Why are alien eyes so large?

Why are alien eyes so large?

Mother nature never endows animals with more than it needs to survive, except for man. Our brain is the exception to the rule, thou John Holmes might want to debate that.

The size of the eyes on the Gray's should say something about the environment they come from I would think. Our eyes are most sensitive to "yellow green" wavelengths around the middle of the spectrum, most of our light sensitivity lies between 500 to 620 nm, roughly from "blue green" to "scarlet. Sunlight's color spectrum shows the yellow-green portion to be the most intense of all the wavelengths, and our eyes have developed to make the most use of this spectrum.

So that being said, are the aliens eyes so large because there environment is dim, or maybe there planet is circling a red dwarf, or red giant, and there eyes have have developed to make the most use of it's spectrum, which may be in the infra red, and would be a longer wavelength? You may have to have larger eyes to have any kind of acute resolution at those wavelengths don't you think. What other factors could explain the size of those suckers? Are they just freaks?

People who have been abducted have stated that the inside of the ship was very bright, could this bright light be just a byproduct of the spectrum of light that they use, just like infra red heat is a byproduct of some of our light systems? Maybe we see lights on ufo's, but they can't, and think that they are hidden.

What say you?

the better to see you with, my dear.

Assuming the depictions of aliens with big eyes are real and accurate, I would imagine the large eyes are for seeing in their natural environment.

Usually, at least on Earth, bigger eyes mean a quick evolutionary way of seeing in low light conditions. A longer evolution would reduce the size of the eyes (they are fragile) and makes them more specialized to see in the dark, like cat's eyes.

I don't think that the size of the eyes has any relation with the wavelength of the light, like in a photo camera, the type of wavelength sensitivity is on the sensitive area while a quick change to the lighting conditions is made by the iris.

If Greys are actually aliens, I would say they evolved from a nocturnal predator. They have two large eyes on the front of their skull like a predator. The eyes are large like a nocturnal animal.

The things said about "Mom's" nature are true. If to be believed some alien eyes are indeed large.

Eyes in general are pretty sophisticated bits of meat. A scleric envelope filled with humor-fluid on which a cone and rod matrix acts as base/encoder for the optic nevre as dictated by the lens.

It may be correct that the wavelengths are longer... the red eyes mentioned in the Varginha case are also of note. I strongly suspect that such differences of physiology may be of some importance at some point. Perhaps "they" see aspects of the spectrum that we are unable to perceive?

These differences may be a completely natural adaptation to their native environment, or they may be a result of genetic hot-rod tuning or something else like that. I think we'd require both live and post-mortem specimens for analysis to know for sure.

I like questions like this.

Thanx,

Vic

You mentioned a lot interesting thoughts on possibilities Invader. My guess in a nut shell would be a darkened world is their realm. Some speculate the black eyes are not the eye surface but a cover filter of some type and that the cover is in place for the eyes to remain lubricated and to keep foreign matter out.

I suggest realm as I feel the eye-covers and saucer craft are designed and built for use in Earth's atmosphere (covers for brightness and Craft due to being streamlined against atmospheric drag). The Mother ships are for the long or interdimensional travel. Just guessing of course.

Dallas

Anthropologically speaking, infants of mammalian species have large eyes and rounded heads to endear them to their parents (that's why Mickey Mouse isn't considered a rodent), as they are helpless in childhood and need their protection.

So then maybe ETs are like that to make them appear cuddly--tho low light conditions is a better guess.

I find that the cookie-cutter depiction of "grays" is completely false and has stereotyped what an alien being would look like for many years now. As another poster pointed out, large heads and large eyes are associated with mammalian infants. In art and theatre (amongst other things) creatures are depicted this way mostly to bring endearment to the creature from the observer. It is to suggest harmlessness, innocence,etc.

They could be wearing some sort of obnoxious space sunglasses.


Scientifically my guess would be that they have large eyes for better light sensing capabilities.


Of course we have no real images to go by.

I just saw the unsolved mysteries on Roswell and the whole
thing was staged.

Green colored monkeys.

When did the Greys appear, with the Hills or with Dalton.

No one got a close look at the Roswell Greenies but they were mutilated,
teeth taken out and finger tips removed.

So big eyes, never got what did that, sunglasses.

Well, assuming that Grey aliens exist (I think so, but am not a blind
believer), it could be for two reasons.

The first being because they were needed in there environment, as has
been stated already.

The second is that they are notnatural, that is they augmented them-
selves to have large eyes.
I mean it does make sense, think about it, if you are on a space/starship
travelling for months or years, power is going to be a major consideration,
now for comparison consider how much light would be needed on a ship
that houses a few hundred humans to live comfortably, that would require
alot of power, so if you could reduce the amount of light needed, you
would than be able to save on power expenditure, and by augmenting
youreself ot be able to see normally, or even better than normal in lower
light conditions, the light needed would be reduced.

Or, it could be a fashion thing, like how some asians have plastic surgery
on there eyelids, or people have facelifts, just on a more advanced scale.

The consensus so far seem to be leaning to a dark environment, which makes since to me, because even if they were seeing in infra red, the difference in wavelength would be mear nanometers, so eye size should be close to ours.

Perhaps their home planet orbits a red dwarf, but I still have a problem with abducties stating that the interior of the ship is very bright, which seems like a contradiction to me.

[edit on 4/8/2007 by Invader]

Something about they process light at 40x brighter than we do.
That is why daylight wouldn't be good for them.

Invader, I think the Greys, if existent as described, are lab-created sexless drones, their masters being another race. I think the small frame of the Greys is so as to withstand high g-forces from spacecraft acceleration. The eyes are, of course, for low-light conditions. Kind of like natural night-vision goggles. The lab-created hypothesis makes perfect sense to me because how can you find volunteers for the ultimate in dangerous missions-exploration of an alien world? Better just to send expendable drones. They don't have sexual organs so they won't have a sex drive to get in the way of their only mission-exploration. Furthermore, with no sex drive they wouldn't reproduce and create more mouths to feed on a long space voyage where limited supplies are a factor.

How do you know that those things are eyes?

Originally posted by lurkinggherkin
How do you know that those things are eyes?

Good point. I don't know if they exist and if they do and they have what appears to be great big oval black eyes out of proportion to the rest of the face, then they may serve multi purposes.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
The lab-created hypothesis makes perfect sense to me because how can you find volunteers for the ultimate in dangerous missions-exploration of an alien world?

I hope our astronauts are not clones!

Invader, I would not worry about that, for as far as I am aware, our people have yet to explore an alien biosphere!

Originally posted by Dulcimer
They could be wearing some sort of obnoxious space sunglasses.

What, they are wearing their cheap sunglasses at night? Hmmm.... I think there is a song in that.

Originally posted by lurkinggherkin
How do you know that those things are eyes?

Well, what else could they be?

I mean considering the shape of the humanoid body, it seems more than
likely that they are some sort of optical sensory organs.

That would be a funny place for ears.

[edit on 4/8/2007 by iori_komei]