Alien Skull? Read, discuss, and run...

[shanejohnson02]

I think the whole ancient aliens thing is intriguing, but the evidence just doesn't add up to me. Humans have proven ourselves as a whole to be capable of some pretty incredible things when our minds are made up. Usually it's a religious or social ideal that makes us do great things (sometimes terrible/horrific things as well).

What I'm saying is I don't believe we needed aliens to teach us how to build pyramids, or stonehenge, or chichen itza.

 

[vampiregenocide]

Now, honestly, I don't think it's impossible that all of these ancient cultures elongated their skulls in order to mimic their "gods" from the stars.. I do think there's a lot of evidence laying around the planet that at least gives credence to the idea that the ancients were frequented by extra-terrestrial visitors. However, I wasn't there. I'm not going to defend that notion to the death, but I think its very silly to dismiss it, as if it's completely asinine.

With that said, I don't think that's an alien skull. Probably just an ugly little girl or something.

...and, to my understanding, extra-terrestrial visitors would be more or less human. As vampiregeneocide pointed out, there is SO much evidence at our disposal that illustrates the way nature seems to use blue-prints and patterns in a variety of places over space and time... if you believe that humans, along with all other life forms, are the result of random mutations, you're ignoring these patterns. I'm not a creationist, but I'm also not foolish enough to say that I understand enough about nature to call it a chaotic, random, purely 3D reality in which everything is easily explained with an incomplete model of physics.

Exactly. It's all a possibility.

Think of it this way, say you're an explorer from an incredibly advanced alien race. You've been through the same stages of social and technological evolution that humans have or close enough (Most likely, advanced alien races will evolve similar to us in the sense they'll have a bronze age, and iron age, nuclear age etc.), so you'll be able to relate to where another race is within their evolutionary path.

So as a member of this advanced race capable of FTL travel, you discover a planet of intelligent organisms who are still in a primitive technological stage. You could integrate yourselves into their society, but the cultural and technological gap between you would be so extreme it would be like trying to explain nuclear physics to a chimpanzee. Instead, you decide to give humanity a helping hand here and there, while not disrupting their own evolution too much. You have to allow humanity to make mistakes and learn from them in order to become strong and smart enough to one day be on a more equal level to your own race, so that you could integrate. You give the primitive humans some technology, help them build and educate them. They are of course thankful for this, however being so primitive they can only understand you in a way that makes sense to them, and that is to make you into some form of God. They may have little or no sense of the wider universe, and so to explain that you come from another planet in a spaceship would not make sense.

This relationship could continue for a while, with an alien race influencing and studying the evolution of mankind from the shadows. Obviously you can only be so subtle, and so sightings or records of these aliens go down in history as unusual events, referenced in the cultural records of man.

As the human race grows more advanced and it's understanding of the wider universe grows, aliens have to distance themselves. The humans would be able to understand them better, but don't have the moral capacity overall to be able to effectively deal with another species. Human kind is still hung up on religion, race and homosexuality, it can't even understand it's own species let alone another alien race. Not to mention their more advanced technology means they're more dangerous than ever. So aliens would have to be less of an influence, while still maintaining their study of humans with probes and small scouting parties.

This is what I believe is going on. Aliens have been studying our evolution for thousands of years, taking a more active influence when we were primitive and didn't understand what was happening, and distancing themselves once mankind got advanced enough that it could start clocking onto things. They are still studying us with probes and small scouting parties that some individuals see, but they don't come down and share their knowledge like before. Instead they're learning what they can about us while we advance to a level where they can officially introduce themselves. Chances are they know everything about us, and can speak our language. We just have to wait till we're ready.

That's my theory anyway. I'm not one of those guys who exclaims 'aliens' every time something odd is seen or found, I just think there's a lot of evidence to show that we are not alone, and they're closer to us than we think. And when the day comes when we do meet, I think we'll find so many similarities it will be frightening.

 

[Explorer]

See, though this has been debunked as a weird cultural practice, it does raise some cool questions.

That whole alien design it's referring to brings up the idea of how similar alien races might be to us. On earth, we've seen animals in completely different locations evolve similar methods to deal with similar problems. Just look at dinosaurs. Ceratopsians and sauropods are similar to the rhinos and giraffes of today. Despite being so different they involved similar traits.

Those creatures in different places might have evolved similar methods, but they also had similar mophologies to begin with. They also all started with life forms which have been on this planet since the beginning.

Herbivore, chambered stomach, regurgitation, chewing a cud... we know what that's going to look like, right?

Or do we?

We assume it will look like all the other herbivores in our area, because that's all we really are familiar with. The animal I'm describing looks like this:

Hmm. Not the same starting framework, and so it defies the expecations of most who live on most continents of the Earth.

Similarly, starting with a dinosaur or a mammal gets you a few basic morphologic details which are similar (large lifting surfaces, hollow bones), but that's it.

An intelligent species capable of building a craft only needs intelligence, and a way of manipulating the environment to get here. You could argue that any aliens who get here might need manipulators, like human hands, a crow's beak or an octopus' tentacles, but looking at the evidence of the Mars rock which landed with what appeared to be fossil microbes, one could even rule out intelligence and a manipulator as a precondition for getting here.

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As always, I'm a huge fan of the idea that humans are too dumb to figure stuff out, and therefore... aliens. Modern humans took a while to build in basic knowledge, but that's a matter of culture. Early modern humans were jsut as capable of learning things empirically, and of figuring things out. Even the pyramids (discussed here in the context of ancient aliens, started by Adam of Angels, and here in the context of humans using concrete) don't give any evidence of aliens, but only of a steady evolution of design in the various locations thanks to people learning as they went.

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Regarding the assertion that all cultures recognize the same things as aliens, I'd say that's only true when those cultures have contact with the same media. There was a guy who wrote a lot of tripe under the title Chariots of the Gods?, containing a lot of things which even his first-hand informants told subsequent researchers had been fabrications attributed to them. The alien astronauts in those books looked nothing like the current "greys" fad.

H.G. Wells was the first to come up with the "greys" trope, first in The Time Machine, then later in The First Men in the Moon, and even as a food source for the other aliens in War of the Worlds. It's occurred several times since, although its popularity really jumped up with the claims of alien abduction from Barney and Betty Hill. Having read of Betty Hill's faith in her husband, and that she was unaware that what she claimed was evidence of alien procedures on Barney, the sores and ulcers at the base of his penis, is recognized by medical science as a symptom of syphillis. (This last part came out when Betty Hill was at a UFO convention talking with a panel, and her presentation definitely shook a lot of people's faith in it being factual, as opposed to a confused but unintended untruth.)

BTW, you know how every so often "The Great Conspiracy" is brought up here, where things happen due to someone having a money motive? This story runs counter to that idea, as none of the "scientists" wanted to be quote in relation to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our day. An alien skull, validated by "scientists" who want to remain anonymous?

Sounds like a clash of "consipiracy theory" ideas....

 

[vampiregenocide]

There are always going to be creatures that evolve different ways of dealing with issues, some more unusual than others. However, nature as a whole seems to evolve certain traits generally depending on the niche that animal fills. I'm not saying alien races couldn't be completely different from what we would expect, I'm simply saying it isn't unlikely that they could be similar to us. I'm not saying they're going to look like people, just humanoid possibly. They could have six legs and wings for all we know, it's just a guess based on the fact nature tends to have it's way of dealing with things. The bat and the bird are a basic but valid example of that, though they share little other traits.

Not quite sure what you're trying to say with your second point though.

 

[Explorer]

My second point being that an intelligent race needs only a way of manipulating the environment, or my talking about Adam's point, previously put forth in this topic?

Now, honestly, I don't think it's impossible that all of these ancient cultures elongated their skulls in order to mimic their "gods" from the stars.. I do think there's a lot of evidence laying around the planet that at least gives credence to the idea that the ancients were frequented by extra-terrestrial visitors. However, I wasn't there. I'm not going to defend that notion to the death, but I think its very silly to dismiss it, as if it's completely asinine.

Adam was previously not able to bring any actual evidence to the discussion, but only speculation which ran along these lines:

This process is not completely proven. Therefore, aliens are likely.

Anyway, I wanted to respond to that assertion, that there is a lot of evidence, and to the assertion that it would be silly to dismiss the wildest speculation, as opposed to using wild speculation to dismiss the likelier explanation which already fits all the available evidence.

As that old Irish philosopher Willie o'Ccam said, entities should not be multiplied needlessly.

 

[Adam Of Angels]

Nah, you're just suggesting that your assumption is more likely than mine. That's all.

 

[vampiregenocide]

I actually missed that point, I was referring to what you said after.

An intelligent species capable of building a craft only needs intelligence, and a way of manipulating the environment to get here. You could argue that any aliens who get here might need manipulators, like human hands, a crow's beak or an octopus' tentacles, but looking at the evidence of the Mars rock which landed with what appeared to be fossil microbes, one could even rule out intelligence and a manipulator as a precondition for getting here.

I think that's a weak point. Microbes are not intelligent or complex life, which is what we're talking about here. And as for being able to manipulate your environment, yeah there are many ways animals do that, which is why I'm not saying that it isn't possible an alien race could evolve other ways of doing so. However, I'm simply saying that based on the fact nature seems to work from 'blueprints' in terms of solving environmental issues, it is possible that an advanced alien race might evolve similar traits as us in order to progress beyond regular sentient life. Hands enable us to have fine motor skills which is vital for an advanced race, so a beak isn't obviously going to do. An alien race would need something the equivalent of our hands.

 

[metalheadblues]

This is all that came to mind

 

[SirMyghin]

Man I love the alien theory stuff, but the problem is, all of those in support of aliens beg the question. They have a hypothesis, and they would like it to be true, so they choose 'evidence' to support it. I tend towards empyricism, logical falacies (see begging the question), are wasted time.

This is just another sorely afflicted human, or deformed (willing or not) by some variety of shaping. As mentioned numerously, stuff like this was popular in central America and such.

 

[leandroab]

 

[Stealthtastic]

Alot of primitive mayan cultures and what not would squish their childrens heads to show status in society.

 

[soliloquy]

i'm not reading the whole thread, but in several parts of the world, long heads are/were considered beautiful. as a result, parents used to tie strings around a babys head at birth, and kept adding more strings or weights that slowly stretched/squeezed the head. however, unlike the women in laos (at least i think its in laos) who put rings around their necks to shrink their bodies, making their neck look really long, these stretched heads wont really harm the baby.

 

[Explorer]

I think that's a weak point. Microbes are not intelligent or complex life, which is what we're talking about here. And as for being able to manipulate your environment, yeah there are many ways animals do that, which is why I'm not saying that it isn't possible an alien race could evolve other ways of doing so.

I was just trying to be open to, and to anticipate the suggestion of, the different possibilities of methods for alien life arriving on earth.

I didn't get into this, but as I was writing that, I was speculating about the virus which travels between cats and rats, and which causes changes in their behavior. (It's also suspected that the virus, or a similar vector, is the cause of schizophrenia in humans.) There's a similar virus which alters behavior in one species of fish and a species of bird which eats those fish. I also thought about Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for what it's worth. *laugh*

I kind of like this idea. An ant by itself doesn't demonstrate the intelligence of an ant colony/hill, but an entire colony works together and demonstrates intelligence at that higher level. Imagine a virus which, when it infects enough members of a species (perhaps even humans), then gains both intelligence and the ability to manipulate the environment. The individual virus germs wouldn't need intelligence at their level of scale.

----

Regarding whether a being could manipulate things the equivalent of fingers, I agree that some manipulators would be helpful for working with the environment and so on. I don't think they need to take the form of fingers, however. I went for examples of what other tool-using species here on Earth already use... including a beak. I omitted crustacean claws in all that, incidentally.

 

[Demiurge]

Man I love the alien theory stuff, but the problem is, all of those in support of aliens beg the question. They have a hypothesis, and they would like it to be true, so they choose 'evidence' to support it. I tend towards empyricism, logical falacies (see begging the question), are wasted time.

Indeed, and the theories themselves just seem to sneak-in some enormous assumptions in the first place- that aliens exist and a general menu of their supernatural capabilities. Let's prove the existence of aliens first, then if real look into what they're capable of, and then try to determine instances in history (and remote antiquity apparently) in which they may have participated and the technologies they have shared.

 

[Explorer]

Demiurge, great observation. This is similar to the assumption that if a deity/creator exists, it's in the form that that particular believer pictures.

 

[Adam Of Angels]

So, these topics aren't even worth talking about? We shouldn't speculate at all?

What if, like has been suggested, it's not possible to prove the existence of these aliens? What if they know what they're doing, intend to go undetected in any real, definite, obvious and tangible way, and are intelligent enough to successfully do so?
Does that mean we shouldn't even have a discussion about it?

Regarding the OP, I don't think we're looking at an alien skull... but why not talk about extra-terrestrial life anyway? From it may come observations that somebody hasn't considered before, and that may inspire them somehow. The cynicism coupled with elitism that shoots down these sorts of ideas is disgusting. It almost comes off as insecure - what's so threatening about these discussions? That an advanced race might have come here and in some way aided our ancestors is not at all impossible, and is both hard to prove and disprove, since we can't go back to those times, so why not have a discussion about it without the "reasonably minded" shooting down "the crack pot, tin-foil hat wearing, uneducated" crowd? If all of our minds only sought to disprove wild but harmless theories and ideas, I'm afraid we'd advance much slower as a race.

 

[vampiregenocide]

I was just trying to be open to, and to anticipate the suggestion of, the different possibilities of methods for alien life arriving on earth.

I didn't get into this, but as I was writing that, I was speculating about the virus which travels between cats and rats, and which causes changes in their behavior. (It's also suspected that the virus, or a similar vector, is the cause of schizophrenia in humans.) There's a similar virus which alters behavior in one species of fish and a species of bird which eats those fish. I also thought about Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for what it's worth. *laugh*

I kind of like this idea. An ant by itself doesn't demonstrate the intelligence of an ant colony/hill, but an entire colony works together and demonstrates intelligence at that higher level. Imagine a virus which, when it infects enough members of a species (perhaps even humans), then gains both intelligence and the ability to manipulate the environment. The individual virus germs wouldn't need intelligence at their level of scale.

----

Regarding whether a being could manipulate things the equivalent of fingers, I agree that some manipulators would be helpful for working with the environment and so on. I don't think they need to take the form of fingers, however. I went for examples of what other tool-using species here on Earth already use... including a beak. I omitted crustacean claws in all that, incidentally.

It's an interesting thought, not sure.

I'm not saying would definitely be fingers, but they would likely be very similar. There are many tool creating creatures on earth this is true, and some of them are extremely intelligent, however they don't have the dexterity that we have, and that limitation in turn limits their intelligence and their capacity to interact with and change their environment.

It is theorised that if squid and octopuses were able to come on land for extended period of time, they could eventually evolve into the dominant species on earth. They are immensely intelligent and their tentacles give them impressive motor skills. So I accept there are other alternatives to what we consider hands, like I said it's just a theory. I wouldn't be surprised if aliens have hands like ours, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had something different.

Indeed, and the theories themselves just seem to sneak-in some enormous assumptions in the first place- that aliens exist and a general menu of their supernatural capabilities. Let's prove the existence of aliens first, then if real look into what they're capable of, and then try to determine instances in history (and remote antiquity apparently) in which they may have participated and the technologies they have shared.

What we seem to be assuming here is that we're claiming we can prove these things. We're not saying that, I'm simply saying that it is a possibility that shouldn't be excluded. Of course, exhaust all earthly options before you start jumping to conclusions, but don't necessarily rule something out that is possible. I'm not one of those guys who is all like 'you can't explain that. People couldn't do that. ALIENS.'. I'm realistic. I accept that we're capable of a lot and some things are just lost to time. I just have a feeling that there's more going on than we know.

 

[BigBaldIan]

I kind of like this idea. An ant by itself doesn't demonstrate the intelligence of an ant colony/hill, but an entire colony works together and demonstrates intelligence at that higher level. Imagine a virus which, when it infects enough members of a species (perhaps even humans), then gains both intelligence and the ability to manipulate the environment. The individual virus germs wouldn't need intelligence at their level of scale.

If you haven't done so already I would suggest reading Steven Johnson's Emergence where he discusses such things as hive intelligence and how ideas propogate.

 

[Varcolac]

Regarding the assertion that all cultures recognize the same things as aliens, I'd say that's only true when those cultures have contact with the same media. There was a guy who wrote a lot of tripe under the title Chariots of the Gods?, containing a lot of things which even his first-hand informants told subsequent researchers had been fabrications attributed to them. The alien astronauts in those books looked nothing like the current "greys" fad.

Erich von Daniken. Mad bloke. However, if you strip away all the "and therefore... aliens" stuff, the main thing to come out of his books is that our ancestors were pretty damn smart. And that pyramids are magic.

I intensely dislike the idea of bringing up the supernatural to explain phenomena. All it does is bring up more questions. A wizard did it? Okay, why'd he do it? How's he a wizard? Who regulates wizardry? Can I be a wizard? If I can't, then why not? Midichlorians? Aliens are wizards: any sufficiently advanced technology...

I think the assertion that any alien intelligences would be similar to ourselves is a little flawed and immensely anthropocentric. Look up into the sky at night. Light from some of those stars is billions of years old. They're trillions of miles away. The universe is as near to infinite as makes no difference. In all that time and space, to assume that we are the blueprint for success smacks of hubris. We're just one successful species on a pale blue dot.

 

[Adam Of Angels]

I don't think that the human blueprint is the only one that's found the entire way across the universe, but I think that at least locally it is in abundance (basically, I think it makes sense that at least most of those visiting us would be more or less human).