How Will We Recognize An Alien

Timothy McSwain

When I think of an alien, I think of logical men with pointed ears and eyebrows with green blood. Seriously though, I doubt any extraterrestrial beings (if even beings at all) we come into contact with will be very different from us. Not just with weird marks on their face like Star Trek and Star Wars, but like the companion from Star Trek TOS or the Crystalline Entity from Star Trek TNG. (Yes, Im a Trekkie... what gave it away?)

Life forms with a physical being could be Silicon-based, for example, which seems most logical as a Carbon-alternative in the limited minds of humans. They could also be based on Helium or Neptunium, for all we know, or an unknown element that doesnt exist on Earth.

Humans tend to be extremely narrow-minded. Again back to Star Trek, intelligent aliens sometimes tell the Starfleet Officers that it is racist (real racism, since there is only one human race and judging people by skin color is stupid) to call aliens "humanoid". If the Klingons invade Earth and take control, would you want them to call you Klingonoid? My point here is not to reference the best Sci-Fi universe ever, but to point out some things that arent often thought about when concerning aliens.

I guarantee there is life outside of Earth, and not counting the urine ejected from the Apollo Spacecraft or the matter weve left on the moon. The universe is infinitely large, it is immature, selfish, and closed-minded to assume we are the only ones.

My last interesting point is a religious one. Personally, (Im a Proud Christian) I think there could easily be other intelligent cultures, probably not human, who have their own creation stories having been created by the same (and the only) God. That means those cultures would likely have their own bibles, which could contain similar or entirely different moral standards to guide that culture like it should be. I offer that as an interesting idea for believers to ponder.

So whether we come into contact with anything like this or not, I am convinced it is out there. I also am convinced there is no guarantee we would recognize them, in fact it is very likely we wouldnt.

See question on Quora