology.

Any intelligent technological species would need to have a prehensile hand or something similar, although such structures have evolved in many forms on our planet, from a spider monkey's tail to the two thumbs and 3 fingers of the hand of the Koala bear and the chameleon lizard. The panda bear uses an elongated wrist bone as a thumb substitute, and the elephant has evolved the tip of its nose/trunk into a thumb. Crabs and lobsters have pincers/claws, and many species use their mouths/beaks for hand-like uses. Octopuses use tenacles and suction cups. Vision is so incredibly vauable that any intelligent alien will most certainly be able to see, with eyes located close to the brain/head.

Many scientists believe that the velociraptor dinosaurs were evolving in the direction of humanhood here on Earth, with prehensile hands, bipedal locomotion, with the individuals existing and hunting in tribes/packs, with rapidily expanding brains. A humanoid species could have evolved from these that had reptilian skin and reproduced by laying eggs.

Mark Twain once said, "Truth is often much stranger than fiction. This is because, those of us that write fiction are constrained to write about what is believable and plausible, whereas mother nature is in no way under such a limitation."

It is fun to think about.

Actually, there would be no reason to find similar body shapes (not species) on other planets, if they are like Earth to sustain life. This is called Convergent Evolution. A good example of that is in the book WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE by Jerry A. Coyne.

There are actually ETs and aliens that exist... Sites listed below:

http://arealiensreal.org/types-of-alien-extraterre...

http://extraordinaryintelligence.com/1783/the-unex...

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1448.htm

http://www.think-aboutit.com/Aliens.htm

http://asiaparanormal.blogspot.com/2010/12/10-clas...

Just to list a few!! I have actually seen numerous amounts of UFOs... alien-made AND man-made...

And you probably think I'm crazy so I'm going to stop now...

Questions? Email-- CynthiaKay_3@yahoo.com

Love and Light,

Cynthia Kay.♥

M/b life other than carbon based. Not different from us in proportion, but many alternative features possible...creep instead of walk, suction cups, x-ray vision or infrared vision, right-brained majority, chlorophyll present...y/n

If aliens are technologically advanced as we believe they must be to navigate extreme distances, they know enough to stay away from the primitive class 0 civilization.

we always have a very chauvinistic view of life as we thin of life in earth concepts. If we look at the variety of life in earth from a very small cell to animals and know that life exists in extremes of our planet, life can take on any form and could even look like a rock, but may be totally different.

Extraterrestrial life would probably be so different from the living things we know that we wouldn't even recognize the extraterrestrials as being alive. It might look like molten lava, or flame, or a chunk of iron.

I think you're reaching a bit there. Still, you have an excellent point, that if extraterrestrials are out there they almost certainly don't look like us and aren't bipedal humanoids.

I picture a race of six-legged critters that look to us like giant spiders (minus a pair of legs, to the biologically aware).

Have you seen this creature? There are still "aliens" to be found right here at home apparently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1HJiWzZzMI