What Aliens Really think of us...

Ignoring the obvious issues of whether there are aliens, let alone how they think...It seems presumptuous when people say they'll regard us as ants or as some form of sub-species that isn't afforded respect or consideration.

Indigenous tribes of the Amazon are treated with respect by reputable anthropologists. Great care is taken to avoid cross-infection with illnesses our respective immune systems are unfamiliar with. It wasn't always so, but as protocols are advanced and accepted we avoid influencing them in our ways. We go to study their culture and reference it to our own. Anthropologists attempt to maintain their culture as pristine as they find it.

Daniel Everett is a good example of this non-interfering method. He has been studying the Piraha. They are very interesting and challenge many accepted theories of linguists and reinforce other theories of human society...

The Pirahã are intelligent, highly skilled hunters and fishers who speak a language remarkable for the complexity of its verb and sound systems. Yet, the Pirahã language and culture has several features that not known to exist in any other in the world and lacks features that have been assumed to be found in all human groups. The language does not have color words or grammatical devices for putting phrases inside other phrases. They do not have fiction or creation myths, and they have a lack of numbers and counting.

Source

The Piraha are protected from outside influence by the Brazilian Authorities. Gaining access to them is like trying to get an audience with the Pope. All efforts are made to allow them to exist on their own terms in their own environment. Maybe we are too? The UFOs could be alien documentary crews. Alien anthropologists? Who knows? Maybe some are the extrasolar equivalent of the Japanese tourist with a camera?!

It's possible that any Aliens have gone further down this path of 'observation without influence.' The Piraha are treated as equals by Everett even though he is studying them. Why shouldn't aliens regard us with the same consideration? They may think nothing more of us than just indifferent curiosity. We are thousands of years more advanced than the Piraha and don't regard them as ants or 'lesser beings' in any way.

We've found that laughter is a universal constant amongst humans. Facial expressions transcend cultures and are demonstrated by infants. Maybe aliens are comparing their behavioral traits to ours and discovering all the things we have in common by defining our differences.

reply to post by mortje


i agree, good call...

i was referring to nasa sending probes to mars.

I think ETs are absolutely fascinated with humanity. I think they care about our situation which is why they go to such ridiculous lengths to hide themselves from us rather than walking around not caring about the general public seeing them. They certainly don't consider us like ants. Backwards and slightly primtive most likely, but not ants.

Out of everything I've read I've come to some conclusions abut ETs purpose here. I believe they think of us as sick. Incongruous with nature compared to themselves for all the various things we do to our own species and the planet. I think they care for our well being, but have their own moral dilemmas on what to do about us. Maybe they have a plan and have it in operation, maybe they're just observing and crossing their fingers that we don't ge any worse.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I agree with what you say.
It seems more than reasonable.
But I also think that is only the half of it. I think that in reality, you would find two specific types. Type 1 would be much as you stated. But Type 2 would be an entirely different animal.
Type 2 would be the Orwellian 1984 society on steroids. And they would appear wholly evil to us. Something that we simply detest. These are just my opinions of course, but I think that like you said, certain emotions are being found to be universal. It would work on both ends of the spectrum.

Meaning, we would find the extremes of all of our behavior, universally.

It is my honest opinion that IF we are around long enough to see it, we will realize that we are living as if characters out of Star Wars. We are a primitive race that has not yet advanced into a stage worthy of Galactic representation. I would imagine that there are many influences watching us very closely.

I know it sounds odd, but to me it just makes sense. We do the same things here. You would have to imagine that WE are the primitive South Americans but what we don't realize is that it is very probable that there is an entire Earth out there that communicates globally for trade and political reasons. We are just confined to a perception of the Amazon Rainforest.

Lets be real here. Interplanetary travel doesn't always mean a super advanced civilization, after all, we have interplanetary travel. (Edited to make sense)

Any idiot can chuck a brick somewhere. All we have up there is flying computers. When we have manned ships flying cargo and people All. Over. The Solar System. THEN we have interplanetary travel. We have nothing. We *could* have all that, mine the asteroids, moons, and colonize Mars, but we have flagellating retards running the planet. Any Alien race that comes here will do little more than 'laugh at the monkeys'. We are woefully backwards. We're the backwoods of Kentucky of the freaking galaxy, in my opinion.

Take the Catholic Church... If the Church had kept it's pious nose out of the sciences, we'd already BE mining crap out of the asteroids 350 years ago! First contact probably would have been 100-150 years ago, the Civil, and World Wars I and II, Vietnam, NEVER happened. No Dark Ages, either. Instead, they ground their heel into ANYONE who made any sort of discovery that 'went against the principles of the Church'. Galileo comes to mind.
We as a people have an addiction to letting rich lunatics lord it over us- thus making us laughable by any extraterrestrial intelligence's standards.

Originally posted by Parabol
Any civilization advanced enough to travel to us would not be scared of us. Not a chance they would be. Sure, we might be able to get off a couple of nukes or something devastating, but any retribution would be far greater. Hell, if they can move superluminally they could probably redirect an asteroid our way. Taking us out would not be very hard.

Maybe they're not scared of us human beings, in fact they might be intrigued on how we've advanced so quickly within the last 400 years. Maybe they're scared of our microscopic allies and enemies (diseases, viruses, etc.)

Ahh who am I kidding, they can fly (warp, skip, drive, supersonic electronic, etc..) from a vast distance then I think they can overcome our diseases, viruses, and germs.

maybe we are much more advanced then the general population knows. Maybe there is agreements in place with a world government and the aliens and they are abiding by the agreement. Maybe they have mastered travel but not weapons because unlike us they haven't been at war since they became able to make a pointed stick or a rock and a sling?

Maybe maybe maybe......

I'm guessing that if they travel between worlds and have a civilization that they are somewhat intellectually and emotionally like us

Maybe they like us ?
Maybe they like our world ?
Maybe they are afraid of us?
Maybe we have advanced because they are manipulating our societies for reasons of their own?

if they exist at all < I'm in the probably not camp

I do think that if they are here they do an excellent job of leaving us alone for the most part so ,I'm thinking annihilation of humanity is not likely to be their end goal

If they are here is it possible that to them we are only another thing that is here ?

Maybe they really prefer bacterial companionship?

no clue

Originally posted by Revolution-2012
I can tell you what aliens think about us.

Oh yes, they think we are inferior, we know nothing, and we are idiots....

Resulting in O_O

Humans = EPIC FAILURE

spirituality = epic failure, it was useful up till 90 years ago before we had instant long range communication coming into being, we don't need a imaginary friend book full of "fear" and other ridiculousness, however we are killing each other by the 10s of thousands because of it.

That my friend is the epic failure. That we can't learn from our history and let go of religion.

reply to post by Davood


I agree I'm all grown up now and I still love to remember Santa Claus but I know he's a made up character . I'm not the least bit worried if I have been good or bad ,or whether he sees: and I know I'd better buy my kids christmas presents if I want them to have them

reply to post by Jay-in-AR
I tend to agree with that too. Although it's been years since I saw it, Babylon 5 struck me at the time as being a likely model for a space filled with life. By that, I mean alliances, trade routes and politics. Hawks and doves. We can only hope that if they are out there they have a better version of the United Nations they we do.

The Type 2 idea is a worst case scenario. Meeting a species that imposes itself entirely on our will and societies would take the light from our lives. It's all too imaginable and horrifying. It's not an idea I like! In our own history, societies based on a similar model have failed, Soviets, Nazi Germany etc. Cooperation and International Agreements seem to have the longer term mutual advantages. Hopefully, cooperation is the most successful model 'out there' too.

Edited to add a point.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by Kandinsky]

What Aliens Really think of us...

Well lets start with the basics.

1. We kill each other.
2. We are selfish.
3. We over breed.
4. We pollute everything.
5. we focus on the material world instead of the spiritual I'm not talking religion here!
6. We eat other animals
7. We are resource hogs.
8. We don’t learn from our mistakes.
9. We split the Atom before we were ready.
10. We point nukes at each other.
11. We Reelected J.W. Bush
12. We smell and have bad breath need constant upkeep.
13. We are weaker than the Klingons
14 We are dumber than the Vulcans

That’s it for now I’m so depressed now

Removes the revolver from the dra...


[edit on 24-1-2009 by SLAYER69]

What do aliens think of us??

What do cats, dogs, rats, mice, roaches think of us?

Let's go up a notch....what do whales and porpoises think of us?

It's sort of a non-sequitor.

I'm afraid it's going to be a hard pill to swallow......what they 'think' of us.

as far as the other earthlings go ,I'm sure they don't hate us

I adopt orphan opossums ,they don't hate us
I rescued and rehabbed abused horses and dogs ,they don't hate us
all over the world people make friends with the oddest assortment of other earthlings imaginable from crocodiles to hippos to bears and tigers and wow the list is just endless,and whales are on that list
and they don't hate us


Some of them hate some of us in particular if they have a reason
but our fellow earthlings don't hate us

and I don't hate them,we all belong here and really we're all the same

as far as Aliens go it would take a pretty stupid Alien to up and decide it had a right to judge Earth and it's inhabitants

I don't know much about Klingons or Vulcans I admit

reply to post by invisiblewoman


See, invisiblewoman has a point!

It is all about how we treat each other....that is what matters.

(Taking out, of course, the usual requirement in real-life situations that species tend to prey upon each other, for survival purposes, only)

As Humans, we should have developed beyond that basic. Of course, the real question that is presented is....HAVE WE?

I'll bet there is galaxy wide group of aliens that watch surveillance tapes of earth. I'ts probably an interplanetary version of meerkat manor or a soap opera.

Iktblitts!
Hurry up and turn on the TV! Earthlings is on.
They have a new world leader and he's got them thinking he's going to fix everything.

Yeah but we won't find out what happens til next season.

I wish they'd hurry up and have the global civil war soon. Don't want the series to end before we get to the good part.

Yup, they lose their syndication in 2012.

Answering this question should be simple. All we have to do is look at how we would handle a similar situation and what the likely consensus would be.

Say humans within the next 1000 years develop technology to send interstellar probes to the near regions of our galaxy, and we discover a race of beings on a planet that is determined to be the equivalent of a 3000BC tribe on Earth. Would we attempt to establish communication with them? Would we be interested in imparting our technology to them? We know from our own history that we'd be looked at as some type of Gods and that this race of beings couldn't really comprehend what we are. We also know from our own history that any imparted technology could be used by this species to wipe themselves out.

Aliens imparting their techology to us is a false gift, and we should probably object to such a thing.

Surely non-interference with a developing species is universal, and it's done out of respect for that species. Although that doesn't say specimens wouldn't be taken for biological research.

Humans have never found it necessary to announce their presence to chimps in the jungle, or to teach these chimps how to start fires to solve their energy problems.

We are not ants to them, but we're not equal either.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by electric]

reply to post by electric


electric's point, if I may....is simply the "Prime Directive" as espounded, firstly, by Gene Roddenberry, in the Star Trek series.

The concept is very simple, really....if one pays attention.

Certain technologies are simply too much to handle if you're not yet ready.

Great thread.

I would guess that most intelligent species evolve on a similar arc, given that they have reasonably similar environments and constraints (gravity, carbon base, water?). So, I think the previous post is pretty spot on: a more advanced civilization (with the ability to travel these great distances) would see us a glimpse back into their own history and therefore treat us with some care and respect. Also, any species capable of traveling these distances would understand that life, while probably being quite common, is always one-of-a-kind. We wouldn't be ants but rather a unique and ancient variation on themselves. If some of the Roman accounts are to be believed, we've been observed (and not destroyed or interfered with) for millennia.

If, on the other hand, we were dealing with an intelligence that was so advanced that they would not need ships to take them here (that could travel by pure thought, for example) they might see us as ants.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by pulse]